Blue Heron Farm: Do you think most people actually expected this? I felt like most people expected that they would give a definitive 'no, of course the president can't commit crimes,' just too late to do anything before the election.

The Court ruling today is terrible but expected. I will just gently remind everyone that the election hasn’t happened yet. We shouldn’t assume the worst outcome as a foregone conclusion. That only encourages more apathy than many are already feeling.

Do you think most people actually expected this? I felt like most people expected that they would give a definitive 'no, of course the president can't commit crimes,' just too late to do anything before the election.

Either way, the only solution is for voters to use their power.

They’ll throw that out too. Don’t doubt this for one second.

Perfect must destroy good.

Then force them to. Don't let the world think we were complicit.

I am with you. I genuinely believed Alito, et al. were running out the clock. The biggest reason I never saw *this* coming is because I never thought they would create such a hopeless morass. It is going to take decades (at least) to figure out what the standard is going to be. Utter insanity.

I thought Barrett, Kavanaugh and Roberts would vote with the liberals while Alito and Thomas dissented. Gorsuch was up in the air to me. I didn’t really expect this.

I expected it but it doesn’t make me less devastated which is annoying.

This is EXACTLY what I expected from this court. Rule the POTUS has absolute immunity for official acts, then remand to the lower court to define if the charges fall under official acts, have the lower court rule they don’t, let Trump appeal back to SCOTUS who will then hold it until after Nov.

In short, we’re fucked.

It’s unlikely the lower court will even rule on the fact-based part of the case before November.

The trial court likely will. Chuktan likes to keep things moving. But the lower appeals courts? Nah…def not until after Nov.

Right—I hadn’t thought of all those pieces. But he can hold it up with appeals after that, right? Or could the trial court decision actually get enforced re the election?

Oh he will definitely hold it up. Chutkan has signaled in the past that she sees his actions during J6 as those of candidate Trump, not POTUS. So once she likely rules against him, Trump will appeal and it will work its way up to SCOTUS who will then rule in his favor (provided he isn’t POTUS again)

It’s nice that she gets to decide that even though he WAS the president, it didn’t, like, count as being the president.

This isn’t precisely what they ruled. Absolute immunity is only for the core constitutional powers official acts. It’s presumptive immunity for all official acts.

Eh yes and no. I mean technically you are correct but as Sotomayor points out in her dissent, the distinction is essentially meaningless. bsky.app/profile/nycs...

Sotomayor points out why this distinction between absolute and presumptive immunity that the majority introduces is essentially meaningless.

I honestly wasn’t sure which way they were going to fall on this one. Disgraceful.

Agreed. I thought this would lean slightly in the wrong direction, but not this far.

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