In An Octopus’s Garden…: I understand that in theory but what is to stop an impeached president from citing this decision as the reason why an impeachment is not valid? I guess I’m asking the extent to which this muddies the waters of the remedy.

Chief Justice Roberts decrees the end of DOJ independence in an offhanded sentence on page 20.

How does this ruling impact impeachment? Are there now no high crimes or misdemeanors?

Impeachment is a completely separate act outside of the judiciary

I understand that in theory but what is to stop an impeached president from citing this decision as the reason why an impeachment is not valid? I guess I’m asking the extent to which this muddies the waters of the remedy.

It doesn’t do anything for impeachment unless the senators buy into it.

Would a drone strike against Senators or Congresspersons calling for impeachment, who also happened for completely unrelated reasons to be a Clear and Present Danger to the US, be unprosecutable? Might such immunity affect whether a Senator would support conviction?

No idea.

As a matter of Constitutional law, it should make no difference. As a matter of politics, it could give additional cover to any of the president's co-partisans in the House and Senate to oppose impeachment.

And this ruling lends some “legitimacy” to that position, I would imagine

A President can cite whatever he wants in an impeachment trial, but the Senate is the sole judge (unreviewable) of whether those arguments are good.

Correct, I’m just wondering how much additional weight is given to arguments (specious or not) that any high crime is not an executive crime bc “immunity”

Unfortunately, our current Constitutional settlement* is “members of a President’s party vote to acquit in impeachment, then look for any argument they can find” (Eg McConnell’s newfound certainty that you can’t impeach an ex-President). They’d certainly use this. * dating, I would argue, from 1999

Since impeachment is the constitutional route to convict a president, they can't argue about this case affecting it. The immunity is conditional on impeachment being a thing.

But doesn’t it become a circular argument (beyond what we’ve already witnessed) when a legitimate argument for voting against impeachment is that any official act is not a crime, now sanctioned by the SC?

It could be used as an argument in the future, but one could argue that the constitution makes it clear that is is for High Crimes and Misdemeanors, so whether it was an official act or not would be irrelevant

THAT BEING SAID, if a president was in impeachment process for an unofficial act, but Congress absolves them, stating it as official acts, and someone tries to prosecute them after their term, a court may argue that Congress set the precedent of it being an official act.

The constitution doesn’t fucking matter anymore

The more relevant issue is that President is now allowed to order loyalist military forces into the Senate Chamber to force an acquittal.

The Impeachment is valid because it exists outside the "legal/illegal" framework; and isn't criminal in nature. What this does do is create a defense of "it must have been an 'official duty' because I wasn't impeached, and convicted, for it".

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