If Trump were to personally shoot someone on Fifth Avenue: Not immune. (Probably. Maybe.)
If he were to order the army to massacre thousands on Fifth Avenue: Immune. (Very clearly, under the decision.)
But from a constitutional perspective, the latter is the grave danger to guard against.
It is *precisely* crimes that involve the abuse of official powers and are committed under color of office that a constitutional system needs to restrain.
The fact that Trump is now trying to get out of his NY conviction by arguing that he committed those crimes *as president* shows the absurdity.
It also goes to the absurdity Sotomayor pointed out about not just immunity but inadmissibility. He could give a speech live from the Oval Office openly and unambiguously confessing his guilt and that couldn't even be used as evidence because a presidential speech is an 'official' act.
She points to an absurd footnote in the majority saying maybe you can use publicity about it but first need to pass a bunch of tests that means, no, you would have already shown it wasn’t an official act anyway and so saying you can is moot.
It blows my mind that this is where we’re at. Presidents have tons of power, they SHOULD be terrified that abusing it will land them in prison. What are laws even for otherwise.
So Trump is trying to say the NY case relied on private records/testimony of his conversations with his advisors, which per the ruling shouldn’t be admitted as evidence. I don’t see how any of those actions qualify as official acts (tho I guess we’ll see)!
In principle yes, that's exactly what impeachment is for, but in practice it's a dead letter of a power (and anyway, per the Constitution, it should be able to coexist with criminal prosecution).
it's very cool that none of the supposed remedies for abuse of power can actually be used:
impeachment? dead letter
disqualification? lol no, scotus decision
prosecution? lol no, scotus decision
get more votes? lol no, senate/gerrymandering+scotus
amend the constitution? dead letter
usa! usa!
The question I have is that even in a hypothetical situation of a successful impeachment how does it get enforced under this decision? Could the President claim it is an illegal coup to to head off such an instance? Not a lawyer, but this reeks of bad law.
