Don Dechert: So if the President does it, it's not illegal? I do wonder if the fall of Nixon and the Reagan scandals had such a profound effect on conservatives of a it should not have happened/cannot happen feeling was a major part of jurisprudence policy, like the unitary executive.

god what a waste of paper

The central thesis of the case here is just ... wrong. That's not the crux of the dispute. USG always always always maintained official acts are immune and non-official acts are not. That's the easy bit. The hard bit is deciding if an act is official, and SCOTUS just punts on that actual core

so when Trump talks with DOJ officials to drum up an objectively sham investigation for electoral benefit, USG's position was that's not an official act, because ordering sham investigations for electoral benefits is not a proper function of the presidency, but the actions of a corrupt /candidate/

Honestly seems like the actual import of the case may just be the holding/implication that that's wrong, everything the president could possibly say to a DOJ official is within the scope of his constitutional authority??

I think the basic implication of the case is if the President asks an official to do it, it's not chargeable, which seems to me to be plainly wrong

So if the President does it, it's not illegal? I do wonder if the fall of Nixon and the Reagan scandals had such a profound effect on conservatives of a it should not have happened/cannot happen feeling was a major part of jurisprudence policy, like the unitary executive.

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