it says a great deal that roberts has time in his majority opinion to mock the dissents for their "tone of chilling doom" but can't actually manage to rebut this hypo. because he can't
also, the order to have the rival killed is itself an official act (directing the military, commander in chief power) so you can't introduce evidence of that even if you could somehow find a way to prosecute the assassination
The only light at the end of the tunnel for every version of this hypo, and it is a very dim one, involves that president doing the act, being charged anyway after leaving office, the government losing on TvUS grounds but appealing it back up to SCOTUS anyway, and them overruling it
What if current President decided his appointment power means he determines what constitutes “good behaviour”, takes the official act of removing 3 members of the Supreme Court for federal judicial ethics violations, and on appeal the remaining SCOTUS reconsiders absolute immunity?
