Popehat: /2 Motive being irrelevant means that the President can do a thing for expressly lawless reasons so long as the thing is within the extremely broad range of official acts. So question isn’t “can the President conspire to defraud,” it’s “can the President call a state official about an election.”

There are two elements to the immunity decision that are particularly extreme in a way that many will miss: (1) motive is irrelevant and (2) immune acts are not just excluded from prosecution, they’re excluded from evidence. /1

/2 Motive being irrelevant means that the President can do a thing for expressly lawless reasons so long as the thing is within the extremely broad range of official acts. So question isn’t “can the President conspire to defraud,” it’s “can the President call a state official about an election.”

/3 The problem is that almost anything can be shoehorned into an official act depending on how you characterize it or the level of generality you use. The Court’s “well of course a President has to use due care that election laws are enforced” hints at this.

/4 More powerful, to a trial lawyer, is the prohibition on the use of immune acts as evidence. In almost every other context (save Speech & Debate), you can use things as evidence when you can’t prosecute for them. If I say “this man must die,” that’s usually protected by the First Amendment ….

/5 …but it’s obvious that my statement can be introduced as evidence if I’m accused of murder. Contrast this type of Presidential immunity. Say Donald Trump, days into his second term, meets with the Department of Justice and demands a way to deport all Muslims, reviling them as subhuman.

/6 Later Trump orders a staff member at Mar-A-Lago to kill a Muslim employee, possibly by serving him the food. Under the Court’s rule, even assuming that ordering Mar-A-Lago to kill people is unofficial conduct (not 100% clear), Trump’s anti-Muslim tirade to the AG would be inadmissible at trial.

/7 Justice Roberts smug and superior dismissal of the dissents’ concerns seems to come to us via time warp from some time that never knew Trump. The danger of lawlessness he poses are manifest — he and his followers brag of them. Only a liar or fool would dismiss them.

/8 At any rate, congratulations to the Federalist Society for an achievement beyond the reach of the British, outside the grasp of bloody civil war, impossible to Nazis and Soviets and terrorists: defeating the American idea.

This. Roberts pretending that the dissent is “fear mongering… hypotheticals,” when it’s about an actual coup attempt.

it is because roberts thinks january 6 was good and normal

In a pod discussion today, the great @rickhasen.bsky.social makes a critical point: Roberts' response to the dismissal doesn't even engage at all with Sotomayor's assassination example. (Many more good points from him as well) newrepublic.com/article/1833...

Supreme Court Shocker Could Give Trump Terrifying Second-Term Powersnewrepublic.com In the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling on Trump's demand for immunity, a leading legal expert explains why there's deep cause for alarm about what he'll be free to attempt if he wins again.

Yeah this is really the thing that is the most unbelievable of all. This isn’t some kind of theoretical law school exercise. This is a real case about real conduct that has already happened and been promised to happen again. They know exactly what the implications are - and they welcome them.

They are so over the whole rule of law thing. And so confident that Biden won’t use the ruling to drag them all to gitmo.

With the Immunity decision and the Chevron decision, President and Supreme Court are now more powerful than Congress. Robert's is patronizingly dismissive of the minority argument. The President can now kill someone or reverse an election with impunity. We can't ask for evidence or motive. A coup?

Nothing says Roberts can’t be both!

It’s not just that he dismisses the danger. In the very next sentence, he has the gall to assert that an entirely speculative danger (presidency cannibalizing itself) is somehow MORE LIKELY than the danger that has already manifested itself (president that believes he is above the law).

He's neither, he's an accomplice

“A Liar and a Fool: John Roberts” A 21 part miniseries by Ken Burns.

Would his decision have been soo far reaching if he weren't conscious of Trump's previously unimaginable criminality? How is this decision not tailored for Trump or whoever the authoritarians (that would be the Republicans) push next? It's clearly antidemocratic and anti-Democratic.

There's a very good reason Roberts made this ruling. He is as paid to.

Hypothetically, could Biden order the testing of a new missile system in the vicinity of Mar-a-Largo?

I cannot believe that he does not understand what Trump is and what he’ll do. I have to believe it’s an act to allow his own fantasy of a theocracy to play out.

Roberts thinks elections are beneath him and for the rough folk.

I love how he scolds the dissenters for their hypotheticals but much of his opinion rests on his own projections of what a lawless president might do if former presidents' acts are open to sanction.

On maddow with I think Sherril Ifill they were saying Robert’s egregious put-down was the equivalent of “be quiet girls “

More than that, I am trying to understand how it would be prosecutable for Biden to order Seal Team 6 as commander-in-chief to assassinate the justices voting with the majority in this case?

Oh, Sotomayor is already there. Cool cool cool.

Not looking forward to how the court waves through a prosecution of Biden, if it comes to that. They surely would, at this degree of cynicism.

This whole thread is essential reading. (~8 parts)

Now I really really hate everything.

What about pardon? It’s an official act. Couldn’t he do literally anything and pardon himself without that being a new constitutional question?

He can’t pardon himself from a state crime.

So is this “look into emigrating” bad, or merely “oh, look, SCOTUS is being SCOTUS again” bad?

We're going to have to fight this out bad. I don't see a way to continue intact and it only takes one announcement from Sacramento to throw the entire US economy into a tailspin and with that, the US loses the ability to issue bonds.

Sacramento as in, leaving?

On this point, even Justice Barrett thought that the fascism went too far. She didn't join that part of the opinion, which still is the law of the land because (shamefully) Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Thomas, Justice Alito, Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh imposed it without any legal basis.

It was pretty rich that she chose to use bribery as her hypothetical given the court has basically gutted any enforcement of bribery statutes.

"Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest!"

... and? I haven't heard a thing about how to end this madness? Elections? Seems those are a thing of the past.

I’m outside your country so I’m even more at a loss. What can I do besides watch?? Horrifying.

Et tu?

The decision gives examples of illegal, corrupt acts and says that since they were committed using official powers they're immune.

I imagine that, soon, "official acts" will be the new "for reasons of national security."

is it national security to lock up a convicted felon 🤔

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