occurs to me that bribing the president is now /always/ legal, since in every case the only way to distinguish gratuity from bribe is via evidence that could never be admissible
I feel obligated to point out that unlike the state and local bribery statute the Court just ruled on (18 U.S.C. §666), the one for federal officials (18 U.S.C. §201) makes both bribes and gratuities expressly illegal, but I concede the Court may not care when an actual case under 201 arises.
And to prove it's a gratuity, you would still have to show that it was accepted "for or because of any official act performed or to be performed", which could be problematic.
No. One might argue that "person acting for or on behalf of the United States" includes the President, even if he is not an officer or employee, but *helpless shrug*
The Menendez case has to do this dance, though at least there it’s in the freakin text.
In the most optimistic scenario under Trump v US, discussions with private citizens on policy are official acts but would somehow defeat “presumptive” immunity.
Could the government of Cuba offer to wire a billion dollars to the personal bank account of a president if he orders the Navy to withdraw from Guantanamo Bay?
I doubt Trump and the crooks in his orbit really need much help from us. They already invented all manner of ways to corrupt the office that few of us believed possible - the most recent success was getting the court to entertain an immunity claim and then have them agree to it.
Depends, is the president a Democrat
To be clear, that's wildly wrong too, but the key here is that question is likely to be the litmus test for these inquiries
Apparently the Emoluments Clause only ever existed in a world in which a supermajority of the Senate was willing to convict, and that world stopped existing in the aftermath of Nixon.
I think it's theoretically possible for a president to be prosecuted for obstruction of justice, but basically guaranteed that no case would actually be tryable.
I think they maybe can, but they'd have to really really try hard to force it (e.g. if Biden asks his friend Tom Friedman to burn down the courthouse where Hunter is on trial maybe you get there, but you really have to lean in hard to find examples)
You'd have to have a case where the president for some reason obstructs justice without using the power of his office in any way. Why a president would ever do that is unclear, since using his office both makes the obstruction much more likely to succeed and impossible to prosecute.
And the majority's understanding of what might make something an official act means that simply being president while you do it might make any given action official.
I feel like it’s not being remarked enough that a Trump admin will be the certain end of an independent DOJ.
Maybe it was priced in a little. But it seems like explicit endorsement by the Roberts ruling makes it more of a by definitional certainty.
And it’s a HUGE change to our government.
You don't even really need to get into the other parade of horribles once the majority has stated that Trump is absolutely immune for knowingly directing DOJ to launch a fake investigation of imaginary crimes.
Or for directing the DOJ to run an anti-trust or other campaign against WarnerBro because CNN is making him sad.
Like these are pretty bad things and a ginormous departure.
The campaign should be really explicit and scary about this. Including bashing scotus.
I remember Roberts expressing some concern about excluding official acts from evidence in bribery cases in the first half of the argument.
I guess it’s just another example of how you can’t alway predict the final outcome based on oral argument.
Continuing to pull on this thread: would evidence from impeachment proceedings be inadmissible in a follow-on criminal proceeding? Are members of a jury supposed to pretend they didn't see any of the evidence stemming from a Congressional investigation?
Can’t question the president’s intent in taking official acts and official acts are undefined and seemingly limitless. Statesmanship includes accepting gifts and gratuities I guess.
Well absolutely! Ambassadors give gifts all the time. And what really is the difference between a trinket and a gold bar, or between an ambassador and a lobbyist.
Gonna be fun on Jan 21 when everyone with money realizes they are now employees of Donald Trump. Play ball, pay tribute, all your legal woes go away. Or, get Khodorkovskied.
