Below is my column in The Hill on the over-wrought reaction to the Supreme Court decision in Trump v. United States. Commentators seemed to compete for the most alarmist accounts from court-sanctioned death squads to political assassinations to the death of democracy. From the coverage of the immunity decision, one would think that the Madisonian Democracy was being replaced by a John Wick Republic. The academic and media accounts have little basis in the actual opinion. Despite the prediction of Rachel Maddow that this was a “Death Squad Ruling,” the only thing that seemed to die was objective reporting and commentary in the wake of the decision.
Here is the column:
On MSNBC, Rachel Maddow warned that the Supreme Court had just unleashed death squads to roam our streets. CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen announced that murder was now legal (at least for presidents), while others predicted that the ruling on presidential immunity would invite “tyranny.”
Anyone reading the coverage would conclude that James Madison has been replaced by John Wick in a new “Baba Yaga” Republic.
President Biden fueled the sense of panic in an address that repeated widespread false claims about the decision in Trump v. United States. Biden told the country that “for all practical purposes, today’s decision almost certainly means that there are virtually no limits on what a president can do.”
That, of course, is not true.
I have long opposed sweeping presidential privileges and powers. I have long argued that a sitting president can be criminally charged in office. But the portrayal of this Supreme Court opinion by the left and the media is wildly off base.
As it has in the past, the court adopted a three-tiered approach to presidential powers based on the source of a presidential action. Chief Justice John Roberts cited Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer, in which the court ruled against President Harry Truman’s takeover of steel mills.
In his famous concurrence to Youngstown, Justice Robert Jackson broke down the balance of executive and legislative authority between three types of actions. In the first, a president acts with express or implied authority from Congress. In the second, he acts where Congress is silent (“the zone of twilight” area). In the third, the president acts in defiance of Congress.
In this decision, the court adopted a similar sliding scale. It held that presidents enjoy absolute immunity for actions that fall within their “exclusive sphere of constitutional authority” while they enjoy presumptive immunity for other official acts. They do not enjoy immunity for unofficial or private actions.
The proceedings in Manhattan after the decision belie the claims that a president can now commit murder with impunity. Judge Juan Merchan is likely to find that Trump’s conduct in office in approving payments related to Stormy Daniels fall into the third, unprotected category. While some of the testimony may have intruded into protected areas, most experts anticipate that the court will reject dismissal of charges under an absolute immunity claim. Judges in the other Trump prosecutions will be performing the same inquiry, though the impact is likely to be much greater in the case of the special counsel in Washington, D.C.
In fairness to critics, Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent gave credence to their hyperbolic theories. Sotomayor wrote: “The president of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”
The dissent ignores parts of the majority opinion that expressly refute such claims. For example, the majority discussed how prosecutors could present evidence in a bribery case that a president “allegedly demanded, received, accepted, or agreed to receive or accept in return for being influenced in the performance of the act.” The prosecution can overcome the presumption of immunity with such evidence.
Indeed, the majority stated that Trump’s alleged “private scheme with private actors” to create alternative slates of electors “cannot be neatly categorized as falling within a particular presidential function.” If that is established by the trial court, then Trump’s actions would not be protected by any sort of immunity.
In defining official functions, the Court referenced constitutional and statutory authority. It also recognized that a president must be able to speak to the public on matters of public interest, as Trump did on Jan. 6, 2021. While some of us believe that Trump’s speech was entirely protected under the First Amendment, the justices suggested that it was also protected as a matter of immunity.
That is a far cry from a green light for death squads. The idea that Trump could not order a slate of fake electors but could order a slew of political assassinations finds little support in the actual opinion.
Sotomayor is suggesting that the president could just declare that killing an opponent is in the national security interest. However, various laws contradict the claim that such acts are left to the discretion of the president. Not only would the military likely refuse such an unlawful order, but no court would consider it a core constitutional function.
The opinion draws lines with ample protection for presidents. The court cited opinions and practices going back decades for such breathing space.
Ironically, Biden’s hyperbolic account of the court’s opinion only serves to highlight the decision of former President Barack Obama and his vice president, Joe Biden, to kill an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, in a drone attack without a charge, let alone a conviction.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder announced the Obama administration’s “kill list” policy to a group of lawyers and judges at Northwestern University Law School and received not condemnation but applause. Under Holder, the Obama administration fought every effort of the al-Awlaki family to seek information on the killing and insisted that courts had no role to play in such cases.
Yet, in the wake of the immunity decision, Holder expressed shock at the implication of the presidential power.
Could Obama and Biden be charged with murder for what they did? Most say no, because they were acting in fulfillment of their national security authority. If so, could they simply declare a political opponent to be an enemy combatant? They actually did maintain, years before this Supreme Court opinion, that such a decision was left to them and figures such as Holder.
I likewise represented the House of Representatives in successfully challenging Obama’s spending billions under the Affordable Care Act that had not been approved by Congress. I also represented House members who contested Obama’s undeclared war in Libya. Could he be criminally charged for those actions?
Likewise, Biden as president has been repeatedly found to have violated the Constitution, exercising racial discrimination and seeking to excuse billions in debt illegally.
The court was trying to find a middle path in addressing such controversies. In doing so, it rejected the extreme arguments of both the Trump team and the lower courts.
Putting aside the three-tiered approach, even a finding of presidential immunity does not mean that, as Biden falsely claimed, “there are virtually no limits on what a president can do.” It only concerns when a president can be personally charged. Federal courts can enjoin presidents from unlawful conduct, Congress can investigate presidents under oversight authority, impeach them and remove them from office.
The decision does not bar any and all prosecutions of presidents. It is still true, as stated by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist No. 65, that presidents remain subject to the criminal justice system. After impeachment and removal from office, he stressed, the president ”will still be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.”
The opinion delineated those areas and evidence that may be barred from prosecution while allowing that prosecution is possible in other cases.
That nuance is lost in our current political environment. Biden and his allies spent months claiming that democracy will end and gay people will simply all be “disappeared” if he is defeated. So, there was admittedly little room left to escalate his rhetoric aside from death squads and a government based on a political “Assassin’s Creed.”
After all, these finer constitutional points are not nearly as riveting as the image of death squads roaming our streets. However, to paraphrase Mark Twain, the reports of democracy’s death are greatly exaggerated.
Jonathan Turley is the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at the George Washington University Law School and author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Turley must not have read the opinion. It is most definitely as bad as the media as portrayed it, possibly worse. They made up the entire basis of immunity to protect Trump. There is no basis anywhere in the Constitution for this, and plenty of textual evidence that the president is not immune.
They gave Trump immunity for an attempted coup, so of course the president would get immunity for an assassination.
Still squawking the coup lie, eh, Sammy?
How about the on going one with the Democrats trying to toss their candidate, Biden, after lying to us all this time about how “Sharp as a tack,” Biden was?
If anyone is going to declare someone a threat to national security, it would be democrats saying it about Trump and calling for his assassination.
They already have.
So, who is the true fascists? Leftist Democrats.
Trump incorrectly summarized the holding of the case, giving credence to Sammy’s take.
Upstate, can you point to where in the Opinion, the Court held that non-core official acts are entitled to presumptive immunity (as opposed to absolute)?
The answer is — nowhere. The Court explicitly declined to opined as to whether such acts are entitled to absolute or presumptive immunity. You would hope that the Professor — particularly in an article critiquing the accuracy of other pundits — would be less sloppy. But, alas, this is not the case.
Sorry, Turley, not Trump*
I wouldn’t expect Trump to even know the difference between the two types of immunity.
I wouldn’t expect Trump to even know the difference between the two types of immunity.
But you trust Bribery Biden, that babbling fetid bag of corruption wrapped in a Depends to know the difference between the nuclear codes and the price of an ice cream cone. C’mon Jack.
Logical fallacy. I don’t trust either of them
Sammy Metamucil imagines a world where Turley hasn’t read the opinion.
No need to read another word of his fantasy.
Nothing quite like laying a deuce all over your own credibility before you even make your point, eh Met?
Sammy, how would an assassination of a political opponent be in the official scope of the executive branch? It would not and whomever tried it would be held accountable. An assassination such as what Obama carried out with drone strikes were not on US soil and we’re against a known 9/11 terrorist. Killing the terrorists son as collateral damage put an end to Barry’s drone use. Was Obama ever tried for murdering a 14 year old American citizen?
It is a core duty of the president to protect the national security of the US. If they determine that an individual (no matter who or where) is a threat to national security they can have them assassinated and get absolute immunity.
Wrong, it is NOT solely up to a President to assess a National threat, especially when it’s the opposition parties leading candidate. How unfortunate it must be for you to be so blind. How about this one, a President declares that as a matter of National Security he must receive $20M from a foreign adversary made payable to his son as a good faith gesture in assurance of good intentions. Is that a legal act covered by immunity Sammy?
What a wonderful picture John Turley placed on the blog. “The Scream”, nothing more need be said.
As I stated earlier, death squads have been running in America since Hillary-Obama DOJ unleashed them
A 14 y/o gay white boy, who identified as a trans girl, met a 29 y/o black gay guy, on a gay dating app, Grindr. The black guy killed the boy, dismembered him, and the greatest concern the media and family have is using the boy’s preferred pronouns.
A black gay man murders a white gay boy and yet….no gay on gay outcry from the MSM, but rather…pronouns.
Democrats are a Death Cult / Squad.
‘It hit the panic alarm’: Transgender teen’s killing in northwest Pa. dismays LGBTQ+ group
The Pennsylvania State Police on Wednesday charged a 29-year-old Sharon man, DaShawn Watkins, with first-degree murder, abuse of a corpse, aggravated assault and tampering with evidence in the death of Pauly, who police said was killed on June 23. Among the allegations is that Watkins killed Pauly after the two met via Grindr, the popular LGBTQ dating app, according to arrest records. Pauly’s cut-up remains were found scattered around the area of Shenango River Lake in Mercer County starting on June 25.
https://www.goerie.com/story/news/crime/2024/07/08/killing-transgender-teen-lgbtq-community-northwest-pa-mourns-paul-a-pauly-likens/74309599007/
14 Years old, and already hooking up on Grindr? Sorry, but this dude wasn’t going anywhere in life but to an early grave. Where were his parents?
They were working in Bidens Administration as DEI administrators.
Estovir,
What can one expect from a party who, if they had their way, wouldn’t just allow abortion up till birth, but 28 days after?
Since at least the creation of Planned Parenthood, by Margaret Sanger, we’ve seen a steady devaluation of life. Roe V Wade, in the early 70s was another step on that path, then the whole notion of doctor-assisted suicide in the 90s, and now with the modern “pro choice” movement, it’s become almost a ghoulish obsession with the Democrat party and the far left.
Hitler’s regime killed 6 million innocent Jews, along with who knows how many gypsies, folks with disabilities, LGBT folks, etc. He did this to create the “Master Race”. When the world learned the extent to which Hitler went, they were shocked and horrified.
Flash forward 79 years. Since Roe, the number of unborn babies aborted is something in the neighborhood of 65 million – a full 10.5 times the genocide Hitler perpetrated, and hardly no one bats an eye. Most abortions today are done, not because of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother, but simply for the sake of convenience and selfishness.
To say that the Democrat party is a death cult is the ultimate understatement, kinda like, “Houston, we’ve had a problem.”
“ For example, the majority discussed how prosecutors could present evidence in a bribery case that a president “allegedly demanded, received, accepted, or agreed to receive or accept in return for being influenced in the performance of the act.” The prosecution can overcome the presumption of immunity with such evidence.
Sotomayor’s dissent is valid. It’s not hyperbole. Turley keeps forgetting that Justice Roberts ruled any communications from the White House and between the president and the AG CANNOT be used as evidence to charge a president to overcome the presumption of immunity. Roberts made it so that the president can simply claim his communications and official orders to violate the law for personal reasons are official acts making them exempt as evidence of a crime.
The court went way beyond the question before them.
We don’t even know if the appropriate standard is presumptive immunity for non-core official acts. The Court declined to opine. It could actually be absolute immunity.
Our resident Constitutional Kluxxer, George, posted this regarding the equally racist Wise Latina Woman Justice Sotomayor: Sotomayor’s dissent is valid.
Sotomayor’s dissent should have been written in crayon. So too should have been your inarticulate and equally sophomoric comment.
The majority opinion dissected every pathetic accusation that Sotomayor made – they mentioned every one of her whines in turn and responded to and rebuffed them all.
I’m not sure who spent less time bothering to read the majority opinion: the racist Wise Latina Woman or the Constitutional Kluxxer George.
Rachel Maddow that this was a “Death Squad Ruling.”
I’ll bet at least 30% of democrats really believe what this banana spouts?
Oh, this is so much fun!
Watching the leftist Democrats, twist themselves into a knot to foment hysteria, all the while their man who they have stood behind, before, and done everything they could to try and convince us of all their lies. He is sharp as a tack! He is laser focused! Do not believe your own eyes and ears! Believe us!
Meanwhile, support for Biden within the Democrat party continues to fall.
Mega-donors are with holding donations to not only the Biden campaign but all Democrats running for re-election this cycle.
Democrats are in a full panic.
How marvelous!
Indeed, this is a political disaster of epic proportions, which will be talked about for years, if not decades, to come.
We dare not get cocky, however. Remember, in 2022 there was supposed to be this “red wave”, which ended up being a red trickle.
The Democrat party is the oldest party in America, and they haven’t survived as long as they have by being nice, or playing by the rules. They’ve always believe politics is a “contact sport”, and the classic race between the tortoise and the hare.
R flaks like Turley don’t see a problem with a Christian Nationalist SCOTUS overturning massive precedent when the prospects of them profiting from the decision is primary. We all know the degree to which trump would absolutely abuse any form of immunity, let alone near total immunity in office….
What I hope D’s do is to take advantage of this immunity to clear the country of a clear threat to national security…, Don from Queens.
I hope DOJ has Thomas and Alito under investigation right now as well. All of them are clear and present dangers to the U.S.
Is anyone so naive to believe trump isn’t running a gigantic election finance fraud as we speak? We all know it’s true. But the whote nationalists are out in force and don’t care. Time to remedy the situation.
There is some irony in the heavy reliance placed by the court on Jackson’s concurrence in Youngstown. In that case, Jackson argued that Presidential authority was most limited when the President was acting in defiance of law. In those instances, he could rely only on the Constitution’s grant of exclusive and preclusive authority. He then disposed of every one of the President’s arguments that the Constitution gave him the authority to seize the steel mills to supply the forces fighting in Korea. These were the vesting of executive power in the President through Article II, the commander-in-chief power, the authority to give effect to law, and the inherent or implied power to deal with emergencies.
Jackson’s opinion makes a powerful case that the President’s exclusive and preclusive authority should be strictly construed. It certainly would dispose definitively of the bizarre proposal that the Constitution gives the President the authority to assassinate political rivals, through the use of the military or otherwise.
The entire Youngstown case had absolutely nothing to do with criminal law. Relying on it, whether the majority holding or Jackson’s concurrence, for this CRIMINAL law case is laughable.
But, even if that is the model, Roberts only selectively adhered to it. Jackson’s third zone included situations where the President’s actions were contrary to the will of Congress.
From Youngstown: “When the President takes measures incompatible with the express or implied will of Congress, his power is at its lowest ebb, for then he can rely only upon his own constitutional powers minus any constitutional powers of Congress over the matter. Courts can sustain exclusive presidential control in such a case only by disabling the Congress from acting upon the subject. Presidential claim to a power at once so conclusive and preclusive must be scrutinized with caution for what is at stake is the equilibrium established by our constitutional system.”
Any violation of federal criminal law, as Barrett noted in her concurrence, amounts to Congress’s regulation of the President’s official conduct. Barrett’s concurrence, in which she lays out a two-step process, which first asks whether a relevant criminal statute reaches the President’ official conduct, would have been a much better model. Instead, this Court goes completely rogue.
“… From the coverage of the immunity decision, one would think that the Madisonian Democracy was being replaced by a John Wick Republic. The academic and media accounts have little basis in the actual opinion. …”
The term of this summation is: Disengaged from Reality.
Cheerleaders of the ‘The City of Magnificent Distances’ that produce the imaginary platform of Government, while Rome burns and the endless Wars march on.
“Former Attorney General Eric Holder ” An ‘enigma’ of political corruption, not unlike Attorney General Merrick Garland.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_corruption
I have never, and will never, vote for a Democrat. I proudly voted for Trump twice. I agree that Sotomayer’s dissent is wacky hyperbole, and the puppetmasters who tell Biden what to say obviously misrepresented the opinion.
That said, I don’t like the opinion. I follow the logic used in it and I understand how they got there, but I don’t like it. I think it gives the President, and by extension the entire executive branch, too much deference. What’s ironic is they just correctly neutered the “Chevron deference” that gives the executive branch too much power.
We know from experience the prosecutors and courts ALWAYS expand beyond black letter law. We are living through it now. RICO was enacted to give government the power to reach highest levels of organized crime. Civil libertarians warned at that time zealous prosecutors would find new ways to use it. A few decades later a rogue DOJ used RICO to go after a President. They intentionally lied and mischaracterized a riot of mostly unarmed people to be an “insurrection”, and thus used a Civil War era Amendment aimed at actual insurrectionists as justification to kick Trump off the ballot in several states. GWB administration used language tricks to subvert the civil rights of detainees in the War on Terror. The push to include homosexuality and transsexuality as covered by the Civil Rights Act. And on and on.
I think we’re going to regret this decision in the long run.
Yes, it’s odd that a sitting president would be upset about the SC reaffirming the existence of presidential immunity for official acts. Wow, it’s almost as if jailing Trump was their number one re-election strategy.
Odd, especially since the present resident of the White House may come under DOJ scrutiny once his term is done!
Anonymous,
Either jailing their opponent or having him assassinated is their reelection strategy, else why all the hyperbole about using Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival?
Funny how, just a month earlier, Biden gave an address in which he praised the decision out of Manhattan, regarding the “hush money” trial, and said this is how the law and “democracy” are supposed to work, yet, a month later, SCOTUS’ ruling was the most horrible decision in American history, and would allow a president to do, for all practical intents and purposes, anything they chose.
What, as if that ruling didn’t apply to him as well? Only applies to Trump? Detached from reality? Indeed!
Ted Wood’s comment seems a mish-mash of caricature, lousy law, terrible spelling, total misreading of the comment by Pro. Turley, and failure to ascertain that the question before the court was, “does the president have immunity?” And they answered it. And 200 years of history supports exactly what they wrote. Mr. Woods note seems to lack a key essential, coherence. Sound’s like a Joe Biden Answer. “Vile, most toxic personality in US History”. Quite a statement. Jefferson Davis I could agree with but he was acceptable as Secy Of War before he was present of the Confederacy. Dick Cheney was nowhere near as vile as his daughter.
Toxic Party-I would think that was the Democrats and their support of slavery and Jim Crow and they still wrap up the black vote despite giving them virtually nothing.
If you want vile then look at Woodrow Wilson who turned on the NAACP who offered to support him since they were dissatisfied with TR Roosevelt and WH Taft on civil rights. And he promptly turned on them and purged the Federal Work force of black Americans, resegregated the armed forces to basically white only and only token all black units and would not let Black troops serve with the Pershing’s Army in WW1 but they were fine fighting under French Control . Free black sailors served on American warships in a variety of roles beside steward before and after the Civil War until Wilson.
The Republicans may be chaotic at times but the Democratic Party has far more to answer for.
And lastly Is it not strange that the Democrats can haul out women at a variety of times who have never been heard from before for “Sexual indiscretions” and paid for by democratic donors so they can “speak to power”. We have this twice for Trump, once for Clarence Thomas, Once for Justice Kavanaugh, Once for Justice Moore in Alabama, then suddenly a sealed divorce agreement in Illinois gets unsealed just before Barack Obama runs his first Senate Campaign in Illinois against a powerful Republican opponent. He also manages to get all other contenders for his winning primary bid in Chicago disqualified before the election. Seems to be a recurring theme.
Now who is afraid of death squads?
Now who is afraid of death squads?
Blacks like Andrea Lawful-Sanders, fired radio host who admitted Biden’s Handlers provided her the questions to “ask” Biden.
Accountability, Access and A Path Forward: Why Black Media Matters
By Sara M. Lomax, President and CEO, WURD Radio
On July 3, the first post-debate interview with President Joe Biden was arranged and negotiated independently by WURD Radio host Andrea Lawful-Sanders without knowledge, consultation or collaboration with WURD management. The interview featured pre-determined questions provided by the White House, which violates our practice of remaining an independent media outlet accountable to our listeners. As a result, Ms. Lawful-Sanders and WURD Radio have mutually agreed to part ways, effective immediately.
https://wurdradio.com/2024/07/07/accountability-access-and-a-path-forward-why-black-media-matters/
Ruining someone’s career, especially as an older person, is as good as cutting off their means to support themselves. This has become SOP for Democrats. Donna Brazile, as a CNN commentator, supplied the debate questions beforehand to Hillary Clinton, and then denied it. Brazile was let go by CNN.
Everything they do is a lie.
But mainstream media should do its own introspection to explore how they have lost the trust of so many Americans, Black Americans chief among them.
It seems the White House tried this crap with this station before. Attempting to give them topics and limitations to what they could ask administration officials.
The “most transparent administration ever” my ass.
So, can a sitting 1st-term President while running for re-election conspire with fellow Exec. Branch officers to take actions to tilt the outcome of the election? The Roberts decision says that all such meetings and communications are presumptively “official business”, and cannot be investigated as to motive. Doesn’t that nullify the Hatch Act?
Does that mean Obama was free to coordinate Exec. Branch (CIA, FBI) resources to infiltrate the Trump campaign in 2016?
Doesn’t it retrospectively give Pres. Nixon’s 1972 campaign a free pass to spy on the DNC headquarters using ex-CIA contractors?
What about meeting and conspiring with non-governmental actors (Exec. Branch retirees, outside lawyers, militia groups)? Biden wasn’t yet President, but exploiting retirees is exactly what his campaign did to squelch the Hunter’s laptop crisis in 2020.
The “Seal Team 6” argument made in Apellate Court was a huge misstep — it distracts from the entirely predictable, subtle, clandestine and self-serving forms of pre- and post-election “meddling” that a sitting President can now exercise to his re-election advantage — a chipping away at free and fair elections.
Justice Barrett got it right that the majority went to far.
so when does ANYONE go to jail for the Government Conspiracies of the Russian Hoax and the coverup of the Biden Laptop of CRIME!
Hillary HIRED a Foreign Spy to work with A Russian TO commit Conspiracy to OVERTURN Trump’s Election….and NOT ONE person went to jail…the Biggest Crime in US History
The DEEP State has Destroyed America’s Mayor Giuliani because he EXPOSED Bidens Laptop of CRIME
Yet NO ONE involved in ANY OF THE BIDENS crimes…or Coverups GO TO JAIL?
I want 1,000’s of Democrats from across Government Jailed…judges, congress, FBI, DOJ, IRS, etc
hey ask Ashli Babbitt family about death at the hands of FASCISTS Democrats!
Or the families of 200,000/yr dead of DRUGS and Suicide from DIRECT ACTIONS of Fascists Democrats and their CAMPAGAIN of Pushing DRUGS and Hatred of America
Hysteria is a form of deflection, turning attention from real issues such as national debt, open borders, chronic inflation, and urban crime.
jonathan was previously a well respected legal commentator- i dont know what happened- it seems he’s settled for channeling andy mccarthy- sad- his assertion that there’s “nothing to see here folks, move on” mccinnell argued that hus acquittal vote left trump vulnerable to criminal charges-guess the 9 didnt get the memo- gorsuch said they were writing for the ages- what happened to disposing the case or controversy before the court? this is the most toxic decision since dred scott, wriiten to protect the vilest most toxic public figure america has produced since jefferson davis and dick cheney
This decision is in error
But only in the sense that it is a power grab by the courts
The president may not be prosecuted for anything done while in office without impeaching and removing first
That is the constitutional approach
If you can not convince half of the house and 2/3 of the senate you can not indict or prosecute
That is an imperfect bar against politically weaponizing prosecutorial power
But it is the best we can do
Robert’s decision is wrong because it transfers to the courts a power that constitutionally belongs to congress
In all other ways scotus was correct
Regardless the left was stupid
As they have been repeatedly to believe
They could engage in this nonsense
After spending the past year trying to “get trump” in nyc courts and elsewhere
Trumps polling has gone up by almost 15pts
As the left is thick
That means the jury that matters
The people have not only rejected this weaponizing political law fare but they are punishing democrats
The electoral tsunami that is approaching is not about Bidens age or mental facilities
It is about all the lies and abuses of power by the left – bidens dementia being only one of many causes
“ The president may not be prosecuted for anything done while in office without impeaching and removing first
That is the constitutional approach”
That’s no longer possible. You forget that Justice Roberts ruled that a president or former president’s official communications and records CANNOT be used for evidence to prosecute.
It means even if a president was impeached or removed none of the evidence gathered by Congress can be used to charge a former president.
Congress can’t use records or communications to press charges. Then there’s the problem of bribery made much easier to do and much harder to prove thanks to SCOTUS. They made charging bribery dependent on an extremely narrow definition.
Legally, SCOTUS has made it almost impossible to prosecute a president, especially when they declared that any official communications and records cannot be used as evidence.
Justice Roberts ruled
Ther you go again. Take a civics course Svelaz
Justice Roberts wrote for the majority. The court ruled…can be paraphrased “Justice Roberts ruled”. Not everything is about literal and exact meanings.
Except that the connotation is that Roberts ruled, so no, its not “literal”, jack ass. Else why keep saying “Roberts” ruled? scotus is fewer letters.
“Legally, SCOTUS has made it almost impossible to prosecute a president,”
You do understand that your ignorant hyperbole is about to be put to the test, right?
Last I heard, none of the cases against Trump have been dropped.
The court is disposing of these cases and controversies
Though honestly
There are no cases or controversies
Just a long collection of left wing nut lies and
Abuses of power
Trump was convicted by a Manhattan jury
But the left has been convicted by the jury of the electorate
The court erred in the immunity decision
In that they merely imposed a speed bump to this political law fare
Only left wing idiots think that it is appropriate for politicized prosecutors to select politicallly hostile jurisdictions to go after political opponents
Do you honestly believe you could get a prosecutor judge and jury in OK or AL to buy this garbage?
You write about death squads as if they havent been occurring since the Deep
State weaponized lawfare. How many lives have been ruined by Obama-Biden DOJ? How many falsely accused have committed suicide? How many children have undergone bodily mutilation due to Leftists peer pressure and failing to disclose to parents what confusion their children are experiencing due to Woke teachers? How many lives were lost from COVID mitigating startegies as promulgated by Fauci, Collins, CDC, etc?
We are already there.
Trump was President for four years, and nothing bad happened. The Democrat base is insane, and the Democrat leadership, along with the Media, are to blame. Now, when the Democrat Leadership is wanting to dump Biden, I can not help but wonder if they’re thinking to themselves, “Did we have to make our base this batsh!t stupid?” Because it appears that the Democrat base is crazy enough to put a clearly demented person in charge of the Nuclear Codes.
I believe the media and lefty Justices are setting up the Conservative Justices for assassination.
What better way to foment rebellion on the Right leading to Civil War.
Carol, no criticism or argument intended…just a serious question. Why would the media/lefty justices WANT a civil war?
Power.
It’s all they care about.
And they won’t be able to feign shock and ignorance of the consequences of their actions.
Remember the assassin who came all the way across the country two years ago with plans (and the necessary materials) to assassinate Kavanaugh?
nothing bad happened? Maybe you mean Trump didn’t do anything bad. The Russian Hoax created by Democrats and the DEEP State…was the BIGGEST crime in US History
Many people AROUND Trump were JAILED…for being around TRUMP!
Republicans need to jail Democrats by the 1000’s….and Cut Federal Government power…I suggest 50% cut in spending!
So a 50% cut in federal spending would eliminate the defense budget and all discretionary spending. You can’t eliminate non-discretionary (mandatory) spending (Social Security & Medicare, for example) without Congressional approval. You would also default on the debt. Is that what you’re aiming for?
Bad things: awful covid response leading to disproportionate death toll, violating the JCPOA, making climate change worse, massive corruption, tariffs, pissing off our international allies, cosying up to our adversaries. And the attempted coup.
More people died of COVID under Biden. Then there are all the unintended harm the COVID lockdowns did.
The climate is always changing. Over the past 3 billion years there have been 6 ice ages. Where I am currently sitting, at one time was covered in a sheet of ice.
Joe Biden and his family are clearly corrupt.
The tariffs Trump made, Biden kept, and his sanctions on Chinese made semiconductors were larger than all of Trumps tariffs. Biden just put tariffs on China made solar panels.
Trump just pointed out the obvious of being reliant on Russia energy. He was right. That is why they are pissed. He was right.
Trump did not cosy up to anyone. That was Hunter Biden.
There was no coup. Aside the on going one of the Democrats trying to ditch the Biden Crime Family.
“awful covid response leading to disproportionate death toll”
What exactly should have been done differently and how exactly how many lives would have been saved?
You would not be here today and that would have made a
whaleseal lion of a differenceNice misapplication of the term, jack ass.
Asking someone to justify their obviously ludicrous remark is not sea lioning.
Also, a seal and a sea lion are not the same things. Not sure what a seal lion is.
For instance, sea lioning would be if I asked you…What is a seal lion? Because I knew what you meant and the answer is obvious.
The answer to the question I asked is only in the retards mind who made the ridiculou claim. SO I’d be interested to hear what that answer is.
But of course, GASLIGHTING was the response.
The media, oh the media
It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the publick to be the most anxious for its welfare.
Edmund Burke – Observations on a Late Publication on the Present State of the Nation (1769)