1y ago

The justices of the supreme court ruled that Trump was immune and effectively above the law while being president. What is now stopping Biden from bringing a gun to the next debate?

If inciting an insurrection towards their own government is an action without legal repercussions, I don't see how the law would be less lenient about straight up firing a gun at an opponent.

I by no means want any party to resolve to violent tactics. So even though I play with the thought, I really don't want anything like it to happen. I am just curious if it's actually the case that a sitting president has now effectively a licence to kill.

What am I missing?

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The immunity from criminal prosecution has to do with official acts, not personal acts. It wouldn't apply to Biden personally shooting Trump.
It would apply to a military proclamation as commander-in-chief that the Trump movement is a domestic insurrectionist movement that carried out an armed attack on the US Congress; that the Trump movement thus exists in a state of war against the United States; and directing the US Army to decapitate the movement by capturing or killing its leaders, taking all enemy combatants as prisoners of war, etc. (Now consider that the Army is only obliged to follow constitutional orders, and would have Significant Questions about the constitutionality of such an order.)
Further, the immunity is only from criminal prosecution and would not protect Biden from impeachment and removal from office by Congress while the Army is still figuring out whether the order is constitutional.
- That sounds both crazy and not actually wildly far fetched. If the tables were turned and Trump was in the position of having the power to declare Biden's movement as an enemy and carry out violent ways to stop them, I would almost expect it to happen.
  
  It would make for an interesting movie, thatxs hopefully based in fiction.
  
  If you've not seen it already, watch Civil War. It's excellent!
  
  ......gonna need some more info. Who's in it? What year was it released? Is it on Hulu?
  
  Nope
  Certainly not
  Tara Strong
  
  https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17279496/?ref_=ext_shr
  👍
  
  Wow. I was honestly expecting a movie called "Civil War" to be from the 60s, or something, and actually cover the American civil war. The bad part is, I probably can't find this on dvd for $3.
- He can just pardon himself if he shoots Trump because he has immunity when issuing the pardon, since that is an official act.
  
  Better do it in DC. Murder can be charged under state law, and the presidential pardon power only applies to federal charges.
  
  If the president crossed state lines to commit the murder it is federal!
  
  For that matter, immunity from criminal charges for attempting to pardon oneself is not the same as the pardon being valid.
  
  So, what happens if the president is charged? Is he automatically ousted? I mean, apparently a felon can run for president, so does them being a state criminal actually impede them at all, or no?
  
  DC has a local criminal code.
  
  Not just an official act, it’s explicitly a constitutional power which is given absolute immunity.
- So Biden could officially flood the supreme court with democrat judges, then officially ask them to revoke this stupid ruling?
  
  Supreme Court judges must be confirmed by a majority of the Senate before being seated.
  
  The ratio is 50, and dems have 51 senators.
  Biden can order the murder of all the right wing justices and then the senate can rubber stamp them in.
  
  the dems would never go for that, though, because then they'd actually be doing something. even if you took away oh no the two senators that somehow always conveniently oppose any action they take, you can be sure that they'd pull some other poor sap up out of the bowels in order to play the villain.
  
  I mean, I would hope senators of any party would oppose a president that "legally" murders a supreme court justice, let alone 6 of them.
  The fact that these 6 have it coming is besides the point.
  
  I mean, do I have to say what you could just do to any senators which oppose you? It might be getting into coup territory, but eventually you'd probably reach a point where things just proceed as normal. Or you, as biden, could just take the L on it, make sure the newly stacked supreme court shuts it down, eat the, what, next 10 years of your life, if that, in federal prison or whatever it is, and blammo. Could probably even use the opportunity to step down but I imagine if he did some shit like that his approval rating might go through the glass dome protecting the flat earth aaaand post
  
  Can the president declare them traitors and no longer fit for duty, thus ousting them physically?
  
  They didn't change anything other than reiterate what the president is immune from, what he has always been immune from and when he is not immune from prosecution
  
  Absolutely nothing about this case is a mere reiteration of anything before it.
- Could Biden just say “I officially declare Trump the head of a terrorist organization” before firing the gun?
- All Biden has to do is claim that it's an official act, because Trump is a terrorist, a threat to the Constitution, or some other questionable legal pretext. The problem is that there's no remedy against such a claim. It could be litigated and go to SCOTUS again, who would have to decide whether it's an official act or not. But this ruling gives no definite rule on what does or does not count as an official act.
- The ruling is limited to "official acts", but the same court is the one who decides if an act is official or not
  
  Feel like the next logical step is to throw the 6 justices in question into jail. They obviously can't rule on their own trial so...
  
  Why couldn't they? The supreme court is literally the final authority, and there is no mechanism to automatically remove a justice from the bench. There is an ethics code that says they should recuse themselves if they have a conflict in a case but it has no enforcement mechanism - two sitting justices have literally taken bribes in violation of the ethics code
  
  The obvious thing would be the 14th amendment due process clause. Can't have a fair and unbiased case against someone if they're the one judging it. Thats been affirmed as far back as The Federalist.
  Beyond that, though I said it'd be up to the remaining 3 judges, I'm pretty sure it'd have to go up through the court system, and as Trump has shown, that can be slowboated to the end of time, or until those SC judges wisely decide to retire/get forcibly "retired", after which the charges get dropped and everyone goes on their merry way, and then the courts (crazily enough!) establish again that the pres does not have that kind of immunity so history doesn't repeat itself.
  But I already know Joe wouldn't play that kind of hardball.
  
  Well since 2 judges are pro Jan 6 I’d remove them too as part of the conspiracy.
- So he just has to order the CIA to do it.
  The... the CIA and many other government agencies have a stories history of doing absolutely insane things that are absolutely crimes...
  ...And many of those things only get brought to light by a whistle lower or leak ot some Watergate level fuckup of being caught in the act, or years or decades of actual investigation later.
  There are so many problems with this ruling its mind boggling.
- The immunity from criminal prosecution has to do with official acts, not personal acts
  Trying to overthrow a court and Congress sanctioned vote of the people to retain power is most certainly a personal act.
  
  That's your OPINION!
- They can't impeach if they can't assemble a quorum.

160 comments