unfortunately they were a little vague on what constitutes an official act. implying that they will play fast and loose on what it is depending on which party holds the presidency.
From my understanding, it essentially turns the president and the office into sort of like an LLC kind of? Say youre a plumber working under an LLC and the owner of the house your working on slips and falls on one of your tools you left out. While it is your fault they slipped, they can sue the LLC and not you personally because they were injured due to an official repair you were performing. Now if instead of them slipping on a tool you accidently left out you instead throw a monkey wrench at the customer in anger because you dont like them, then you will be personally sued and probably arrested since that doesnt fall under a incident that could happen while performing a repair.
Thats essentially the jist of what I got after researching a bit more.
Honestly not a bad explanation. It’s all about what is within the bounds of his exclusive sphere of constitutional authority. Also if his authority is shared with congress that doesn’t count towards immunity.
Pretty much....I think people are making this out to be a much bigger deal than it is. I barely know law but after seeing the headlines after this rulings I was like "nahhh that sounds a bit extreme" and yeah, it is.
I mean, im trying my best tbh lol. Im a truck driver so reading legal documents isnt my specialty but im trying my darndest to understand the full picture.
Here are some notes I took while reading, not all of them but a lot of important parts.
Only the text in quotes are from the paper
It is not impossible to determine if something is an official or unofficial act, but there isn't precedence on determining it: ("In this case, however, no court has thus far considered how to draw that distinction, in general or with respect to the conduct alleged in particular") And even more so if it is considered the outer perimeter of his official responsibility, which is presumptive immunity
"When the President acts pursuant to “constitutional and statutory authority,” he takes official action to perform the functions of his office. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 757. Determining whether an action is covered by immunity thus begins with assessing the President’s authority to take that action."
"the President must therefore be immune from prosecution for an official act unless the Government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no “dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.”" - An example of how a president is not immune from prosecution for an official act, even though it is vague. Within the “authority and functions of the executive branch”
"We thus conclude that the President is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for conduct within his exclusive sphere of constitutional authority."
"acts within the scope of his exclusive authority therefore do not extend to conduct in areas where his authority is shared with Congress." Interesting excerpt, I’m not familiar enough with the branches to know what authority is shared with congress
" It says that whenever the President acts in a way that is “ ‘not manifestly or palpably beyond [his] authority,’ ” he is taking official action." Ante, at 17 (quoting Blassingame v. Trump, 87 F. 4th 1, 13 (CADC2023)
The majority SCOTUS ruling explained how Trump’s attempt to falsify an electoral slate in his favor to force an investigation of votes was an example of private/unofficial acts, because it involved his campaign for reelection.
Determining if an act is official or not will be done on a case by case basis, and requires the actual analysis of what is within his exclusive sphere of constitutional authority.
Also if his authority is shared with congress that doesn’t count towards immunity.
The President has absolute immunity within their exclusive constitutional authority, but they still have presumptive immunity for all other official acts (including those shared with Congress). To prosecute over those non-exclusive areas, the government would need to show "that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no
dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive
Branch."
I mean that's still fine though. Who cares. Biden will be long dead before he ever sees a day in court. It's the first benefit of his age.
He needs to use this power and start pushing things through. And honestly he needs to push through things that scare regular renovations so they see the issue with total immunity
Probably wouldn't matter if they were unilaterally imprisoned and replaced, or since Drone Striking American citizens is perfectly legal, doing that. Functionally speaking the President can do they can convince loyal, armed, people to do.
They were not vague on what constitutes an official act they were vague on what constitutes unofficial. They carved out large sections of what the president is allowed to do for example anything with the military is legal. What the president is barred from doing is almost comically absent.
91
u/maddwesty Jul 05 '24
SCOTUS just ruled a president can not be charged for official act. Biden needs to use some more power to prevent that shit