>However, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Trump v. United States (2024) that all presidents have absolute criminal immunity for official acts under core constitutional powers, presumptive immunity for other official acts, and no immunity for unofficial acts.
I think future law philosophers and historians will cite this as an example of how immunity should not work. If the president can break any law as long as he is doing it as the president in an official manner (for example by signing an executive order), nothing can stop him from having all his political enemies arrested, exiled or straight-up murdered. So there is literally only the goodwill of one single person keeping the US from becoming a fascist dictatorship.
I recall when this ruling was made, there was a BBC opinion piece that took an outraged position on this and contrasted it with the position of the prime minister in British politics. It struck me as funny because they literally have a person (the monarch) who is immune from arrest or prosecution for any act at all - not just official acts.
It does seem kind of backwards that this kind of immunity is required - although i think the Supreme Court ruling made something official that was already true in practice. There is a mechanism for prosecuting presidents, impeachment and a trial in the Senate, it's just not very likely to happen...
Future generations watching the Frost/Nixon interview and wondering why Nixon even has to point out that "When the President does it, that means it's not illegal."
It's pretty clear that constitution implies some sort of immunity, and that it is necessary to protect successive presidents from throwing each other in prison.
The problem is not really with presidential immunity - it's that the check on presidential powers was supposed to be Congress. But Congress is clearly powerless and has slowly been gutted of its power.
America so far has been incredibly lucky - we have the oldest constitution in the world. Yet nearly every government that has tried to copy it has failed. And it's fairly telling that when we successfully rebuilt countries after WWII, we largely pulled from other government models and established parliamentary systems.
Thanks to Roberts and McConnell, the United States has a Presidential "Purge" window:
The President can "officially" suborn the murder of anyone, and as long as there is insufficient time for an impeachment trial or he leaves office before the act is discovered or he is charged with impeachment, cannot be held accountable for it by any means.
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[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 25.1 ms ] threadThe Final Solution to The Jewish Problem was an official act too. So according to this ruling, you get immunity for genocide. Fun stuff.
I think future law philosophers and historians will cite this as an example of how immunity should not work. If the president can break any law as long as he is doing it as the president in an official manner (for example by signing an executive order), nothing can stop him from having all his political enemies arrested, exiled or straight-up murdered. So there is literally only the goodwill of one single person keeping the US from becoming a fascist dictatorship.
The law doesn't matter if there is no one to enforce it, or if enforcement is selective, etc.
It does seem kind of backwards that this kind of immunity is required - although i think the Supreme Court ruling made something official that was already true in practice. There is a mechanism for prosecuting presidents, impeachment and a trial in the Senate, it's just not very likely to happen...
The problem is not really with presidential immunity - it's that the check on presidential powers was supposed to be Congress. But Congress is clearly powerless and has slowly been gutted of its power.
America so far has been incredibly lucky - we have the oldest constitution in the world. Yet nearly every government that has tried to copy it has failed. And it's fairly telling that when we successfully rebuilt countries after WWII, we largely pulled from other government models and established parliamentary systems.
The President can "officially" suborn the murder of anyone, and as long as there is insufficient time for an impeachment trial or he leaves office before the act is discovered or he is charged with impeachment, cannot be held accountable for it by any means.