> However, if the president is having is own feud with some guy he doesn't like and finds a way to get him drone struck, that would not be covered by immunity because he wasn't acting as president in that capacity in any legally recognized way.

Why not? US presidents have murdered US citizens abroad with drones. All he needs to do is claim he did it under national security. SCOTUS explicitly calls out that the presidents motives are immaterial for determining immunity or not.

And we have a way to deal with that. It's called impeachment and is the process by which one tries a sitting president for things that are part of his/her official powers. Impeachment is not a legal process but a political one. Congress can try a President for anything at any time, if they can muster enough votes for it. That's what the Supreme Court has said before -- Congress's motivations for impeachment are above any judicial oversight.

Then why were lawmakers claiming impeachment was inappropriate for January 6, and rather it should be a criminal matter?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mitch-mcconnell-immunity-former...

I would imagine two reasons.

(1) before today, there was no solid answer to what immunity a president may have

(2) it's unclear whether 'January 6' is an 'official' act (or even Trump's act at all, as he was not involved, denounced the rioters immediately, and called for a peaceful assembly)

"Not involved" despite telling the crowd to "fight like hell" and conspiring to have metal detectors removed?

'Immediately' as in many hours after violence started, and his own children begged him to do something?

Fight like hell? Isn't this a phrase that's used for all kinds of things?

Said in an attempt to stop the election process, then followed by hours of suspicious silence in the ensuing assault, I think the intent is pretty clear.

Impeachment doesn't actually deal with it at all. It's basically impossible to impeach anyone with the way politics is polarized these days, plus the only result is that the president is removed. They don't actually face any consequences for their actions as the Supreme Court is saying they can't be prosecuted even after leaving office.

> It's basically impossible to impeach anyone with the way politics is polarized these days

That's because no president has committed any supposed crime of any importance.

Nixon probably did, but resigned anyway, and was then pardoned, so it doesn't really matter.

Clinton was a technicality, and never removed from office, and no one cares really. Lewinsky is a celebrity now.

Trump... well the first one was obviously political (many Presidents deny foreign aid, etc... it's part of foreign policy. Biden is famously on tape as admitting to doing the exact same thing) and the second one was on thin ice as Trump explicitly called for peace

He wasn't impeached for denying foreign aid, he was impeached for making the aid conditional on helping him personally in his campaign for re-election. A fairly obvious case of corruption.

"Using the powers of his high office, President Trump solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, in the 2020 United States Presidential election. He did so through a scheme or course of conduct that included soliciting the Government of Ukraine to publicly announce investigations that would benefit his reelection, harm the election prospects of a political opponent, and influence the 2020 United States Presidential election to his advantage. President Trump also sought to pressure the Government of Ukraine to take these steps by conditioning official United States Government acts of significant value to Ukraine on its public announcement of the investigations."

I mean, if Biden investigates trump and finds wrong doing and takes action, is that an impeachable offense, for improving his election choices?

Like it or not, the allegations against Biden and his son have only become more substantiated over time.

Trump should not be punished for investigating.

I think that swapping a legal process guaranteeing my rights for a political process guaranteeing* my rights is a poor trade.

I thought the USA was a country of laws, not kings.

* actually guaranteeing that if the president is trampling my rights and a supermajority of congress don't like it, he'll be ejected from office, not anything to do with my protection or restitution.

> I thought the USA was a country of laws, not kings.

It is. The 'official' duties of presidents and the federal government are clearly laid out in the Constitution and subsequent laws. And moreover, the Presidents term expires at the end of four years, whether he believes it does or not. The concern-trolling over Jan 6 is something else. Even supposing the rioters had murderous intent and were going to hang people (they weren't... this was just a protest gone wrong)... trump would still cease to be president on January 20. No action needs to be taken to elect another one. The Presidency would fall to whomever is next in line and duly elected.

There is no way for a President to become a 'king'. The most years a President may serve is eight and at midnight on January 20 (or noon, I forget), no one listens to him anymore

> * actually guaranteeing that if the president is trampling my rights and a supermajority of congress don't like it, he'll be ejected from office, not anything to do with my protection or restitution.

Currently, the recourse you have if you believe the president is violating your rights is to file a civil action in a federal court. No action of congress is needed for you to do this. If your complaint is that SCOTUS, as the court of final appeal, may get your case wrong... indeed that is worrisome and indeed it's happened before, but if that's your complaint, then it has nothing to do with this case.

Wrong. Fitzgerald specifically shields the President from civil suits. The Court will not help you at all.

Your only recourse would be waiting until the President is out of office, then getting DoJ onboard to press criminal charges, with all the due process that entails. Fitzgerald explicitly provides no protection in the case of criminal litigation over and beyond that of an ordinary citizen for a former President.

Until today at least. God save us all.

You can file a civil suit to get an injunction to protect your personal rights. The ACLU does this all the time as do many other orgs

that sounds not totally crazy until you realize that you've just said that the president can kill all Congress members who think that killing Congress members is an impeachable offense

That was always true.

EDIT: to clarify: Any president up until now, and from now going forward, has the power to command his generals to murder every senator, justice, and governor. Of course, American soldiers take an oath to the constitution, so hopefully this wouldn't happen, but he could. Moreover, anyone can 'just' murder all living politicians and declare themselves king. This is hardly a theoretical scenario to concern oneself over.

I'm sad that we've made it to these kind of specious defenses being offered in a serious response.

Impeachment as currently written has been proven over and over to be a paper tiger. We need real remedies, not theoretical ones.

No President has ever committed such a heinous crime as is being speculated here

We can all think of something one president or the other has done that we each believe should have led to their removal from office, yet it hasn't once happened through impeachment.

Because if we removed presidents every time we could find some group of people upset with them, we would not have a country.

Trump also very publicly ordered the extra-judicial execution of US citizen Michael Reinoehl, after which he murdered by US Marshals in Lacey, Washington. He brags about this all the time, even in the first presidential debate in 2020.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killings_of_Aaron_Danielson_an...

There's one crucial flaw. What is and is not covered by immunity can only be decided by a court, after the fact.

Intimidating the court into ruling in your favor with guns to their heads is an official act until the court says it isn't official, but the court can't say it isn't offical, because they've got guns to their heads.

That crucial flaw is the fundamental structure of our legal system. It's why case law is a valued and necessary part of our legal doctrine. Humans are bad at predicting the future, and attempts to write prescient laws often end with significant loopholes that must be corrected after the fact.

That this system fails to work when it's axioms are ignored (i.e. in the stated case of a coup) cannot be construed as a failure of common law or an indictment on its 950+ years of success. Such act would be a failure of the Executive solely.

The founder's stated intent for resolving such a situation is why we have the 2nd amendment.

There's one crucial flaw: you could neutralize the president in such a patently extreme situation and be acquitted by the jury

These days I wouldn't expect anyone who makes an attempt to "neutralize the president" to live long enough to see the inside of a courtroom

It doesn't matter. In the case where the president is using military force against political opponents it doesn't matter what the law says anyway.

It aims to be "rules for thee but not for me", and the court's choice of who they hold to the rules. It's a more realistic and relevant flaw.

Unfortunately, the majority decision has the sentence > At a minimum, the President must 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.

Since imprisoning the president would obviously intrude on the functions of the Executive branch, it really looks like the majority opinion is that no president may be prosecuted for any "official act".

> I think it means that he is liable for anything he does that is illegal if those illegal things aren't powers granted by the legislature.

Many disputes about presidential actions are about what the constitution allows.

The majority said In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives. Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law.[1]

[1] https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf

No the court was clear that motivation can not be used to divide official and unofficial behavior:

> In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives. Such a “highly intrusive” inquiry would risk exposing even the most obvious instances of official conduct to judicial examination on the mere allegation of improper purpose. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 756. Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law. Otherwise, Presidents would be subject to trial on “every allegation that an action was unlawful,” depriving immunity of its intended effect.

So it's not really immunity they are after, but super-immunity. It's not enough that he should be found not guilty in most or almost all cases, but that he should not even be accused, even have his actions inspected or judged. They have done away with the right to discovery, and covered the executive in an almost impenetrable veil. That is just royalty with extra steps.

I think that's a bit unclear. They have this standard where things that are part of a presidents "core constitutional powers" enjoy absolute immunity and anything else enjoys "at least presumptive immunity". I think this hints that some members of the court wanted to go further, but anyway I'm not quite sure what "presumptive immunity" means in the context of the law, but I think this quote gives the most clarity for me.

> 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.” Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 754. Pp. 12–15.

This seems to be the real boundary. To show something doesn't have immunity you either have to:

1. Show it was an unofficial act

2. Show it wasn't part of the core presidential powers and that prosecuting it wouldn't have any danger of intruding intruding on "the authority and functions of the Executive Branch."

I think that last standard is related to presidential immunity from subpoena which courts have also recently construed quite broadly

The part of the text you quoted that really sent shivers down my spine was:

> Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law.

So now the president can clearly break the law, and he cannot be questioned about it if it even remotely looks like maybe it could have been an official act? Surely, the correct ruling wold be that anything illegal is intrinsically not an official act, otherwise we wind up where the institution of the government is not bound by its founding documents. The executive branch of the government is a rogue entity with nothing to restrain it, as long as the president remembers to use a pompous looking stamp. For *certainly you can never show it was an unofficial act if you are not allowed to investigate because it is presumed an official act subject to absolute immunity *.

Mark my words. The next republican president will shut down any and all attempts to even question him or view documents, by preempting the investigation using this as his argument. And shortly later they will, most likely, start disbarring and / or incarcerating anybody who attempts to investigate him for "frivolous" persecutions that impede the executive branch. This ruling is very calculated, since they know Biden will not abuse his powers because of it, but there is an almost unstoppable amount of latent power that will be immediately abused by the next president.

>However, if the president is having is own feud with some guy he doesn't like and finds a way to get him drone struck, that would not be covered by immunity because he wasn't acting as president in that capacity in any legally recognized way.

When it comes to it, this exact thing will be covered by immunity because of how things work.