https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-06-26/suprem...
> Held: Section 666 proscribes bribes to state and local officials but does not make it a crime for those officials to accept gratuities for their past acts.
Nowhere in there do they declare any part of 18 USC 666 unconstutional, which is what one usually takes "struck down" to mean.
The LA Times is at least correct in stating that the ruling clarifies bribes come before the act and gratuities come after, with different legal effect, but they seem to leave out any discussion of this bit inexplicably:
> For example, Congress has established comprehensive prohibitions on both bribes and gratuities to federal officials. If a federal official accepts a bribe for an official act, federal bribery law provides for a 15-year maximum prison sentence. See 18 U. S. C. §201(b). By contrast, if a federal official accepts a prohibited gratuity, federal gratuities law sets a 2-year maximum prison sentence. See §201(c).
Point being, no, gratuities aren't really legal either, they're just punished under different statutes. David G. Savage could've just used this line from the ruling as a much more accurate summary:
> Although a gratuity or reward offered and accepted by a state or local official after the official act may be unethical or illegal under other federal, state, or local laws, the gratuity does not violate §666.
And why did they do this? Because technically giving an apple to your teacher would be Federal Program Bribery otherwise:
> The Government’s interpretation seems all the more unbelievable because §666 applies to the gift-givers as well as the state and local officials accepting the gifts. Specifically, §666(a)(2) makes it a crime punishable by 10 years’ imprisonment for someone to “corruptly” offer or give “anything of value” to state and local officials “with intent to influence or reward.” So under the Government’s approach, families, students, constituents, and other members of the public would be forced to guess whether they could even offer (much less actually give) thank-you gift cards, steak dinners, or Fever tickets to their garbage collectors, professors, or school board members, for example.
But the "bribery is legal now" take you seemingly got from here is incorrect under any interpretation of the word "bribery." Using SCOTUS' version of the word, bribes are still punished by 18 USC 666, and gratuities are punished by 18 USC 201 (as well as other laws for both categories).
But don't take my word for it, you can read the ruling directly: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-108_8n5a.pdf
That seems bizarre to me, an apple or a low value meal ticket are not "something of value" unless you read things literally for no reason.
"of value": valuable, having a great value
> (2) corruptly gives, offers, or agrees to give anything of value to any person, with intent to influence or reward an agent of an organization or of a State, local or Indian tribal government, or any agency thereof, in connection with any business, transaction, or series of transactions of such organization, government, or agency involving anything of value of $5,000 or more;
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/666
The problem here is that the $5,000 here is NOT the value of the bribe!
It's the value of the funds received from a federal program you're bribing someone that's a part of. So if the garbage collectors, schools, etc. receive more than $5k in funds subject to this statute, it doesn't matter what the bribe is.
That's why they call it "Theft or bribery concerning programs receiving Federal funds" after all. You can read the holding in Sabri to see them spell that out a bit more clearly than the statute does:
> For criminal liability to lie, the statute requires that "the organization, government, or agency receiv[e], in any one year period, benefits in excess of $10,000 under a Federal program involving a grant, contract, subsidy, loan, guarantee, insurance, or other form of Federal assistance." § 666(b). In 2001, the City Council of Minneapolis administered about $29 million in federal funds paid to the city, and in the same period, the MCDA received some $23 million of federal money.
[...]
> The Court does a not-wholly-unconvincing job of tying the broad scope of § 666(a)(2) to a federal interest in federal funds and programs. See ante, at 605-606. But simply noting that "[m]oney is fungible," ante, at 606, for instance, does not explain how there could be any federal interest in "prosecut[ing] a bribe paid to a city's meat inspector in connection with a substantial transaction just because the city's parks department had received a federal grant of $10,000," United States v. Santopietro, 166 F. 3d 88, 93 (CA2 1999).
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/541/600
Incidentally, those examples they used seem to have come from hypothetical scenarios raised during oral argument. You can read a bit more here in the transcript of the oral arguments:
https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_transcr...
And don't tell me I need Congress to authorize my killing people. I haven't needed that since Vietnam or something.
The ruling has specifically left the definition of "official acts" for the lower courts to decide on a case-by-case basis; they have not limited official acts to Enumerated Powers of the Constitution. The president likely has modern "official acts" that are not in in the constitution (such as the ability to issue executive orders) so it is not as simple as pointing to it. As things stand, this ruling is a blank cheque of unknown (but undoubtedly large) size.
Easily the best way I've seen the impact of this ruling, articulated.
It codifies rules for certain aspects of their role. Not everything.
So kind of how they said bribery is okay as long as it's not explicitly asked for and given as a "gift" after the fact, the majority holds that presidents can kill their political opponents as long as they "say" it was for national security.
The Senate allowed legislation that made public lynching a crime to fester in committee without a vote for years. The Supreme Court’s abandonment of any reasonable check on executive power or governmental integrity is absurd. You literally have a justice on the payroll of a billionaire who has paid him millions of dollars who helped redefine bribery to make it a crime impossible to prosecute:
> In a unanimous decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the Court held that, under Section 201(a)(3):
> [A]n “official act” is a decision or action on a “question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy.” The “question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy” must involve a formal exercise of governmental power that is similar in nature to a lawsuit before a court, a determination before an agency, or a hearing before a committee. It must also be something specific and focused that is “pending” or “may by law be brought” before a public official. To qualify as an “official act,” the public official must make a decision or take an action on that “question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy,” or agree to do so. That decision or action may include using his official position to exert pressure on another official to perform an “official act,” or to advise another official, knowing or intending that such advice will form the basis for an “official act” by another official. Setting up a meeting, talking to another official, or organizing an event (or agreeing to do so)—without more—does not fit that definition of “official act.”
For myself, I personally think it crossed a dangerous line when Obama killed that citizen without a trial. I also think this SCOTUS is corrupt and this ruling is dangerous.
That's the same lukewarm sentiment that he's always received. It was an impeachable, criminal act.
My point is that he got away with it anyways, even without this "official act" clarification. Which just goes to show you that people whipping themselves into a frenzy about this have not been paying attention. They're using the most extreme language ("Seal Team 6 assassinations!!!") to describe some hypothetical that has already occurred without this ruling. It's silly.
Why are you upset that people are concerned by a ruling allowing exactly what you're concerned about? Shouldn't you be upset that neither the DOJ nor Congress took action against the President in question?
EDIT: And yes, what Obama did was illegal and he should have been impeached and prosecuted for that.
It blows my fucking mind that the left is about to nominate the only qualified person, of many qualified people, that can lose to trump. We saw this movie in 2016 with clinton.
How does this happen?
But it's equally stupid on the other side. Trump is probably the only Republican candidate who could lose to Biden, either.
How did we get this way? Not much of a real primary on either side. Trump as the leading candidate refused to debate anybody else, and the Republican Party refused to block his nomination purely on that ground. Trump's daughter-in-law is also the chair of the Republican Party.
On the Democratic side, nobody real challenged Biden because he's the incumbent, despite his horrible approval ratings.
The US election dynamics produce a two-party system. Every so often, one of the major parties implodes, and a new party takes its place. Both parties are making a good case for it...
IANAL: in no way shape or form am I encouraging destruction.
Under this ruling, it would be entirely possible for Biden to declare Trump a direct danger to the republic and, as commander in chief, order him to be assassinated. Of course the "officialness" of this would be debated in the courts, but the reason so many find this ruling unconscionable is that it does basically say "the President is above the law - he just needs to do things under the guise of official acts".
All I saw was that they were dismissed as “extreme hypotheticals”. All of that despite the publication of Project 2025 openly calling for the next conservative president to bend and break bureaucracy to carry out their desires.
We’re firmly in the Fuck Around stage of what exactly this ruling will and will not allow, and one way or another, we’re going to Find Out within the next 3-6 months. I know which candidate I hope to Find Out from.
The language isn't as electrifying as Sotomayor's example, but you can still imagine unofficial acts that would not warrant immunity.
(Advanced trick: you are reading the syllabus. The actual decision is below.)
Given the extraordinary claim you're making, I'm doubtful that you have the qualifications to support the absolute statement being made pretending to be fact. This is especially true given how little this new ruling has been covered by the very people that are charged with deciding how it will work in practice.
You're not issuing an opinion in what you said. You're claiming it's a matter of fact. Constitutional and executive branch experts with decades of experience will be debating what this means for a very long time to come, with far less certainty than what your comment contains.
This is a legal thread on a tech forum so I find your credentialism thoroughly disingenuous. If you want to actually discuss I'm game, but your inane appeal to non-authority is tedious.
Calling for the murder of specific people is very much against the rules of this site.
You’re supposed to be charitable in your interpretations.
I’m saying that Biden must act with his newfound unconstitutional powers freshly minted by the unqualified tyrannical theist fascists on the Supreme Court. How he does that is up to Biden, sorry I wasn’t more explicit - I ignorantly assumed the nuance to be as plain as the fascist intentions of trump and the company he keeps.
Judge ordering something can be brought to court to review if the order was lawful. Judge making judicial decision - that is, not ordering something to support that decision, but actually deciding - is immune, but that is decision of the limited scope - it's not an action. Decision itself can be reviewed, so there's principally less scope for possible intentional or unintentional errors.
On the whole the principle of this ruling is sound:
The President shouldn't be in a position where he has to wonder before each choice if he'll later be prosecuted for it or not. The boundaries of official acts should be spelled out clearly in the law, and when acting within those boundaries the President should be confident that he's authorized to make the tough calls.
The ambiguities that this ruling brings to light were already there, this ruling only exposes them. President Obama could theoretically have been personally prosecuted for killing al-Awlaki and now he can't.
Now it's time for us to explicitly identify in the laws what the President can and cannot do. That's a change that's long overdue.
We’re probably a decade away from a coup.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_St...
Sotomayor's scathing dissent sums up my concerns on the matter. Even for Barrett, a conservative, the majority opinion was a bridge too far: even bribery now enjoys absolute immunity.