Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

Re:Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for offic... by scelerat on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @09:20AM (#40856365)

The Seal Team 6 example keeps getting batted around and that's unfortunate because it would be an extreme and obviously outrageous attack which would attract much unwanted attention.

Part of the ruling was that conversations between DOJ and President constitute the President's official duties and "therefore" (per the three judges appointed by Trump, one who expressed sympathies with Jan 6 rioters, and yet another whose wife was an active endorser and planner of aspects of the coup) those conversations are protected and cannot be entered as evidence in a criminal proceeding against the President.

The more insidious outcome is that the President can now, because these conversations are official, officially order the AG to investigate and prosecute political opponents.

Maybe some court can review it on down the line, years later. Given the number of judges appointed by Trump, maybe not. Either way, the federal government and rule of law was massively, severely crippled yesterday by the Supreme Court

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Re:Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for offic... by ttyprintk on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @10:08AM (#40856862)

Agree with your sentiment. But overseeing elections is not the official duty of either Trump or Biden, that goes to individual states. And using the military to neutralize political opponents is only extreme if Biden does it. Trump openly wants military tribunals for treason against his opponents, which is his way of grasping for jurisdiction in ordering military intervention in the halls of power.

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Re:Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for offic... by kaba0 on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @01:15PM (#40858613)

> those conversations are protected and cannot be entered as evidence in a criminal proceeding against the President

I am obviously no lawyer, but this “evidence can be nullified based on this and that” has always been dumb in my opinion. Not sure if that’s universally true in US law, but in certain EU jurisdiction even illegally collected evidence can be used in court, if the illegality of its collection is tiny compared to the case at hand.

E.g. it might be illegal to record phone calls, but if it catches a child molester it can be used - it makes soo much more sense

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Re:Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for offic... by Obscurity4340 on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @06:43PM (#40861151)

Good-faith exception evidence against thee, not mee (Trump probably)

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Re:Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for offic... by rangestransform on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @08:10PM (#40861663)

Nope, excluding illegally obtained evidence, period, end of story, is the only way to keep governments from being incentivized to surveil the masses

I would argue that even allowing the inevitable discovery argument or parallel reconstruction is insufficient privacy protections

The government should never be able to benefit from illegally spying on citizens

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Re:Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for offic... by commandlinefan on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @01:53PM (#40858926)

> order the AG to investigate and prosecute political opponents

So... exactly what they've been doing for the past four years already?

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Re:Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for offic... by kccoder on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @02:10PM (#40859067)

Do you have any evidence to support the claim that Biden has ordered his AG to investigate Trump? Simpler explanation for Trump's legal issues: he committed crimes.

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Re:Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for offic... by alsaaro on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @02:16PM (#40859110)

The Seal Team 6 example is batted around because it is specifically cited by Trump's legal counsel as an official act that isn't bound by law -- the conservative Supreme Court has endorsed this.

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Re:Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for offic... by Accujack on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @07:24PM (#40861415)

...and that example was actually used in one of the dissenting opinions.

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Re:Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for offic... by EasyMark on Wednesday July 03, 2024 @09:07AM (#40865608)

Yes, I will take Sotomayor’s well voiced dissent as golden over an opinion on HN any day of the week. I might have been less worried it at least one of the conservatives had voted against this attempt to validate Executive assassinations and imprisoning opponents as the law of the land, but it was 6-3

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Re:Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for offic... by jsizzle on Tuesday July 02, 2024 @10:34PM (#40862258)

Not even political rivals. What’s stopping Biden from ordering cumbersome investigations on each of the Supreme Court justices? Especially the ones that are ducking ethics issues?

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Re:Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for offic... by EasyMark on Wednesday July 03, 2024 @09:09AM (#40865615)

I think Biden won’t do it because he has morals and believes in democracy. There is nothing stopping Trump from doing it, since he doesn’t believe in anything other than power and self advancement.

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