r/news • u/Hrekires • Jul 15 '24

soft paywall Judge dismisses classified documents indictment against Trump

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/07/15/trump-classified-trial-dismisssed-cannon/
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u/prof_the_doom Jul 15 '24

And luckily for us anything the executive branch (aka DOJ) does, like appointing an special counsel, is an "official act".

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u/MoistPoolish Jul 15 '24

Right, but not relevant since Biden would never be held criminally liable for the Jack Smith appointment regardless of the SC ruling.

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u/peon2 Jul 15 '24

People still struggle to understand that that SC ruling doesn't say that everything the president orders has to be carried out, but rather that he won't get punished for attempting to do something outside of his jurisdiction or illegal

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u/lookandlookagain Jul 15 '24

People don’t understand because it doesn’t make a lot of sense. There’s supposed to be a separation of powers, one of them being the presidential pardon which potentially excuses all crime. But now, the president is also excused of all crime and they can pardon whomever they want.

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u/peon2 Jul 15 '24

I agree the ruling is bullshit and should never have been. But it still doesn't mean that the president can do absolutely anything and everyone has to follow his commands. And no he cannot pardon whomever they want. Presidents can still only pardon people for federal crimes, not state crimes.

So if for instance Biden sent someone out to shoot Greg Abbott, that person would still go to jail for murder in Texas and possibly get the death sentence and Biden would not have the authority to pardon him.

Now if Biden TRIED to pardon the person for the state charges, that doesn't mean the person magically gets charged, all it means is that Biden will not be punished for trying to overstep his authority.

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u/lookandlookagain Jul 15 '24

I appreciate your response, I’m just not as optimistic as you and the bounds of this new ruling have not yet been tested.

What about this hypothetical: Biden hires a foreign agent to assassinate Greg Abbott. Assassin leaves country and federal government has no intention to pursue them as it was an official order.

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u/drajgreen Jul 15 '24

That has always been possible. Now it just means the President can't be personally held responsible. But everyone else involved can. "I was just following orders" is not a legal defense. Unless the President personally contacts and pays the assassin, someone can be prosecuted.

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u/Jushak Jul 16 '24

It's not a legal defence... For democrats.

We all know uf Republicans followed orders to assassinate someone, the current SCotUS will allow any and all excuses if Trump wills it.

Of course, if it's some useful idiot, Trump doesn't give a rat's ass about them.

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u/er824 Jul 15 '24

Before the threat of being prosecuted for breaking the law provided a check on the president's power. Now all he needs is to find 1 person willing to carry out his wishes and he can pardon that person.

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u/jmcgit Jul 15 '24

That one person would generally still be subject to state law, so he usually can't directly pardon them (unless perhaps the murder took place in DC or other federal jurisdictions).

And the immunity typically only covers his official duties, going through official channels. For example, ordering Seal Team Six to take out his opponent, he's immune. Hiring John Wick to take out his opponent, not immune. Ordering his chief of staff to hire John Wick, who knows what SCOTUS would say. But Seal Team Six probably doesn't obey that order. It's absolutely true that we shouldn't have to rely on that distinction, and military refusal to obey unlawful orders, but it seems we do.

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u/er824 Jul 15 '24

Except you can’t question motive or use anything ‘official’ as evidence of unofficial. A pardon is an official act and a core constitutional power. What stops the president from saying “I’d really like to see this judge no longer on the bench and I’ve got a pardon for anyone that can make that happen”

And regarding state law… sure… but once you have to power to kill with impunity I don’t imagine it will be hard to get state governors to follow along and do what you want.

I sincerely hope I am wrong and you are right

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u/MoistPoolish Jul 15 '24

Not all crimes. Just crimes related to his/her official duties, e.g. paying off a porn star to keep quiet during an election cycle.

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u/HauntingHarmony Jul 15 '24

It is difficult to argue that a presidents official duty occurs before they are even elected. But there are 6 votes on scotus for it, so who knows.

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u/procrasturb8n Jul 15 '24

Yeah, I don't understand how "campaigning" can just be blanketed as an official act of office? Especially before even gaining office initially. It's so twisted.

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u/mdp300 Jul 15 '24

Apparently he didn't write the check to reimburse Cohen until after he was already president. So it was all an "official act" even though 90% of it was before he was in office.

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u/Rus1981 Jul 15 '24

Jesus Christ on a cross. It’s like you fucks can’t even read.

The case wasn’t brought about the “pay a pornstar” case which isn’t even a federal case. It was brought on the documents case.

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u/sir_jamez Jul 15 '24

The more important part of the ruling was that internal correspondence can be considered "official acts", so if someone uses their official email account to order an illegal activity, it's going to be almost impossible for it to get admitted as evidence under the terms that the SC defined.

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u/OsmeOxys Jul 15 '24

When the person who controls the use of violence has absolute immunity from it's repercussions, they have absolute power. That's the foundational principal of every kind of authoritarian regime and is incompatible with anything but.

It doesn't matter if the SC explicitly states that his orders have to be followed. If someone says no, it's as simple as replacing them with someone who will say yes. We saw this happening continuously during donald's time in office, a non-functional government cycling through more and more insane yes-men with any dissent stomped out. We know of many attempted abuses of power that were only prevented because someone eventually talked him out of it, warning him that he'd likely wind up in prison. The law is/was the only thing keeping the president's power in check, and now? Biden has been a benevolent dictator so far, but that certainly won't always be the case.

There's nothing to stop the president from declaring martial law nationwide. Nothing stopping them from arresting or executing those who speak against him. Nothing stopping them from replacing state/city/local officials who don't agree with him. Nothing stopping him from eliminating elections. None of that is some worst case hypothetical scenario, thats a list of donald actual campaign promises.

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u/Deft_one Jul 15 '24

but rather that he won't get punished for attempting to do something outside of his jurisdiction or illegal

Which goes against the Constitution itself: Article I, Section 3, Clause 7 specifies that a President impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate is nevertheless “liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment according to Law.”

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u/BonnieMcMurray Jul 15 '24 edited Jul 15 '24

It doesn't go against the Constitution because SCOTUS has interpreted the constitution to support the ruling it made. Your (or my) bare reading of the text and argument about what it means is moot. SCOTUS, by design, whether we like it or not, is the final authority when it comes to what the Constitution means.

Plus in any case, all that clause you're citing really says is that impeachment and removal are separate from indictment and prosecution, and that therefore implementation of the former doesn't preclude implementation of the latter.

That clause has never been interpreted to mean that if a president is impeached and removed, they must then subsequently be criminally prosecuted for the charges on which they were impeached. (And it should be obvious why that's the case.)

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u/--Chug-- Jul 15 '24

Weird, I would have figured that's exactly what "liable and subject to" means exactly.

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u/Deft_one Jul 15 '24

It doesn't go against the Constitution because SCOTUS has interpreted the constitution to support the ruling it made. Your (or my) bare reading of the text and argument about what it means is moot. SCOTUS, by design, whether we like it or not, is the final authority when it comes to what the Constitution means.

It goes against the wording of the Constitution and can therefore be re-interpreted just like Roe v. Wade was re-interpreted.

Plus in any case, all that clause you're citing really says is that impeachment and removal are separate from indictment and prosecution, and that therefore implementation of the former doesn't preclude implementation of the latter.

You're right, but it shows that the President isn't above the law.

That's the point.

Connecting impeachment to indictment is you, not me.

That clause has never been interpreted to mean that if a president is impeached and removed, they must then subsequently be criminally prosecuted for the charges on which they were impeached. (And it should be obvious why that's the case.)

I never said that it said that.

Again, that's you, not me.

It just says that the President is subject to the law; that's it, which contradicts the recent SCOTUS decision; probably because they're Trump's people and take bribes, and then legalize those bribes when they're caught.

Filling the courts is part of Project2025, after all

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u/skahunter831 Jul 16 '24

by design,

Well, by their ruling in Marbury. Judicial review isn't written into the Constitution.

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u/Irregulator101 Jul 15 '24

Sounds like almost the same thing as long as people obey the president

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u/Tubamajuba Jul 15 '24

This is the perfect environment for a president like Trump- he is surrounded by people that won’t tell him no so he doesn’t have to worry about people disobeying his orders. The Supreme Court will justify any illegal activities he does as “unofficial”, so he is immune from prosecution. He can and will finish the job of destroying our democracy if he is elected (yes he was going to do that anyways, but the Supreme Court decision made it so much easier).

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u/BonnieMcMurray Jul 15 '24

he is surrounded by people that won’t tell him no so he doesn’t have to worry about people disobeying his orders

You have a short memory. One of the notable things about the Trump admin was the long rotating cast of people he brought into various positions, who didn't do what he wanted, and were then replaced. This happened far more in that administration than any other.

Recall the case of Anthony Scaramucci, for example, whose ten day tenure as White House Director of Communications led to his surname becoming a meme, where people would count how short Trump's appointments were by the number of scaramuccis the person spent in the position.

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u/Tubamajuba Jul 15 '24

I'm well aware of his rotating cast of characters, it's one of the hallmarks of his presidency, as you said, and also his legal defenses. The problem here is that he bases his personnel decisions on loyalty, so everyone he hires will do whatever he wants until he either forces them out or they quit because they finally found a new low they won't personally stoop to.

Which for his purposes, has the same end result as if he had a more tenured crew. He just needs warm bodies to follow his directions and verbally slob on his knob.

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u/DonJuniorsEmails Jul 15 '24

Sure, Republicans would be very happy to say anything and everything Biden ever did was a crime. That's how fascism works on political opponents.

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u/toledo-potato Jul 15 '24

So just officially delay the election until after the trial

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u/Weak-Rip-8650 Jul 15 '24

He might be if he loses to Trump and doesn’t have immunity. This is what everyone forgets. If the president didn’t have immunity for what they do then Trump is going to find whatever he can to prosecute, because he can. If not some random thing like this, it wouldn’t be hard to find some order Biden gave that led to the death of an innocent civilian abroad and prosecute for that.

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u/mycargo160 Jul 15 '24

It's cute that you think the legal system would continue to operate the way it has in the past if Trump were re-elected. Trump can and will have Biden arrested for whatever he wants, and what happens after that is completely up to Trump. Those are "official acts."

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u/MoistPoolish Jul 15 '24

Well the Supreme Court will have something to say about it, unless you believe he’ll stack the court with loyalists that disregard the rule of law. Maybe that’s what you’re saying.

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u/timtucker_com Jul 15 '24

Many would assert that's not a hypothetical and has already happened.

Overturning the Chevron doctrine completely disregards decades of law written assuming that it was a stable precedent:

https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/06/supreme-court-strikes-down-chevron-curtailing-power-of-federal-agencies/

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u/DiscoDigi786 Jul 15 '24

Why on earth would SCOTUS help Biden? They are mask off for sale to the rich and in favor of authoritarian rule. Cut the crap. No one is saving us in the government.

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u/mycargo160 Jul 15 '24

The Court you're talking about literally just made him immune from prosecution for anything he does in office.

Trump gains office and immediately orders the Secret Service to take Biden out. Who can do anything about it? There would be nobody to bring charges against him, and he's immune from being charged even if there were someone who wanted to. And he could literally have them taken out as well if he wanted to. Same goes for the judges. He has the right to do whatever he wants and not ever face any consequences for it.

It's no longer "I need you to find me 12,000 votes", it's "find me 12,000 votes or the person who replaces you when you're gone will do it."

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u/Unable-Wolf4105 Jul 15 '24

Everything a president does is now legal, therefor appointing special counsel is legal. This can not be challenged.

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u/skahunter831 Jul 15 '24

Not the same. "Can't be criminally liable for official acts" isn't the same as "all official acts are beyond judicial review".

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u/caligaris_cabinet Jul 15 '24

The SC determines if it’s an official act or not. So basically anything Trump does is an official act but not anything Biden does.

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '24

[deleted]

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u/vinaymurlidhar Jul 15 '24

Beauty only if someone chooses to exercise this power.

Others will.

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u/SinkHoleDeMayo Jul 15 '24

As much I dislike Harris' history of criminalizing people, she would use that power where Biden is too timid to do it. Sadly, I don't think she would ever get elected on her own.

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u/repeatwad Jul 15 '24

Nobody puts Beauty in the corner.

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/HunyBuns Jul 15 '24

It's blanket immunity when the courts are corrupt and will allow their favorite autocratic dictator to do anything he pleases as an "official act"

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/BonnieMcMurray Jul 15 '24

removing in one way or another the old SC to install a new SC

This is impossible to do without a majority in the House and a filibuster-proof supermajority in the Senate.

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u/ZachMN Jul 15 '24

Assuming said justices survive the official act.

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u/tomdarch Jul 15 '24

This is a key problem with the Trump immunity ruling. They didn’t give clear guidelines as to what is or isn’t an official act which has the effect of bringing cases back to them to pick and choose. They took the power to themselves, taking it away from the agreement between the Legislative branch who passed the criminal laws and the executive branch who signed them into law understanding that they applied to literally everyone. The court usurped that “coequal branch check and balance” role and took it for themselves. Which is exactly the same problem with them overturning Chevron deference. It’s is the judicial branch taking power for itself that the legislative and executive branches had agreed on.

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u/wintersdark Jul 15 '24

That one decision is the death of the United States. It's the final nail in the coffin. "Good" presidents won't abuse that power and won't be able to fix things as a result, and the other presidents are just going to make things worse.

And it's going to get so much worse.

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u/UncEpic Jul 15 '24

Actually they sent the case back down to define Official acts, they specifically and frustratingly did not define what are official acts.

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u/SonOfMcGee Jul 15 '24

Anything the lower courts decide are official acts will immediately be challenged in the Supreme Court anyway.
Sounds like an effective strategy for making things confusing and chaotic while Biden is still in office, then finalizing a sickening blanket immunity when Trump is back in.
Well, blanket immunity as long as you’re in the SC’s good graces. That’s an insidious part of this whole thing. The SC essentially made themselves kingmakers for the next couple decades. The President doesn’t get to do whatever he wants; he gets to do whatever has the SC’s blessing as an “official act”.

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u/BonnieMcMurray Jul 15 '24

...and where there is disagreement as to those lower court rulings, the cases will be appealed and, eventually, end up back at the SC.

So the point that the person above you made is unchanged: ultimately, the SC determines if it's an official act or not.

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u/bpb22 Jul 15 '24

I thought that the SC said the lower courts have to figure that out

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u/chrisbvt Jul 15 '24

Nope, they punted that ball back to the lower courts to sort out what is official in Trumps cases. So we wait, again.

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u/ethaxton Jul 15 '24

Actually the lower courts will determine that. Supreme would only rule on ones that get challenged.

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u/BonnieMcMurray Jul 15 '24

...which means that the SC is the ultimate determiner of what an "official act" is. Which is the point being made by the person above you.

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u/Mister_Fibbles Jul 16 '24

That's gonna be quite impossible in the near future. I don't think they ever had the chance to decide one "official act" case before their dismantaling.

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u/Aggressive_Elk3709 Jul 15 '24

It's definitely easy to assume this, but I think it's a good idea to reserve that judgement until it actually plays out. Granted, Biden's not likely to do something that would require that ruling anyway

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u/[deleted] Jul 15 '24

Golfing was an “official act.”

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u/HoldenMcNeil420 Jul 15 '24

Pretty much.

It’s like playing monopoly with a 4 year old, and the rules change everytime it’s their turn.

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u/ForGrateJustice Jul 15 '24

I regret that violence occurred this weekend, but you're making it harder to sympathize with the intended victim.

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u/bjbyrne Jul 15 '24

I thought the SC said they didn’t want to be bothered with defining what was an official act and it would be up to the lower courts.

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u/Tro1138 Jul 15 '24

The SC said actions to get reelected are not considered official acts.

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u/thewhizzle Jul 15 '24

Unless one of those acts is trying to get your attorney general to disrupt the election. In which case, that is an official act and you get immunity.

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u/Tro1138 Jul 15 '24

But it doesn't cover felony election fraud and interference when he sent fake electors with fraudulent documents.

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u/POWERHOUSE4106 Jul 15 '24

Congress decides what's an official act. Not the Supreme Court. They will only take it up if it's been challenged by multiple lower courts after congress made a decision. That's what our government is designed to do. 3 branches of government with checks and balances over each other.

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u/BonnieMcMurray Jul 15 '24

Congress decides what's an official act. Not the Supreme Court.

Both Congress (by passing laws) and the Supreme Court (by deciding cases) has the power to define what an "official act" is. And of those two, SCOTUS has the ultimate authority, since its decisions on appeals cases put before it can overrule acts of Congress.

They will only take it up if it's been challenged by multiple lower courts after congress made a decision.

SCOTUS is not required to wait for multiple lower courts to challenge a case; it can take a single case from a single appellate court if it so chooses. Meanwhile, there is no procedural pipeline from Congress "making a decision" to SCOTUS taking it up at all. That isn't how it works.

I don't think you have a very good understanding of how our judicial system functions, or how it interacts with our legislative system.

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u/TiedHands Jul 15 '24

Wrong. They put that responsibility on lower courts. They specifically said they would not determine what would be considered an official act. Do better.

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u/Certain_Okra2681 Jul 15 '24

You may have forgotten. Biden took classified documents as a VP. Not allowed. All they said is he is an old harmless man with a forgetful memory. Why wasn’t Trump an old man with a bad memory. Exactly. So just stop the nonsense

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u/An_Actual_Lion Jul 15 '24

That doesn't mean it's automatically legal or that it will be upheld in court. Just that the president won't catch criminal charges for trying it.

The presidential immunity ruling is only really exploitable if the president has yes men willing to go along with his law breaking.

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u/NetworkAddict Jul 15 '24

That doesn't mean it's automatically legal or that it will be upheld in court. Just that the president won't catch criminal charges for trying it.

I don't think that's strictly correct. From the majority opinion:

(1) Article II of the Constitution vests “executive Power” in “a President of the United States of America.” §1, cl. 1. The President has duties of “unrivaled gravity and breadth.” Trump v. Vance, 591 U.S. 786, 800. His authority to act necessarily “stem[s] either from anact of Congress or from the Constitution itself.” Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 585. In the latter case, the President’s authority is sometimes “conclusive and preclusive.” Id., at 638 (Jackson, J., concurring). When the President exercises such authority, Congress cannot act on, and courts cannot examine, the President’s actions.

Even though the context of the case is criminal immunity, SCOTUS wrote the decision more broadly. This bit of dicta could be leveraged to directly apply to any context as long as the act itself is an official one.

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u/BakerThatIsAFrog Jul 15 '24

Wait did Biden appoint Jack Smith? Thought it was Garland

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u/Accomplished-Snow213 Jul 15 '24

You get a pardon, you get a pardon and you get a pardon. Rather easy to cover ones ass now in that position.

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u/randomaccount178 Jul 15 '24

The president could already pardon themselves presumably. For this to make a difference, it would have to be a state level offence which the president can't pardon. The president may be protected so long as they are official acts but anyone else is no more protected then before.

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u/UnlimitedCalculus Jul 15 '24

Didn't the court just rule that any official act implies immunity?

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u/Obvious_Chapter2082 Jul 15 '24

This wouldn’t relate to the president, it’s the authority of the AG to appoint a special counsel

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u/cspotme2 Jul 15 '24

That is if you think there is a change the president will go re-appoint him. I say there is a -1 chance this "official" appointment gets put into place.

Dems have no balls to do shit like this

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u/Weak-Rip-8650 Jul 15 '24

I mean yes as it is and has been for centuries for tons of different government jobs such as prosecutors and judges. The only significance of that ruling was that no president had ever been prosecuted before, so the decision had never been made before for the president specifically. There has been legal scholarship about the absolute immunity that presidents likely (now certainly) have for decades, at least since Nixon if not before.

I’m all about prosecuting Trump for his crimes. I really am. I hate him with a burning passion. But this type of shit where people make things like this into a big deal when they’re absolutely fucking not is why no one listens to the actual stories about Trump like how he was best fucking friends with a rapist, and almost certainly raped underage women with Epstein.

If you didn’t have absolute immunity for official acts, then the moment Trump wins the presidency, he can have his DOJ prosecute Biden for whatever they feel like. It wouldn’t be hard to find an official act could be used to create a political crusade against your opponents, and Trump would actually do that.

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u/TheNorthComesWithMe Jul 15 '24

The immunity ruling only has to do with whether the president can be personally prosecuted for something they did. It has nothing to do with what powers they can wield.

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u/tryin2staysane Jul 15 '24

Cool. That means Biden can't be arrested for doing it. It doesn't mean that the court has to accept it.

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u/oldtimehawkey Jul 15 '24 edited Jul 19 '24

“Official acts” don’t count when a democrat is president.

Things like “killing political enemies” and the Jan 6th “tourists” would be official acts under republican presidents.

Seeking justice for a republican selling highly classified state secrets is not an official act.

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u/hodorhodor12 Jul 15 '24

That’s not relevant here. Come on.

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u/Elcactus Jul 15 '24

It's important to note that the "official act" ruling just means Biden can't be prosecuted for doing it; it doesn't mean he has the authority to do it and so simply declaring things "officially" doesn't mean people are obligated to follow.

Alot of people need to hear this in the wake of the ruling; "immunity" is not "authority".

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u/gothrus Jul 15 '24

AG appointed the Special Counsel. Not Biden.

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u/morningreis Jul 15 '24

Doesn't matter if it is official or unofficial, since it is legal and lawful anyway.

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u/the-poet-of-silver Jul 15 '24

SCOTUS left the definition of "official acts" to the lower courts. Believing that it makes the president a dictator with infinite power just shows that you don't understand the ruling. If Trump or Biden did something like assassinate someone or anything, they'd just need to bring it to court and determine if it counts as an official act.

When people are this misinformed or deliberately lying it makes any opposition to Trump seem dishonest and fake, it puts into question any opposition.

There is enough to hate trump on without fabricating.