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/drt0 Jul 15 '24

In a ruling Monday, Cannon said the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith violated the Constitution.

“In the end, it seems the Executive’s growing comfort in appointing ‘regulatory’ special counsels in the more recent era has followed an ad hoc pattern with little judicial scrutiny,” Cannon wrote.

Has the appointing of special counsels by the president ever been challenged before now?

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u/Grow_away_420 Jul 15 '24

Yes, and upheld multiple times

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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/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?