The issue is that blanket immunity for official acts is not just raising the bar, it's launching it into orbit. Not only can a president not be prosecuted for questionable decisions or on scant evidence, they can not be prosecuted when their crimes are heinous and obvious so long as it is plausibly within their domain.
I have no problem choosing between the chance there will be a President who abuses immense power over everyone in the nation with no real accountability, and the chance a slew of people (prosecutors, investigators, judges) will act maliciously and repeatedly to persecute a single person. Does SCOTUS really fear that federal Judges like them can't recognize malicious and baseless indictments?
What issue? That's never been an issue in 200 years.
I can't make up my mind if this is "movie plot threat" or not. Has it happened to other important figures before?
And can the prosecution be punished for this kind of behaviour?
Then again, I guess if you can shop around for (politically-appointed) judges, it wouldn't be too hard to find a judge to indulge some bullshit prosecution.
SLAPP-suits do exist, but they're generally against poor folks who can't a long legal process rather than richer individuals.
This is laid out clearly in the dissent, complete with references for further reading. Meanwhile the majority’s argument is “lack of immunity (which has, so far, not existed!!!) would make the president too timid, so we’re adding immunity”.
It has existed, it just hasn't been tested. The supreme court didn't "grant" immunity, they interpreted the Constitution to come to the conclusion that immunity already exists.
And the reason that it's happening now is because no political party has been willing to escalate political differences with presidential candidates to the point of criminal charges before.
That's changed recently, hence the need for the ruling.
What a horrible corrupt court.
I'm 1000% sure that if trump wins and starts prosecuting his political rivals the court will give it the nod as being AOK.
Impeachment is only a prerequisite to the Senate possibly convicting in the political rather than criminal trial and removing the person from office, and then possibly disqualifying them from future federal office. It has no bearing on whatever criminal procedures are not blocked by immunity.
More specifically, the role of the house impeachment and senate hearing is removal someone from office. That's it. There's no potential for punitive action (fines, jail, etc).
> More specifically, the role of the house impeachment and senate hearing is removal someone from office. That's it. There's no potential for punitive action (fines, jail, etc).
Judgement in impeachment can extend to "disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States" [1]
But, judgement in impeachment is political, and if you could get enough votes to impeach a former President in order to disqualify them from running again, it seems pretty unlikely that they'd be able to get nominated and elected in a future election; so it's not a big threat IMHO; at least assuming a two-thirds majority is required to remove, then a majority to disqualify.
The constitution is not clear that removal from office and disqualification are linked, although in practice, disqualification has happened only after a removal, and the Senate has determined simple majority for removal is sufficient. [2] So, it might be possible to do a disqualification as a simple majority, without a removal.
[1] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-1/#ar...
[2] https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/article-2/49-judgment...
Only, the requirement of a supermajority means that a minority can prevent a president from being convicted of blatantly criminal acts. This system is demonstrably weak against corruption, to which the USSC has given its full-throated approval.
Trump was acquitted by the Senate for his conduct on Jan 6. It’s OK to disagree with the acquittal but it did in fact happen.
Ultimately it’s really hard to design a constitution that is effective in opposing half of the population. You can’t solve mass social issues with laws.
