It seems like perhaps that power has been considerably weakened if the President is literally allowed to assassinate political rivals (as is mentioned in the dissent). You might vote not to impeach in fear, similar to jury intimidation. Hell, why even wait, what’s to prevent a President from going for it before the vote even happens? I find it hard to believe that this was meant to be a component of the impeachment process by the founders. To make it more exciting, I guess?

Once they are impeached they would presumably be subject to criminal prosecution under the Impeachment Judgements Clause [1] which states:

"but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law."

I don't think this ruling is, on the surface, exactly what people are making it out to be. It certainly maintains a high bar for criminally prosecuting the president for something they do in office, but it is not allowing them to commit crimes with impunity.

1: https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/section-3....

With the speed at which the impeachment and removal can take, with this new interpretation, it seems significant and lasting damage take take place before anything could be done.

Impeachment is fundamentally broken.

> but the harm can be stopped by the states.

If we refuse to recognize that harm under the current Rule of Law, then who is going to identify and prosecute "harm" besides politically motivated ideologues? It sounds like a surefire way to cement the separation of the Executive office from it's respective checks and balances.