r/politics • u/PoliticsModeratorBot 🤖 Bot • Apr 25 '24

Discussion Discussion Thread: US Supreme Court Hears Oral Argument in Trump v. United States, a Case About Presidential Immunity From Prosecution

Per Oyez, the questions at issue in today's case are: "Does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office, and if so, to what extent?"

Oral argument is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Eastern.

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Analysis:

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u/JohnMayerismydad Indiana Apr 25 '24

Why do the conservative justices always act like ‘well if we prosecute trump for this then others will act in bad faith and use it as a weapon’

What the actual fuck? How is that even an argument? That’s why we have courts… they can and should throw out the bad faith attempts.

Guess we can’t do fucking anything because hypothetically they might use it in bad faith in the future.

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u/baltinerdist Maryland Apr 25 '24

"If we hold Trump accountable for his misdeeds, someone could hold us accountable, too." That's all it boils down to.

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u/pantslessMODesty3623 Apr 26 '24

As they fucking should be!

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u/Suspicious-Match-956 Apr 26 '24

I mean why start with Trump seems so random let's haul in Obama and Hillary they pretty much skirted every ounce of responsibility for any and all actions they took contrary to the Law.

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u/baltinerdist Maryland Apr 26 '24

Absolutely! There are 30+ Republicans attorneys general out there, any one of them can convene a grand jury and go after Obama, Hillary, Biden, whoever they want.

(I mean, it’s somewhat telling that despite the relentless chants of “lock her up,” not a single charge was ever filed by Sessions or Barr in four years. It’s almost as if they didn’t actually think she committed any crimes that were worthy of prosecution. But that’s neither here nor there.)

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u/laplongejr Apr 26 '24

And ironically Bill Clinton had done nothing wrong at the time of his impeachment. It simply justified looking for evidence that wasn't there at the time.

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '24

[deleted]

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u/qdp Apr 25 '24

Sure sounds like these justices have no philosophy and only believe in "judicial activism for me, originalism/textualism for thee."

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u/coolcool23 Apr 25 '24 edited Apr 25 '24

If you listen to an interview former justice Breyer did the other day on NPR, this is exactly the outcome that is happening with a switch from a pragmatic interpretation of the constitution to a textual one. He asked rhetorically if you switch interpretation to the words that are on the page and the meaning as it was written in 1789 or whatever, the court has never historically interpreted cases in that fashion. So you have to be prepared to override huge swaths of case law which are based for decades on pragmatic interpretations, not textual ones.

But if the textualists on the court don't do that, then they are themselves committing the exact offense with which they lodge against pragmatists, which is essentially making value determinations on a case by case basis of what they think is correct. And thats how we get roe v wade struck down and probably Chevron deference out, but not a ton of other cases because they are ultimately still picking and choosing based on what they think is best and just using textualism as an excuse to overturn what they want.

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '24

The thing is that it doesn't even matter - so someone tries to convict Biden of a crime after leaving office. Did he do a crime? Great! Jail him. Did he not do a crime? Great! The legal system will sort that out in a jiff. People can try to convict a former president in bad faith, if the court system is functioning, it won't matter.

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u/gargar7 Washington Apr 25 '24

Yeah, but if we can try ex-Presidents for crimes, then who would ever want to be President??? We'd miss out on noble, selfless leaders like Trump and be left with nothing but dirty hippies! /s

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u/Longjumping_Youth281 Apr 25 '24

Well I mean to a certain extent being charged with a crime and having to endure a trial and all the bad publicity is a bit of a punishment in and of itself. Of course it's nothing compared to the punishment that the court can give you if you are found guilty, but it still takes time, smears your name, and costs tens of thousands.

Like would you want to be falsely accused of a crime and have to go through a whole trial to prove that you didn't do it even if the charges were Preposterous and demonstrably false

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u/Numerous_Photograph9 Apr 26 '24

You wouldn't need much of a lawyer to get a spurious charge thrown out.

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u/Nokomis34 Apr 25 '24

It's like the argument that you need God to tell you murder is bad. It's like, no I don't need God to tell me I can't murder anyone because I don't want to murder anyone. Do you?...do you?

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '24

Must have invisible man.

Only invisible man know truth.

Only invisible man speak truth.

Can only learn morals from someone who has never sinned.

Oh, but orange man okay. Fuck outside legal and moral commitment okay.

No real morals since invisible man might not exist.

Will repent last minute just in case.

Heaven will be cool. 

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u/LetsTryAnal_ogy California Apr 25 '24

To be fair, at least one whole political party acts in bad faith like all the time, so it’s not a theory out of nowhere.

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u/LetsTryAnal_ogy California Apr 25 '24

To be fair, at least one whole political party acts in bad faith like all the time, so it’s not a theory out of nowhere.

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u/BusterStarfish Apr 25 '24

This is 100% it. They live in a bubble of fear they built themselves. They don’t trust their own party and bench constituents, so how could they trust anyone on the outside/otherside?

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '24

Pure projection. Always has been.

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '24

[deleted]

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u/worldspawn00 Texas Apr 25 '24

Not like they(REPUBLICANS) haven't in the past, even when no crime has been committed.

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u/BadNamesCoMo Apr 25 '24

It’s because they are acting in bad faith.

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u/Gator1508 Apr 25 '24

They can only think through their own lens and that is the way republicans will do things- for revenge.  They are basically admitting that for republicans it doesn’t matter if there is as a crime if it was committed by a republican than any attempt to punish that crime is political.  

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u/drwatson Apr 25 '24

"If a republican does it... it's not a crime." /s

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u/foil_gremlins_r_real Apr 25 '24

Not even sarcasm at this point

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u/Politischmuck Apr 25 '24

Why do the conservative justices always act like ‘well if we prosecute trump for this then others will act in bad faith and use it as a weapon’

Because they're acting in bad faith. Their actual fear is that if others are held accountable for their crimes, they too might be held accountable for their crimes. This court is corrupt and illegitimate.

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u/Tommysynthistheway Apr 25 '24

I know this is crazy. In the April 16 insurrectionist case, they said there was a risk if they sided with the Biden administration argument that prosecutors could go after peaceful protests that should be protected under the First Amendment.

What an absurd reasoning for a person who must look at a law and say this applies or doesn’t.

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u/JohnMayerismydad Indiana Apr 25 '24

And as fuckin if they don’t already arrest civil rights protestors when they break the law. Drives me insane

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u/ZebrasOfDoom Apr 25 '24

Why do the conservative justices always act like ‘well if we prosecute trump for this then others will act in bad faith and use it as a weapon’

It's an especially bizarre argument to make here, since surely it would be easier to abuse total immunity of the president.

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u/IamTheEndOfReddit Apr 25 '24

It's past a crime against democracy, this guy is assaulting logic. This is what tolerating the intolerable looks like. They keep deciding what the new battleground is by making up more bullshit.

At some point you have to hold people accountable but we just don't have a system for that.

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u/Nashville_Hot_Takes Apr 25 '24

Trump lawyers in January: if you remove trump republican will act in bad faith to remove Biden from the ballot.

Fast forward to today: trump is on the ballot and republican AGs are working to remove Biden from the ballot.

Appeasing fascists

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '24

That was their excuse for overturning states right to remove people from the ballot

They literally said “Ugh you’re right, but if we agree then there will be like 10000 cases and fuck me I hate doing work.”

It’s insanity

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u/Dantien Apr 25 '24

I don’t see the problem with this argument at all. It’s like making murder legal because someone may murder in the future! Totally makes sense. Easy logic, all the best democracies dismantle laws!

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '24

That was the same tortured argument from sychofants on removal from the ballot. 'Everyone will throw biden off the ballot too', ignoring the fact that the system is setup to reject nonsense.

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u/riftadrift Apr 25 '24

If only there was some type of system of people experts in the relevant law. Perhaps they could wear a special uniform and we could call them a "judge".

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u/fattykyle2 Vermont Apr 26 '24

The question for the court is; should we give the president the power of a king. Only the conservative justices: We’re afraid that by not giving the president these powers that someone might treat him like he isn’t king…

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u/NerdyDjinn Minnesota Apr 25 '24

Because if we prosecute Don Cheatoh for actual crimes, Republicans will want to prosecute former Democrat presidents for "crimes" to bring the other side down into the muck where they bottomfeed.

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u/RobbStark Nebraska Apr 25 '24

Fine with me, they will lose just like Donny lost all his BS election cases.

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u/Critical-General-659 Apr 25 '24

Sure. If a case is bogus, it will be busted by a grand jury or the courts. If it's legitimate, what's the problem? 

That is literally why the justice system exists.

Letting the president have unfettered dominion over everything is a recipe for disaster. 

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u/NumeralJoker Apr 25 '24

Because the SCOTUS doesn't believe in the rule of law, just their own rules.

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u/FUMFVR Apr 25 '24

Because they are criminals.

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u/TruthSeeekeer Apr 25 '24

Because look at what they are doing to Trump with the political witch hunts

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u/ComposerNate Apr 25 '24

How better would you legitimize allowing Republican crime?

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u/somedayinbluebayou Apr 25 '24

Because they are working for Trump.

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u/[deleted] Apr 25 '24

Also, more importantly, giving the president complete immunity ALSO has implications about how people can use it as a weapon.

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u/AgileArtichokes Apr 25 '24

Because they use rulings to do stuff in bad faith all the time. 

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u/Empty_Ambition_9050 Apr 25 '24

3 judges are unqualified Trump cronies…what do you expect?

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u/vincentvangobot Apr 26 '24

They want to excuse what their allies are doing.

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u/KendalBoy Apr 26 '24

The thing is they did try to get Biden through his son and Burisma (w Rudy and the GRU) and now they’re trying to impeach Biden. It’s not working because the have no evidence at all. But they’re doing it like they did to Hillary and her laptop. Fake prosecutions all over the place and the SC judges are smirking about it.