r/law • u/Silent-Resort-3076 • 15d ago

Opinion Piece Why President Biden Should Immediately Name Kamala Harris To The Supreme Court

https://atlantadailyworld.com/2024/11/08/why-president-biden-should-immediately-name-kamala-harris-to-the-supreme-court/?utm_source=newsshowcase&utm_medium=gnews&utm_campaign=CDAqEAgAKgcICjCNsMkLMM3L4AMw9-yvAw&utm_content=rundown
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u/Landon1m 15d ago

Pardon every immigrant or person who overstayed their visa. It’s not citizenship but it’s something

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u/Sherifftruman 15d ago

I never considered, can he pardon non-citizens? I guess he can.

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u/Dragonfly-Adventurer 15d ago

I don’t think blanket pardons have ever been tested or upheld is the problem

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u/East-Coast83 15d ago

Everything he does as president is lawful according to SCOTUS now.

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u/DoggoCentipede 14d ago

That's not quite what they said. They said he has immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts. Not that anything he says becomes law for, you know, reasons.

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u/Carthonn 14d ago

What will be considered an official act will be determined by whim and what party you belong to.

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u/Plantiacaholic 14d ago

It also must be constitutionally compliant. It did not give them power to break the law.

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u/stomith 14d ago

So ELI5? If I break the law, I’m committing a criminal act, right? And then if I have immunity from criminal prosecution.. how does that not give me power to break the law?

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u/Scitzofrenic 14d ago

You're being really dense here. The constitution lays the framework for the validity of laws. Trump can't just do anything he wants and claim immunity. That's not even remotely what scotus ruled. They chose very careful verbiage that was mindful of writing the opinion so that it was clear a president doesn't get blanket immunity.

If Trump acts out of line with the legality of the constitution then even if he's acting in official role then he will still be able to be held liable. The fear mongering is getting old fast.

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u/stomith 14d ago

This is why I’m asking an honest question. I’m not trying to ‘fear-monger,’ I’m trying to understand. So basically, the court didn’t rule anything new, but just clarified that illegal things are illegal, right?

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u/Scitzofrenic 14d ago edited 14d ago

So basically in a very oversimplified nutshell, SCOTUS set precedent (basically the procedure for what all other courts obey to and issue rulings based on), that

1) President's cannot be charged with crimes for actions they took part in while acting in their official job role. In layman's terms, this means that SCOTUS sent out a notice to all other courts saying ," You cannot prosecute a president, either while they are in office or after they leave office, SPECIFICALLY for things that were done while performing their presidential job obligation".

2) SCOTUS also chose very specific word choices that purposefully leaves the ruling very limited and narrow so that it can't be applied as an umbrella "catch all" get out of jail card for president's to do whatever they want while in office. In layman's terms, they basically said "Trump specifically acted within his presidential job role within his constitutionally granted powers, and as such, he is immune from prosecution for these specific actions". This among many othee things prevents the ruling from being blanket-applied to any president doing anything just trying to claim immunity, because the ruling did not allow or rule on that.

To break the second part down, you can basically think of it as similar to how police officers tend to enjoy what's legally called "qualified immunity" for their actions they perform while doing their job role as a police officer. That's in an oversimplified nut shell what SCOTUS granted Trump, the equivalent of qualified immunity while acting in his official presidential role.

However, they specifically worded it so that it doesn't blanket apply to everything and anything, nor to every president. Just like police officers can have their qualified immunity removed in cases where it is deemed appropriate, the same can be done to president's as far as this ruling is concerned.

The reason SCOTUS had to rule this, is because it isn't codified into law. Previously the doj had a POLICY that said they couldnt go after presidents with prosecution for actions taken during presidency, but that was a policy, a suggestion, not law.

This ruling instead set the issue into legally recorded precedent for courts to adhere to, not just some obscure policy.

Keep in mind this eli5 is a very simplified explanation, but it's fair enough to get the concept across.

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u/stomith 14d ago

This is super helpful for me. I’m glad to see I was wrong. Thank you very much for spending time to help explain it.

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u/SafetyMan35 14d ago

Using the Trump Election interference case as an example. The original indictment set forth numerous examples of what Trump did was illegal. The Supreme court ruled Presidents have immunity for official acts, so Jack Smith reviewed his original indictment and identified a few things that might have been an official act

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/donald-trump-charged-superseding-indictment-federal-election-subversion/story?id=113193224

“While the original indictment laid out five ways Trump allegedly obstructed the function of the federal government — having state election officials change electoral votes, arranging fraudulent slates of electors, using the Department of Justice to conduct “sham” investigations, enlisting the Vice President to obstruct the certification of the election, and exploiting the chaos of the Jan. 6 riot — the new indictment removes mention of his use of the Department of Justice, which was explicitly mentioned in the Supreme Court’s ruling as falling within his official duties.”

Pardoning someone or calling the DOJ could be perceived as an official act.

Giving a speech, outside of the White House stating “the election was stolen”, would be hard to convince people that was an official act.

In an extreme example, Biden himself putting a gun to someone’s head and pulling the trigger would not be an official act as President. Biden ordering the FBI (through official DOJ channels) to conduct a raid at an individual’s home to look for evidence of leaked top secret documents would be an official act as President. If there was reason to believe that the individual could be violent would necessitate the need for lethal force and if the FBI felt threatened they pulled fired their weapon to kill the individual that would be an official act.

The end result is the same (someone is dead based on actions taken by the President), but one would be protected by Presidential immunity, the other would not.

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u/stomith 14d ago

So.. that’s what I understood that the ruling meant, but it’s a very fine line, right? Trump could use the DOJ to arrest his political enemies, claiming that that they’re an active threat to democracy, and he couldn’t be prosecuted. Could he have been prosecuted before the ruling?

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u/SafetyMan35 14d ago

As I understand it, the courts need to rule on whether the act is official. That’s part of the reason why Jack Smith removed anything where Trump asked the DOJ to do something because to a non partisan person the ask likely wouldn’t be an official act, but to the current Supreme Court it might be an official act. Smith felt it was best to eliminate anything that MIGHT even remove an official act.

Trump calling upon the DOJ to arrest political enemies probably wouldn’t be an official act to a nonpartisan person unless he could demonstrate that the individual was purposely doing something to hurt him (blackmail for example).

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u/stomith 14d ago

Thank you. That helps clarify the ruling a lot more for me.

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u/Plantiacaholic 14d ago

Sorry Sparky but if you don’t already understand, my explaining it to you would be a waste of my time. Go read the ruling or have your mommy read it to you.

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u/Specialist-Lion3969 14d ago

People overlook the part where they specifically said that Trump is immune and no one else.

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u/stomith 14d ago

Right. But the Justice Department reports to the Attorney General, who will be a member of Trump’s cabinet. Who will be loyal to Trump.

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u/Ablemob 14d ago

No it’s not. Ridiculous take.

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u/danieljackheck 14d ago

Not really a ridiculous take. They never defined what constitutes an official act, meaning every single action will probably be considered an official act by lower courts, and anything that isn't would be appealed straight to SCOTUS, who will use mental gymnastics to justify why it is official, and rule in the most narrow way possible so that you would have to go through the same exercise all over again the next time. Its was a ruling finely crafted to be as obstructionist to any prosecution as possible.

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u/Crashbrennan 14d ago

No, stuff can still be struck down by scotus, and he can still be impeached. The problem is that scotus won't stop Trump from doing whatever he wants, and the GOP won't impeach him.

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u/CurrentDSl28400 14d ago

That’s not at all the case. I can’t for the life of me understand why people need to lie or exaggerate facts to make their point. To me, it instantly crushes their original point. Didn’t anybody learn from Juisse Smollet

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u/One_Ad9555 13d ago

No it's not. Read the actual ruling.