Ongoing discussion of SCOTUS cases (7 Viewers)

[MT15]

With the increased scrutiny due to recent revelations in the press I thought maybe we can use a SCOTUS thread. We can discuss the impending Senate investigation and the legislation proposed today by Murkowski and King in the Senate that will formalize ethical guidelines.

We can also use this thread to highlight cases that possibly don’t deserve their own thread, like the following.

I saw this case today, and I cannot believe the US Government is allowed to do this. Unreasonable search and seizure? The examples he gives in the rest of the thread are just sickening:

 

[superchuck500]

I think Dean believes Nixon wouldn't have resigned if he faced today's congress, which would probably not impeach him. Congress was much more bi-partisan in the 70s, but with today's partisanship, impeachment is probably never going to happen. Wiretapping congress was bad, but attempting a coup is worse, yet Trump still didn't get removed. Second, I suspect Dean is leaning on the presumptive immunity portion of the ruling, and there may be other ways to stretch the definition of core official acts, such as via espionage investigations that are Executive Branch duties. If the congress didn't impeach, I think this ruling would've given Nixon a lot more cover to fight any conviction.

I think it's entirely fair to say that Nixon would not have faced genuine impeachment risk in today's Congress. It's very sad, but I think it's true. But that has nothing to do with the Trump ruling at SCOTUS yesterday.

I also agree that perhaps some of Nixon's conduct during the Watergate chronology might have fallen under the immunity in the ruling. But I don't think the nucleus of conduct that led to his fall would be immune.

I think, for better or worse, the Court's Trump ruling avoids rolling the allegations into a single scheme for a Coup - precisely because some of the conduct was indeed official presidential duty (such as managing the Justice Department). But I also think the Court noted that there are categories of conduct involving private and non-federal people don't immediately fall into that category and require additional examination. You have to look at each category of conduct.

I think it's also important to note that yesterday's ruling, at least in its central premises and historical support, is not best seen as a new development. We have long standing principles of official immunity that come from the constitutional structure (in the text), the common law both English and American, and have been underscored with law and policy in the areas where it has come up.

Nixon wasn't prosecuted but we can't sit here and say that he could have been . . . the Supreme Court could have just as easily written the Trump decision in 1976 instead of 2024. The Supreme Court wasn't asked to rule on Nixon's criminal immunity, but it did rule on Nixon's civil immunity and found he was immune. And Justice White's dissent in that case even said that "The Court intimates that . . . the criminal laws of the United States are wholly inapplicable to the President." 457 U.S. at 765.

So the history is not that Nixon could have been prosecuted and we have now departed from that structure in a way that would have emboldened Nixon to act differently. The history is simply that Nixon wasn't prosecuted and we don't know how the Court would have ruled on the question. There's certainly more evidence that it would have reached the same result than there is that it wouldn't have.

 

[Lapaz]

I respectfully disagree that the cited language vests the president with authority to assassinate a political rival.

The country has declined way more than I thought possible in the last 8 years. I used to think Trump was trying to destroy the Republican party, because I didn't believe there were a majority of Americans that would take us down the road Germany took, so Republicans would fail by following him, but we keep descending towards fascism. This expansive immunity and unreviewable motive have made the possibility of unthinkable actions much more likely. It probably will start with incarceration of rivals, and before you know it we'll have Putin style killings. I didn't think we'd be where we are, so nothing seems impossible anymore. I hope this ruling gets challenged again in a few years with a different set of judges, or at least without Thomas and Alito.

 

[SFIDC3]

The news media has to rise to this moment. The majority of people in this country would realize how crazy Trump sounds if the news media will call attention to it. I’m baffled why they don’t.

I hear you but I think the problem is the news media's rationale is that keeping Trump relevant makes them money.....ironically, as a result of this, for some of them it may also means that it's what destroys them as well (if Trump does indeed now have the power to do so with this latest ruling).....

It seems no matter what the ruling does or doesn't do, if Trump is elected he will test the limits of that and it will be a disaster of cruelty and "supposed" vengeance....

 

[coldseat]

I think, for better or worse, the Court's Trump ruling avoids rolling the allegations into a single scheme for a Coup - precisely because some of the conduct was indeed official presidential duty (such as managing the Justice Department). But I also think the Court noted that there are categories of conduct involving private and non-federal people don't immediately fall into that category and require additional examination. You have to look at each category of conduct.

But was it really? Is that really what Trump was doing, "managing the Justice Department"?

Roberts certainly would have us accept that premise/belief without even being able to questions the presidents motives at all. Yet my logical brain tells me very clearly that that isn't what Trump was doing at all. Trump was corruptly using his power as president to manipulate and force the DOJ into carrying out his personal goals of maintaining power. It's a despotic reality we're living in now, thanks to this SCOTUS, that this is something we have accept as fact regardless of how much evidence there is to the contrary. Less there be a "chilling effect" on president's decision making. It's a fully MAGA-fied view of our country and it's sad. Trump has made it quite obvious that we need that "chilling effect" on presidents or else they run roughshod over this country's laws and traditions and our reality.

 

[SaintRob]

But was it really? Is that really what Trump was doing, "managing the Justice Department"?

Roberts certainly would have us accept that premise/belief without even being able to questions the presidents motives at all. Yet my logical brain tells me very clearly that that isn't what Trump was doing at all. Trump was corruptly using his power as president to manipulate and force the DOJ into carrying out his personal goals of maintainin power. It's a despotic reality we're living in now, thanks to this SCOTUS, that this is something we have accept as fact regardless of how much evidence there is to the contrary. Less there be a "chilling effect" on president's decision making. It's a fully MAGA-fied view of our country and it's sad. Trump has made it quite obvious that we need that "chilling effect" on presidents or else they run roughshod over this country's laws and traditions and our reality.

Agreed. I think the wording of:

“In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the president’s motives,” Roberts wrote. “Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law.”

grants a president a wide swath of power.

This theoretically gives credence to many of Trump's actions, even outside of J6. This seems to actually give the power to declassify documents by just thinking about it, as Trump has claimed. Now courts can't inquire into his motives for declassifying those documents, even if it allegedly violates a generally applicable law. If a president now just claims that something was done as part of presidential duties, for all intents and purposes, whatever those actions are, they are now presidential duties since it can't be questioned even if it violates laws.

Biden needs to RUN with this power, now. Test it thoroughly before October when SCOTUS comes back into session.

 

[SaintRob]

Trump Moves to Overturn Manhattan Conviction, Citing Immunity Decision

Former President Donald J. Trump took the action hours after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling granted him immunity for official acts committed in office.

www.nytimes.com

Trump Moves to Overturn Manhattan Conviction, Citing Immunity Decision​

Former President Donald J. Trump took the action hours after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling granted him immunity for official acts committed in office.

Donald J. Trump began an effort on Monday to throw out his recent criminal conviction in Manhattan and postpone his upcoming sentencing, citing a new Supreme Court ruling that granted him broad immunity from prosecution for official actions he took as president, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.

In a letter to the judge overseeing the case, Mr. Trump’s lawyers sought permission to file a motion to set aside the verdict, doing so just hours after the Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling involving one of Mr. Trump’s other criminal cases. The letter will not be public until Tuesday at the earliest, after which prosecutors will have a chance to respond.

The move from Mr. Trump’s lawyers came 10 days before the judge was set to sentence the former president for his crimes in Manhattan, where a jury convicted him on 34 felony counts related to his cover-up of a sex scandal in the run-up to the 2016 election. Mr. Trump’s lawyers asked the judge, Juan M. Merchan, to postpone the July 11 sentencing while the judge weighs whether the Supreme Court ruling affects the conviction.

Yet his lawyers are likely to argue that prosecutors built their case partly on evidence from his time in the White House. And under the Supreme Court’s new ruling, prosecutors not only may not charge a president for any official acts, but also cannot cite evidence involving official acts to bolster other accusations.

------------------------------

That escalated quickly. If he wins in November, we are in big, big trouble.

 

[Lapaz]

I think it's entirely fair to say that Nixon would not have faced genuine impeachment risk in today's Congress. It's very sad, but I think it's true. But that has nothing to do with the Trump ruling at SCOTUS yesterday.

I also agree that perhaps some of Nixon's conduct during the Watergate chronology might have fallen under the immunity in the ruling. But I don't think the nucleus of conduct that led to his fall would be immune.

I think, for better or worse, the Court's Trump ruling avoids rolling the allegations into a single scheme for a Coup - precisely because some of the conduct was indeed official presidential duty (such as managing the Justice Department). But I also think the Court noted that there are categories of conduct involving private and non-federal people don't immediately fall into that category and require additional examination. You have to look at each category of conduct.

I think it's also important to note that yesterday's ruling, at least in its central premises and historical support, is not best seen as a new development. We have long standing principles of official immunity that come from the constitutional structure (in the text), the common law both English and American, and have been underscored with law and policy in the areas where it has come up.

Nixon wasn't prosecuted but we can't sit here and say that he could have been . . . the Supreme Court could have just as easily written the Trump decision in 1976 instead of 2024. The Supreme Court wasn't asked to rule on Nixon's criminal immunity, but it did rule on Nixon's civil immunity and found he was immune. And Justice White's dissent in that case even said that "The Court intimates that . . . the criminal laws of the United States are wholly inapplicable to the President." 457 U.S. at 765.

So the history is not that Nixon could have been prosecuted and we have now departed from that structure in a way that would have emboldened Nixon to act differently. The history is simply that Nixon wasn't prosecuted and we don't know how the Court would have ruled on the question. There's certainly more evidence that it would have reached the same result than there is that it wouldn't have.

I'm sure you're correct that immunity was there before for official acts, but was presumptive immunity there for unofficial acts? In addition, preventing motive review, and the use of official acts to build cases for apparent criminal acts wasn't available to Nixon. It seems this ruling has gutted protections against a rogue president. It was a travesty that Nixon didn't get tried, because I think that Supreme Court would've left the guardrails in place.

 

[Bayouboy]

By the way, if you want to read the full, current history on Watergate, Garrett Graff’s 2022 book was a Pulitzer finalist and it’s just outstanding.

It’s also on Audible and the narrator is excellent.

https://www.amazon.com/Watergate-History-Garrett-M-Graff/dp/1982139161?tag=associatessrp-20

Watergate

Check out this great listen on Audible.com. Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * “Do we need still another Watergate book? The answer turns out to be yes—this one.” —The Washington Post * “Dazzling.” —The New York Times B...

www.audible.com

I can attest this is a fine read. I learned a lot about Watergate & was fascinated by it all. It made me realize all of the turmoil and craziness of the Trump Presidency was not America's "first rodeo". I wonder what my grandchildren will think when reading books about today!!! Kinda like that "hold my beer" analogy.....

 

[MT15]

Putting this here as it concerns the immunity decision. Notable is the hypocrisy of GOP voters. Hard to find a more defining characteristic of them than their hypocrisy.

 

[Optimus Prime]

I've never heard that expression before and it's brilliant. Cheers for sharing it, mate. At first, I thought you might have coined the phrase, but after a quick internet search I see it's been around. I missed out on it until now.

It's full on spot on and is the one of the biggest challenges we face right now. Without that happening, the corpo-christo-fascists have no chance of conquering and oppressing us.

I came across the saying a few years ago and it stuck out to me and I've always remembered it

 

[Optimus Prime]

ADonald Trump lawyer has said that an alleged fake elector scheme was an "official act" and so should be immune from prosecution in Trump's federal election interference case.

Speaking to CNN's Kaitlan Collins on Monday night, Will Scharf, an attorney for the former president, laid out the next steps for special counsel Jack Smith's case following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that former presidents have absolute immunity for their official acts but no immunity for private acts...........

MSN

 

[SaintForLife]

 

[fooferdoggie]

so you won't support trump now?

 

[SaintForLife]

From what I've read in most places, the SCOTUS Chevron ruling only benefits corporations.




The Chevron v NRDC case started because the EPA changed the law's definition of "source of air pollution" to favor Chevron and other heavily-polluting companies.

So the NRDC filed a federal appeal, claiming that the EPA was illegally re-writing the law. The DC Circuit Court ruled in the NRDC's favor.

Then SCOTUS ruled that the EPA were the "experts", and therefore the courts (and the nation) had to simply defer to however they interpreted the law.

But wait, why would the EPA favor the very companies they're supposed to "protect" us from?

Because if a regulatory agency has total control of an industry, the biggest players in that industry have a vested interest in taking over those agencies.

They fill them with their cronies, first to protect themselves from being regulated out of existence. But once they're in the pilot's seat, they can do whatever they want.

They can regulate their smaller competitors out of existence.

They can mandate the use of their products.

They can look the other way when they violate their own regulations, or just redefine the regulation at will (like they did with Chevron).

They can do whatever they want.

And up until last Friday, the courts were powerless to stop them.

So when you hear someone screeching that the end of Chevron Deference means a return to the dark days of pre-1984 America, when corporations could put radioactive shrapnel in our milk, remind them that the exact opposite is true.

 

[MT15]

From what I've read in most places, the SCOTUS Chevron ruling only benefits corporations.




The Chevron v NRDC case started because the EPA changed the law's definition of "source of air pollution" to favor Chevron and other heavily-polluting companies.

So the NRDC filed a federal appeal, claiming that the EPA was illegally re-writing the law. The DC Circuit Court ruled in the NRDC's favor.

Then SCOTUS ruled that the EPA were the "experts", and therefore the courts (and the nation) had to simply defer to however they interpreted the law.

But wait, why would the EPA favor the very companies they're supposed to "protect" us from?

Because if a regulatory agency has total control of an industry, the biggest players in that industry have a vested interest in taking over those agencies.

They fill them with their cronies, first to protect themselves from being regulated out of existence. But once they're in the pilot's seat, they can do whatever they want.

They can regulate their smaller competitors out of existence.

They can mandate the use of their products.

They can look the other way when they violate their own regulations, or just redefine the regulation at will (like they did with Chevron).

They can do whatever they want.

And up until last Friday, the courts were powerless to stop them.

So when you hear someone screeching that the end of Chevron Deference means a return to the dark days of pre-1984 America, when corporations could put radioactive shrapnel in our milk, remind them that the exact opposite is true.

This sounds like classic gaslighting to me. Was there ever this issue - sure. But it isn’t the only defining characteristic of the Chevron decision. I would also be willing to bet that GOP administrations fell prey to that gambit a bit more often than Democratic ones.

But let’s just say he’s correct - striking down Chevron didn’t fix that issue. It just made everything worse, because now Congress will have to act on every little thing. Or some judge somewhere who doesn’t know anything about the subject matter will make a decision. Meanwhile, corporations don’t even have to hire people from agencies anymore. They can just pollute, endanger, and sicken people without any of that. And we can easily see how Congress cannot act and how the courts cannot act either.

We at least had a modicum of honest people working to make things better under Chevron. Only a Republican would look at a flawed yet workable system and say removing all of it makes things better.

 

[Incumbent]

This sounds like classic gaslighting to me. Was there ever this issue - sure. But it isn’t the only defining characteristic of the Chevron decision. I would also be willing to bet that GOP administrations fell prey to that gambit a bit more often than Democratic ones.

But let’s just say he’s correct - striking down Chevron didn’t fix that issue. It just made everything worse, because now Congress will have to act on every little thing. Or some judge somewhere who doesn’t know anything about the subject matter will make a decision. Meanwhile, corporations don’t even have to hire people from agencies anymore. They can just pollute, endanger, and sicken people without any of that. And we can easily see how Congress cannot act and how the courts cannot act either.

We at least had a modicum of honest people working to make things better under Chevron. Only a Republican would look at a flawed yet workable system and say removing all of it makes things better.

This has been a libertarian wet dream for awhile. The snake oil salesman, Ron Paul, asserted that the courts were all that was needed to sort environmental grievances out. Of course a small farmer isn’t going to have the resources to beat Monsanto in court.

From his presidential campaign site, via another source.

Eliminate the ineffective EPA. Polluters should answer directly to property owners in court for the damages they create – not to Washington.

It’s astonishing that they have been able to get so many average folks to go along with schemes that aren’t good for them, and do nothing but further enrich and empower already rich and powerful people and corporations. But…religion and bigotry are powerful tools of manipulation and so here we are.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Ignore the majority’s protestations to the contrary. The Supreme Court has just ruled that the president is, in fact, above the law — absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for some conduct and “presumptively” immune for much else.

This broad grant of immunityraises the stakes for November’s election immeasurably. The risk is no longer just that Donald Trump will evade responsibility for his actions as president, though that seems close to foreordained by Monday’s ruling.

It is that he will be emboldened by the protection the court just gave him to behave even more unconscionably in a second term.

If I sound worked up, it is because a six-justice majority opinion in the aptly named Trump v. United States is bad beyond my wildest imaginings.

The court might have had legitimate concerns about the implications of its rulings not for Trump but for future presidents who might be chilled in exercising their constitutional duties by the prospect of criminal prosecution, and the consequent “enfeebling of the Presidency.” It is correct that “we cannot afford to fixate exclusively, or even primarily, on present exigencies.”……

The majority accused the dissenters of striking “a tone of chilling doom that is wholly disproportionate to what the Court actually does today” and “fearmongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals.” It proclaimed that the president “is not above the law.”

Then it squarely placed him there.

Let’s assess: When Trump’s lawyers first raised the far-fetched notion that a president has absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for his criminal acts, it seemed like more of a canny bid to delay Trump’s trial on charges of election interference beyond November than a serious constitutional argument.

That’s because every previous court to have considered the question, as well as every Justice Department legal opinion, had assumed that presidents are subject to criminal prosecution for their official acts.

As the court recognized, Alexander Hamilton wrote in Federalist No. 69that presidents would be “liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.” Richard M. Nixon accepted Gerald Ford’s pardon for that very reason.

Trump’s own lawyers argued at his second impeachment trial that he was subject to criminal prosecution, and shouldn’t be convicted for that reason.

And let’s be clear: Before Monday’s ruling, no previous president imagined that he had immunity from criminal prosecution — and they somehow managed to engage in plenty of “bold and unhesitating action.”

The case on which Trump’s lawyers founded their shoot-the-moon claim was the Supreme Court’s 1982 ruling in Nixon v. Fitzgerald. In that case, a Pentagon whistleblower sued the former president, claiming he had been dismissed in retaliation for his congressional testimony about cost overruns.

The court ruled 5-4 that presidents possess absolute immunity from civil suits for damages arising out of their official conduct, and it adopted a broad view of official acts, saying that protection applies to any conduct “within the outer perimeter” of a president’s responsibilities.…..

Wait, there’s more: Even when prosecutors go after unofficial acts, they can’t use evidence of any official acts as part of their proof the former president committed a crime. This part was too much for Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who did not join that part of the majority.

Sotomayor helpfully explained the consequences of this overreach. “Imagine a President states in an official speech that he intends to stop a political rival from passing legislation that he opposes, no matter what it takes to do so (official act). He then hires a private hitman to murder that political rival (unofficial act),” she wrote. “Under the majority’s rule, the murder indictment could include no allegation of the President’s public admission of premeditated intent to support the [charge] of murder.”

Equally if not more problematic was the way the majority applied its holding to the fact of Trump’s case. It went out of its way to carve out protections for him.

His pressuring of Vice President Mike Pence not to certify the election results? “Whenever the President and Vice President discuss their official responsibilities, they engage in official conduct,” the majority said.

So, “Trump is at least presumptively immune from prosecution for such conduct,” and it’s up to the special prosecutor to prove otherwise.…….

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/07/01/immunity-trump-justices-2024/

 

[MT15]

He evidently expressed this unironically.