Process
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Highlights
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The Supreme Court today ruled that presidents are entitled to “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution for official acts, then contended that pressuring the vice president and the Department of Justice to overthrow the government was an “official act,” then said that talking to advisers or making public statements are “official acts” as well, and then determined evidence of what presidents say and do cannot be used against them to establish that their acts are “unofficial.”
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Presidents can murder, rape, steal, and pretty much do whatever they want, so long as they argue that murdering, raping, and stealing is part of the official job of the president of the United States. There is no crime that pierces the veil of absolute immunity
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The court here says that absolute immunity is required by the separation of powers inherent in the Constitution, meaning that Congress cannot take it away.
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Under this new standard, a president can go on a four-to-eight year crime spree, steal all the money, and murder all the people they can get their hands on, all under guise of presumptive “official” behavior, and then retire from public life, never to be held accountable for their crimes while in office. That, according to the court, is what the Constitution requires.
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Take the now classic example of a president ordering Seal Team Six to assassinate a political rival. According to the logic of the Republicans on the Supreme Court, that would likely be an official act. According to their logic, there is also no way to prove it’s “unofficial,” because any conversation the president has with their military advisers (where, for instance, the president tells them why they want a particular person assassinated) is official and cannot be used against them.