Presidential Immunity?

I don’t think “presidential immunity” means immunity from prosecution of any or all crimes.

It seems to me that DT is arguing there are some decisions a POTUS makes in the course of his official duties that are immune from prosecution.

Challenging election results and handling classified docs fall under that theory.

I guess we will see what SCOTUS says

peace to you

 

A parallel question concerns the President's power, while in office, to pardon all offenses (except impeachment). It follows that the office bestows upon the President, while in office, pardon of all offenses, he or she may have committed. These pardons would need to remain in effect after he or she left office, just as the President's pardons remain in effect after leaving office.

The idea of establishing a way to determine if an action is lawful, i.e. protected by Presidential immunity, and if not "lawful" then not covered by Presidential immunity, seems farfetched. The concept that an action can be deemed unlawful by political enmities, provides no protection for even well intended actions of the President.

 

Presidential immunity?... Who is pulling the strings?... Brother Glen

 

The problem with any Supreme Court decision is that it establishes precedence. If Donald Trump is granted universal immunity, the same would be granted to Joe Biden and every other president from here on out.

Joe Biden has very likely committed real crimes that the Supreme Court may believe should be investigated when an Attorney General may be in office who would actually pursue a case against Joe. If you grant immunity to Trump the Court is granting it to Biden just as well.

 

Trump, the former President, has demanded that in his public statements, but that's not what is requested in court. During his Presidency, Trump essentially claimed something similar, that Article II of the Constitution let him do anything he wanted. It was a ridiculous claim on its face, and demonstrated that either Trump didn't know a thing about the office he occupied, or he wanted the public to believe that he was essentially a king. It's possible both were true.

Yes, but his attorneys claim broad immunity for "official acts" as well as anything in the "outer perimeter" of official acts -- which would include things like bribery, where receipt of money or favor is connected to an official act by the President.

Since the President has no official role in elections (they are handled by the states), the immunity he requests would not apply. However, they also claim that Trump was somehow in charge of elections and the certification in the Electoral College, but that is a losing argument.

Classified documents fall under official acts (nuclear secrets are an exception), but Trump is only being charged with willful retention of classified documents after he was no longer President, so that kind of immunity is irrelevant.

It is not nearly as difficult as Trump's defenders make it out to be. The first 44 Presidents didn't have any trouble, except for Nixon. Nixon needed a pardon because he knew that he could be prosecuted.

Exactly. It turns the office of the President into a monarch, with terrible consequences for democracy. Trump's lawyers have EXPLICITLY argued that a President can have his/her political rivals/opponents assassinated as an "official act" with full immunity. The only exception would be that the President might fact impeachment in the House and potential conviction in the Senate. However, if the President had any sense, he/she would have his opponents in Congress assassinated as well, so there would be no impeachment worries at all.

Seriously, that's what Trump is arguing. Don't believe me? Listen to the oral arguments in front of the Supreme Court yesterday: [beginning at 1:29].

 

Not the majority of the Democratic Party. And frankly, I don't recall ever hearing any prominent Democrat call Trump a "fake President." Can you cite an incident?

I keep hearing this claim repeated, but I don't ever remember her saying such a thing. Clinton conceded the election as soon as the results were clear (same evening) and held a press conference the next day acknowledging that Trump won. Are you converting the allegation that Russia had influenced the election (there's plenty of evidence that they did) and interpreting her to mean that the election was stolen?

I want to remind you that Trump was the one who DID NOT accept the results of the 2016 election, claiming that millions of "illegals" cost him the popular vote. He established a commission on voting integrity to find evidence for his claim and they came up empty.

Trump is being prosecuted for willfully retaining documents, many of them classified, and making false statements about them to the government. And many documents are still missing.

They are political because the crimes alleged have to do with the integrity of our elections, the peaceful transfer of power, and national security. Trump has made one's position on prosecution a political test of loyalty to him.

 

Before the Democrat Party became a front organization for the godless left, no left wing group coordinated by the White house, used law-fare to interfere with political opponents.

But let us discuss Mr. Nixon's pardon by Mr Ford. The presidential pardon power does not protect him or her from charges of impeachment. Thus an impeached President, whether or not convicted in the Senate, might be charged in a criminal court for those same impeachment charges. Thus the pardon cut through the possibility of subsequent prosecution.

Here again the key issue is whether immunity is lost when impeached for the impeachment charges, or whether immunity is lost for those charges only if the Senate convicts. As far as I am aware, SCOTUS has not ruled on this issue, one way or the other.