If inciting an insurrection towards their own government is an action without legal repercussions, I don’t see how the law would be less lenient about straight up firing a gun at an opponent.
I by no means want any party to resolve to violent tactics. So even though I play with the thought, I really don’t want anything like it to happen. I am just curious if it’s actually the case that a sitting president has now effectively a licence to kill.
What am I missing?
For the record, that would be an illegal order and should be refused by everyone involved in the military chain.
(Whether or not it is refused is a different matter.)
They sent back the question of what is an official act. And when the judge comes back with something like “official acts are those in which a president is acting in an official capacity as the president to fulfill obligations and duties of the president.” (IANAL….so there’s probably some anal retentive detail that is super critical in missing)
In any case, when challenging the election, that is not an official act- that was something done by Trump-the-candidate.
Inviting foreign dignitaries, however frequently is. (But probably not when selling out America and other spies to keep compromat from leaking)
Organizing an insurrection in the US never is, however.
I’m alarmed by the alarm in the dissent- they probably know where this is going, but POTUS has enjoyed some immunity anyhow as far as official acts go. And when it’s kept to a reasonable understanding… that’s more or less good.
Their alarm suggests that the majority here is not going to have a reasonable understanding when that gets appealed.
Who’s to say what’s reasonable.
Why not? He could make the argument that the election was stolen and ignoring it is in the best interest of the United states.
because that act is not POTUS’s job. He’s making the argument as a candidate. he’s not supposed to be part of that process because he’s biased.
as for whose to say what’s reasonable… that is the problem. right now a dangerous number of SCOTUS are bought and paid for, or are absolutely partisan hacks.
His job is to support and defend the Constitution of the United states. You certainly can argue that protecting the integrity of the voting system is part of that job.
But that doesn’t sanction military members to break the law or the UCMJ. And that’s the point. They do not have immunity, qualified or otherwise. The order would be unlawful simply because of the issuing parties bias and personal gain from the act.
I’m not saying there are not people in the military who would follow this type of order. I’m saying that they don’t have the protections or immunity, qualified or otherwise, and honestly, a presidential pardon doesn’t do anything for them if the state decides to prosecute them. Plus military members are basically the only people in the US subject to legal double jeopardy because they can be tried by the military separately from state and federal law.
The supreme Court is specifically saying the order is legal. He could say it’s part of his official duties, in which case the order itself would be legal. His official duties include commanding the armed forces. If the president gives an order, a marine or a Navy SEAL cannot choose to not follow that order on legal grounds. They can choose to not follow on moral grounds but that refusal in itself would be illegal. Should it come to that, I would hope the vast majority of the armed forces would refuse the order.
In her dissent, justice Sotomayor specifically said that the president could order an assassination and could not be prosecuted for it. I am assuming she knows more than you are I about how the legal system works.
That conflicts not just with other established law, but also with what I actually said and what the ruling says. The problem with it is that the order can’t be considered lawful regardless of what the Supreme court ruled because it doesn’t fit all the criteria of a lawful order.
“What is considered a lawful order in the military? It must not conflict with the statutory or constitutional rights of the person receiving the order. Finally, it must be a specific mandate to do or not to do a specific act. In sum, an order is presumed lawful if it has a valid military purpose and is a clear, precise, narrowly drawn mandate.”
https://ucmjdefense.com/resources/military-offenses/the-lawfulness-of-orders.html
One other thing is that you’re quoting dissenting members of the SCOTUS, not the ruling itself. That’s a single interpretation of it, and one deliberately intended to alarm people so that they push back against it.
yeah Sotomayor probably doesn’t know what she’s talking about, right
That not what I said. What I said is their comments aren’t legal precedent. That’s not the same thing. Or are we taking everything that’s ever come out of Clarence Thomas’s mouth as legal precedent now?
https://www.snopes.com/news/2024/07/01/scotus-ruling-seal-team/
It’s very clear this will be abused, most notably by letting Trump off the hook for his insurrection. That’s why there’s huge alarm.
He’s the commander in chief, ordering a seal team or the CIA to assassinate someone is an official act and legal now. What you fail to mention in your haste to try to downplay this is that they also made it impossible to present evidence of crimes by the president, so any non-public action by the president is de facto legal. It would be impossible to prosecute because even if you gathered evidence he ordered the hit, you couldn’t use it in court.
Yes, it’s that bad. No, it’s not that people are over reacting.
Read Sotomayor’s dissent, she says explicitly that this gives the president legal immunity against assassinations.