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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   29967 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 1, 2024

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Justice Sotomayor, at least, thinks the majority opinion precludes this

Inherent in Trump’s Impeachment Judgment Clause argument is the idea that a former President who was impeached in the House and convicted in the Senate for crimes involving his official acts could then be prosecuted in court for those acts. See Brief for Petitioner 22 (“The Founders thus adopted a carefully balanced approach that permits the criminal prosecution of a former President for his official acts, but only if that President is first impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate”). By extinguishing that path to overcoming immunity, however nonsensical it might be, the majority arrives at an official acts immunity even more expansive than the one Trump argued for. On the majority’s view (but not Trump’s), a former President whose abuse of power was so egregious and so offensive even to members of his own party that he was impeached in the House and convicted in the Senate still would be entitled to “at least presumptive” criminal immunity for those acts.

I believe she is correct, though the "presumptive" immunity likely would not be a problem, since in a case where the President was successfully impeached and convicted, the presumption could likely be overcome. The absolute immunity would be a problem.

Sotomayor gets many things wrong including in this opinion so I think that is strong evidence for my position!

Sotomayor is far from the best legal mind, but she's not a reverse weather vane.

It was a joke to be clear. But it reminds me of Roberts’ line in the Harvard case which was something like “the dissent is not a good place to find legal advice on how to comply with the majority opinion.”

Damn, that’s a pretty good one.

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