He can just pardon himself if he shoots Trump because he has immunity when issuing the pardon, since that is an official act.
fubo@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The immunity from criminal prosecution has to do with official acts, not personal acts. It wouldn’t apply to Biden personally shooting Trump.
It would apply to a military proclamation as commander-in-chief that the Trump movement is a domestic insurrectionist movement that carried out an armed attack on the US Congress, and directing the US Army to decapitate the movement by capturing or killing its leaders, taking all enemy combatants as prisoners of war, etc. (Now consider that the Army is only obliged to follow constitutional orders, and would have Significant Questions about the constitutionality of such an order.)
Further, the immunity is only from criminal prosecution and would not protect Biden from impeachment and removal from office by Congress.
snooggums@midwest.social 2 months ago
fubo@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Better do it in DC. Murder can be charged under state law, and the presidential pardon power only applies to federal charges.
snooggums@midwest.social 2 months ago
If the president crossed state lines to commit the murder it is federal!
fubo@lemmy.world 2 months ago
For that matter, immunity from criminal charges for attempting to pardon oneself is not the same as the pardon being valid.
daltotron@lemmy.world 2 months ago
So, what happens if the president is charged? Is he automatically ousted? I mean, apparently a felon can run for president, so does them being a state criminal actually impede them at all, or no?
Pips@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
DC has a local criminal code.
gramathy@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
Not just an official act, it’s explicitly a constitutional power which is given absolute immunity.
damnthefilibuster@lemmy.world 2 months ago
So Biden could officially flood the supreme court with democrat judges, then officially ask them to revoke this stupid ruling?
fubo@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Supreme Court judges must be confirmed by a majority of the Senate before being seated.
mosiacmango@lemm.ee 2 months ago
The ratio is 50, and dems have 51 senators.
Biden can order the murder of all the right wing justices and then the senate can rubber stamp them in.
daltotron@lemmy.world 2 months ago
the dems would never go for that, though, because then they’d actually be doing something. even if you took away oh no the two senators that somehow always conveniently oppose any action they take, you can be sure that they’d pull some other poor sap up out of the bowels in order to play the villain.
Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Can the president declare them traitors and no longer fit for duty, thus ousting them physically?
K1nsey6@lemmy.world 2 months ago
They didn’t change anything other than reiterate what the president is immune from, what he has always been immune from and when he is not immune from prosecution
Anamnesis@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Absolutely nothing about this case is a mere reiteration of anything before it.
Squorlple@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Could Biden just say “I officially declare Trump the head of a terrorist organization” before firing the gun?
Anamnesis@lemmy.world 2 months ago
All Biden has to do is claim that it’s an official act, because Trump is a terrorist, a threat to the Constitution, or some other questionable legal pretext. The problem is that there’s no remedy against such a claim. It could be litigated and go to SCOTUS again, who would have to decide whether it’s an official act or not. But this ruling gives no definite rule on what does or does not count as an official act.
RegalPotoo@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The ruling is limited to “official acts”, but the same court is the one who decides if an act is official or not
Stern@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Feel like the next lohical step is to throw the 6 into jail. They obviously can’t rule on their own trial so…
RegalPotoo@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Why couldn’t they? The supreme court is literally the final authority, and there is no mechanism to automatically remove a justice from the bench. There is an ethics code that says they should recuse themselves if they have a conflict in a case but it has no enforcement mechanism - two sitting justices have literally taken bribes in violation of the ethics code
Stern@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The obvious thing would be the 14th amendment due process clause. Can’t have a fair and unbiased case against someone if they’re the one judging it. Thats been affirmed as far back as The Federalist.
Beyond that, though I said it’d be up to the remaining 3 judges, I’m pretty sure it’d have to go up through the court system, and as Trump has shown, that can be slowboated to the end of time, or until those SC judges wisely decide to retire/get forcibly “retired”, after which the charges get dropped and everyone goes on their merry way, and then the courts (crazily enough!) establish again that the pres does not have that kind of immunity so history doesn’t repeat itself.
But I already know Joe wouldn’t play that kind of hardball.
Somethingcheezie@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Well since 2 judges are pro Jan 6 I’d remove them too as part of the conspiracy.
sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
So he just has to order the CIA to do it.
The… the CIA and many other government agencies have a stories history of doing absolutely insane things that are absolutely crimes…
…And many of those things only get brought to light by a whistle lower or leak ot some Watergate level fuckup of being caught in the act, or years or decades of actual investigation later.
There are so many problems with this ruling its mind boggling.
Anticorp@lemmy.world 2 months ago
The immunity from criminal prosecution has to do with official acts, not personal acts
Trying to overthrow a court and Congress sanctioned vote of the people to retain power is most certainly a personal act.
BigMacHole@lemm.ee 2 months ago
That’s your OPINION!
Mjpasta710@midwest.social 2 months ago
They can’t impeach if they can’t assemble a quorum.
dQw4w9WgXcQ@lemm.ee 2 months ago
That sounds both crazy and not actually wildly far fetched. If the tables were turned and Trump was in the position of having the power to declare Biden’s movement as an enemy and carry out violent ways to stop them, I would almost expect it to happen.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It would make for an interesting movie, thatxs hopefully based in fiction.
GuStJaR@lemmy.world 2 months ago
If you’ve not seen it already, watch Civil War. It’s excellent!
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 2 months ago
…gonna need some more info. Who’s in it? What year was it released? Is it on Hulu?