BREAKING NEWS: LC-M @ WO-S, Sat 6:30 p.m.
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If your point was to lie about me, you succeeded. Congratulations. You must feel like a winner, aka Harry Reid. -
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Two political opponents pointing to each other and calling each other a liar….. Is like two roosters fighting and then pointing to the other and calling him a chicken. -
Trump was indicted for his activities on January 6. He appealed the indictment to the District Court (trial court) and the way I read it, they pretty much said he has no immunity, period. So he appealed to the Circuit Court which is not a trial court, but is a constitutional court one step below the US Supreme Court. Both the District Court and the Circuit Court denied even reviewing the case. I believe they simply said that a former president has no such immunity. The US Supreme Court then took up the case on a constitutional basis. Remember at this point there has been no trial so no facts of the case have come out. It has been only appeals on the constitutionality of immunity. The Supreme Court ruling today said that the president has absolute immunity for constitutional authority (conclusive and preclusive). What that means to me is, if it’s something the Constitution gives him the authority to do, he absolutely cannot have charges filed against him. An easy example that I can think of is the Constitution makes him the commander-in-chief of the military. So if a president authorizes the military to do something such as Reagan authorizing the bombing of Libya in retaliation for terrorist attacks, the president cannot be sued or held to criminal charges because some civilians in Libya got killed. That is his authority as commander-in-chief and protection of the country. The Supreme Court then ruled that the president has presumed official acts immunity. A presumption under law in a case such as this means that it is assumed that the person accused, such as a president, is not guilty. The presumption is that he followed the law. The presumption does allow however for the prosecution to try and prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the presumption does not exist. The person accused does not have to prove anything. The president does not have to prove that he had immunity. The prosecution has to prove that more likely yes than no that he didn’t have immunity. So technically there’s an opening to prosecute but you start out with the presumption that the person accused is not guilty with nothing to prove. As an example, the president has wide authority in many areas including issuing some executive orders. Those are authorities as official acts. If the president was to do something like order the unjustified jailing of a political opponent in an upcoming election and order the opponent held in Gitmo to keep from campaigning, that would not be included under an official act immunity. So it is possible to overcome the presumption of immunity but it will take quite a bit of work. The president has no immunity whatsoever that is outside of constitutional authority or an official act. As an example of the president gets drunk and manages to sneak past his Secret Service bodyguard. He gets in the car and drives DWI and kills someone. That is not covered under an official act so he could be held accountable for a homicide. So…. For constitutional authorities, the president has absolute immunity. For an official act, he has presumed immunity. Anything outside of a constitutional or official act, such as driving DWI, has no immunity. In this ruling the Supreme Court vacated the indictment because the District Court, and the Circuit Court did not even consider immunity. The Supreme Court did not clear Trump because at this point they have not even heard the evidence. All they issued was a constitutional ruling that the lower courts have to at least consider immunity under the rule that they just established. Therefore the case goes back to the prosecution to bring a case at the trial court level and try to prove that whatever Trump is accused of, it was not an official act. Certainly the DOJ could read this Supreme Court ruling and drop the case, saying that they cannot overcome immunity. I’m not going to hold my breath, waiting for the DOJ to come to that conclusion. Simply disagreeing with a president actions does not disprove immunity. I disagreed with some of the things that Biden did such as ordering vaccines for some workers. Some of that was appealed and the courts threw out some of those mandates, especially under OSHSA. I don’t think Biden could be prosecuted however for issuing an executive order to one of his federal agencies because that is probably covered under an official act immunity. Not liking it does not automatically qualified as a crime. Therefore…. Can the DOJ try to again get an indictment against Trump and try to prove in court that he is not covered by one of the immunities listed? Yes. The Supreme Court has stated that under their ruling absolute immunity must be taken into consideration for a constitutional act and presumed immunity must be taken into consideration for an official act. Let’s just say that the DOJ pushed this case again and convince the trial court and the appeals court that Trump has no immunity and they get a criminal conviction. At their discretion, the Supreme Court can take this case up again since the trial would have been held and the Supreme Court could see how the lower courts came to their conclusion. The Supreme Court could agree that with the lower courts that there was no immunity and a conviction stands or they could say, y'all weren't paying attention to our ruling and they can throw the whole case out. If you don’t want to read all of that…… To date the ruling is, yes a former president has immunity from what he did in office and by law that must be taken into consideration under the rules that the Supreme Court just set. The rest will play out in the future.
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