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For those who are anxious about the effect of Presidential immunity for official acts, I thought it might be helpful to link to the DOJ's manual for prosecuting bribery crimes against Congressbeings. The majority's description of how immunity will work, at least for the "core" constitutional functions, operates pretty much like the current immunity that Congresscritters have under the Speech and Debate Clause.

Under that Clause, legislators are absolutely immune from civil or criminal prosecution for actions taken in furtherance of their legislative functions. That's not quite as broad as "official acts," but it covers a lot of what a Congresscreature does.

Yet Congressfolks can still be prosecuted for taking bribes in exchange for undertaking official acts, like voting a certain way or defending/attacking in their floor speeches. The Speech and Debate Clause creates some hoops that DOJ has to go through in prosecuting these crimes, but it doesn't foreclose it.

https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resou...

The immunity that legislators enjoy doesn't mean Congressbeings are "above the law," and hasn't led to a horde of them selling their votes for cash (or gold bars, an exception that proves the rule) - much less exchanging them for contract murders. They've been immune from criminal prosecution for most of their official acts for centuries, and we've managed to put them in jail when they break bad.

The majority's description of how immunity will work, at least for the "core" constitutional functions, operates pretty much like the current immunity that Congresscritters have under the Speech and Debate Clause.

In an attempt by a lay person to go all "originalist text", didn't the founders have the opportunity to put similar language into the constitution for the president? That they didn't seems to indicate they didn't want such a similar clause for the president. So why should a court create a similar standard for the president? Sounds like legislating from the bench to me. It would be much more useful on a practical level to say there is no blanket immunity for a president, then send it back to the district to continue on. That would have been an obvious ruling to issue months ago. That seems like a more literal interpretation of the law. If a president or former president wants to carve out an exception similar to the speech and debate clause, let him argue that clause, or a similar rule, should apply to him. Instead, Trump argued that he should be able to send the military after a political enemy - an ability that is so ridiculous as to be laughable.

What they have done is virtually guarantee that another case will need to come before them to actually start defining the edges of their newly created circles of duties. While we have managed to handle member of congress under the speech and debate clause, I suspect there have been a couple of cases over the past 200+ years that have helped define the edges of that clause. Now we'll have to go through that process again for the president. Certainly any prior cases for members of congress will be instructional, but they won't be the actual law until they get tested by the courts.

Just decide the case before you, not every case that might ever come up.

--Peter

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