Sorry if this is not the proper community for this question. Please let me know if I should post this question elsewhere.

So like, I’m not trying to be hyperbolic or jump on some conspiracy theory crap, but this seems like very troubling news to me. My entire life, I’ve been under the impression that no one is technically/officially above the law in the US, especially the president. I thought that was a hard consensus among Americans regardless of party. Now, SCOTUS just made the POTUS immune to criminal liability.

The president can personally violate any law without legal consequences. They also already have the ability to pardon anyone else for federal violations. The POTUS can literally threaten anyone now. They can assassinate anyone. They can order anyone to assassinate anyone, then pardon them. It may even grant complete immunity from state laws because if anyone tries to hold the POTUS accountable, then they can be assassinated too. This is some Putin-level dictator stuff.

I feel like this is unbelievable and acknowledge that I may be wayyy off. Am I misunderstanding something?? Do I need to calm down?

  • meep_launcher
    43·
    4 months ago

    The argument I saw for this was that a president shouldn’t have to second guess every action they take while in office. That if they are held liable for everything they do, they may be paralyzed to make changes to the government.

    I kinda thought that was kinda what the founders wanted to happen…

    • hglman@lemmy.mlEnglish
      5·
      4 months ago

      The president should absolutely be concerned about doing something illegal and be afraid to act swiftly when that’s the case. If it’s the law then it needs to not be violated, that’s the point. If a law needs a provision for war time actions add one. Those exist this isn’t hard.

    • somethingp@lemmy.world
      4·
      4 months ago

      Not really. The founders wanted a 3 pronged, balanced government with each branch checking the others’ power. Now the legislative essentially can’t do anything against the executive, and neither can the judicial unless SCOTUS changes its mind.

      They specifically didn’t want another king

      • xenspidey@lemmy.zipEnglish
        11·
        4 months ago

        Correct but as the commander and chief there are military actions that need to be considered. An example i can think of is the droning of American citizens by the Obama administration. He’s not going to be charged with murder for that as it was an official act. At least that’s how i have thought about it.

        • somethingp@lemmy.world
          2·
          4 months ago

          Sure, but the difference was he could’ve been charged for murder if, let’s say, the person he ordered to be killed was a political opponent and not a clear threat to the nation. And Congress or judges would’ve had some power to make that call before, whereas they don’t really seem to have that power anymore.

          Also, strictly speaking in terms of what the founders wanted - they did not want the president to have those kinds of powers. Most of these things were really brought in during FDR’s tenure during WWII where he took a lot of power for the executive branch. And it’s a trend that’s been continuing since.

    • BlackPenguins@lemmy.world
      3·
      4 months ago

      It was only intended for “official acts as President”. The problem is that it is so vague that now every illegal thing he did will have to be litigated to death to determine if it was official. Delaying everything for the 20th time.The official was more sending people to die in a war and less trying to overthrow a government because he “had a hunch”.

    • irotsoma@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      4 months ago

      Yeah, not only that, there were already plenty of protections in place to prevent being restricted from doing what needs to be done. But this ruling now makes all of the laws that specifically target the president and executive branch from being enforced in addition to the existing protections. This includes implementing martial law for no good reason, which Trump already said he was going to do to get revenge on the people that stopped him from winning in 2020, changing all executive branch employees to political appointments, obeying term limits which Trump also said he deserves a third term, keeping appropriate records which Trump refused to do to the point that staffers had to tape together documents that he ripped up on a regular basis, or plain old murder which again Trump has said he was planning to murder his enemies using the military.