On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that American presidents have “absolute immunity” from prosecution for any “official acts” they take while in office. For President Joe Biden, this should be great news. Suddenly a host of previously unthinkable options have opened up to him: He could dispatch Seal Team 6 to Mar-A-Lago with orders to neutralize the “primary threat to freedom and democracy” in the United States. He could issue an edict that all digital or physical evidence of his debate performance last week be destroyed. Or he could just use this chilling partisan decision, the latest 6-3 ruling in a term that was characterized by a staggering number of them, as an opportunity to finally embrace the movement to reform the Supreme Court.
But Biden is not planning to do any of that. Shortly after the Supreme Court delivered its decision in Trump v. The United States, the Biden campaign held a press call with surrogates, including Harry Dunn, a Capitol police officer who was on duty the day Trump supporters stormed the building on Jan. 6; Reps. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) and Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas); and deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks.
Their message was simple: It’s terrifying to contemplate what Donald Trump might do with these powers if he’s reelected.
“We have to do everything in our power to stop him,” Fulks said.
Everything, that is, except take material action to rein in the increasingly lawless and openly right-wing Supreme Court.
According to the supreme court they can, as long as breaking the law was an official act.
No, again, you’ve misunderstood. Breaking the law is not within the duties of the president.
ok so question then, if the immunity act makes the president criminally immune, how does it not constitute breaking the law as a duty of the president? What the fuck is that supposed to mean otherwise?
The best example is first responders. They have immunity doing their duty. They cannot hesitate to perform their duty - such as giving life saving services - if they fear they are unsuccessful and are sued / thrown in prison. If they break the law though on duty it was never their duty to break the law and are therefore not immune. Take CPR. They might perform CPR and injure the person they are working over, or they might not save them. The family of that person cannot sue them, nor can a court convict them if they accidentally make things worse.
Same thing with the president. The president can’t break the law and say, “whoops, just doing my official duty”. It doesn’t work like that.