Did the Supreme Court just legalize assassination by SEAL Team 6?
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Democrats have made a lot of fantastic claims in the past week about recent Supreme Court decisions.
The holding in Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jarkesy "lit a match and tossed it into dozens of federal agencies."
The Loper Bright v. Raimondo case literally killed the administrative state.
And now, according to Justice Sonia Sotomayor, after Trump v. United States, it is now legal for the president of the United States to order Navy SEAL Team 6 to assassinate political rivals.
Her hissy fit reads as follows:
"The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy's Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune."
Where to begin?
For starters, the majority opinion specifically deals with bribery, noting: "The prosecutor may point to the public record to show the fact that the President performed the official act. And the prosecutor may admit evidence of what the President allegedly demanded, received, accepted, or agreed to receive or accept in return for being influenced in the performance of the act."
And what the president "demanded, received, accepted, or agreed to receive or accept in return for being influenced" would definitely be an unofficial act, which the majority opinion quite clearly holds presidents have no immunity on.
Turning to ordering Navy SEALs to assassinate political opponents, such an order would clearly be illegal for any Navy SEAL to carry out. Federal law both limits the president's power to use the military domestically and makes it a crime for service members to follow an illegal order.
As much as Sotomayor and her Democratic allies may wish to fearmonger on this point, the majority in no way expanded a president's right to act. As the majority writes:
"No matter the context, the President's authority to act necessarily stem[s] either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself.' … If the President claims authority to act but in fact exercises mere 'individual will' and 'authority without law,' the courts may say so. Youngstown, 343 U.S., at 655 (Jackson, J., concurring). In Youngstown, for instance, we held that President Truman exceeded his constitutional authority when he seized most of the Nation's steel mills."
The majority in no way overturned Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer. It remains very much the case that when presidents act, the courts will look to see if they have the legal authority to take such an action and stop them if they don't.
And when determining whether or not a president can be held criminally accountable for his acts, whether or not he had authority to undertake that action is key.
"When the President acts pursuant to 'constitutional and statutory authority,' he takes official action to perform the functions of his office," the majority writes. "And some Presidential conduct — for example, speaking to and on behalf of the American people … certainly can qualify as official even when not obviously connected to a particular constitutional or statutory provision."
Turning to the facts of Trump's case, the majority notes that Trump's "private scheme with private actors," including his use of "campaign staff" to create alternative slates of electors for Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, was unofficial conduct that he could be held criminally liable for.
Sotomayor leaves this fact out. If a president can be punished for trying to create an alternative slate of electors, then surely he can also be criminally liable for ordering the assassination of the real electors.
The reality is that special counsel Jack Smith's case is entirely political. If Trump had not run for president, the charges would never have been filed. That is why Smith waited until more than 2 1/2 years after the incident to seek an indictment, and it is why he is rushing, in contradiction to Justice Department policy, to get a verdict before Election Day.
The Supreme Court put a brake on the Democratic Party's campaign to weaponize the justice system for political reasons on Monday, and President Joe Biden may end up being the biggest beneficiary because now President Trump can't prosecute him for his refusal to enforce immigration laws, which has resulted in the rapes and deaths of over a dozen women.
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The idea presented in the title of the article is absurd
She said it..............
I'm not sure that follows under a core constitutional duty, but declare him a terrorist and whack him with a drone seems to be okay with some if they aren't trump.
All he has to do is say that it was done in defense of the nation, and it is within his duties. Presidents have powers over the military that do not require Congressional approval.
Exactly, like when JFK and then LBJ tried to kill Castro.
Look up the word presumption.
Castro was a political rival???
Or are you trying to distract and deflect...AGAIN???
Look up the word "Kakorrhaphiophobia".
Do you know how those 2 words are similar? Both are off-topic and neither appeared in this comment string...
Assassination are now illegal, look it up.
Not by POTUS as part of their duties according to SCOTUS. Have you ignored all the articles about it that don't match your preconceived biases?
You've now made my original point 2.1.3
Only if you don't know what the ruling actually means.
No, we are talking about how Putin orders his political opponents to be poisoned or thrown off a skyscraper. That is legal here now! Nuremberg has been reversed...
If no order is illegal following it also isn't!
The idea that it is illegal to follow illegal orders no longer applies, because no order given in official capacity is illegal!
I call bullshit on that claim although Biden is probably discussing it with Hildabeast as we write.
Lots of unnecessary drama in that commentary.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA..................
and all stated would be true, cause Trump is the biggest threat this country has faced since the civil war imo, and Trump has many times stated his parallel plans to the 2025 plan, and threatened to kill former cabinet members by Firing Squad or something, as well as threaten Crooked Joe, Born in Kenya Obama, Put behind bars Hillary the deplorable, and isn't Trump just so damn adorabullshit in, I think Trump is not, no distance the pos wouldn't go to just squat, on John McCains grave cause Trump hates POW's and those killed in war, and because Biden a country would save, so lets get on it sleepy Joe, we got US an insurrectionist rival a tempting to take US All down, and that should be reason enough, to let all HELL REIGN DOWN on TRUMPY the CLOWN
Only if you don't know what the ruling actually means and how it applies.
Holy Fiction Batman.
Trying to use the military in such a way on US soil is still a blatant violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. I doubt it would fly.
They'd be hard pressed to get it through.
How can Trump be the biggest threat, he isn't President!
Because the little talky box with pictures told them so.
He, or Biden or whomever Biden and the Dems put forth, will be elected in November, and this 'Supreme Court" has definitely gone rogue and is inserting itself into the politix of the day, and rather intrusively I must say.
Seems like Democrats are trying to build up excuses that would allow Joe Biden to order the assassination of Donald Trump. According to the hair-on-fire dissent written by Sonia Sotomayor, Biden could order the assassination of Trump before dropping out of the 2024 race and be immune from prosecution. The FBI raid on Mar-a-lago already included boiler-plate, blanket authority to use deadly force and Democrats defended that. So, why doesn't Biden just take the next step? Sotomayor just told Biden she has his back, after all.
Holder said it was okay to use drones on Americans.
She’s an embarrassment
SHE'S THE EMBARRASSMENT?
Sotomayor has officially joined "The End of Democracy" club. I would have expected more from a Supreme Court Justice.