USA court decision on presidential immunity

@redredred I wouldn't be half as annoyed with qualified immunity as opposed to absolute immunity, actually.

But it wouldn't protect Trump or go far enough to protect the unfettered power Roberts wants.

Sure, what Roberts proposes looks like qualified immunity, with presumptions and all, but its not.

He’s only one voice on the court, no more extreme than Sotomajor@MistyCee

@redredred Actually, my guess is, he's more moderate than the other five, and was willing to write the opinion to soften it a bit and not make it sound as batshit crazy as it would be with separate opinions, all offering different and conflicting reasons for why the Constitution should protect Trump and maybe screwing up later decisions even worse.

The whole analysis reeks of Roberts playing judicial politics and negotiating.

@MistyCee I think they have something on him.

@redredred Could be. But as Jack just noted in another thread, Roberts is not much of an ideologue and often seems pretty weaselish. Given his role and history, I'm not sure blackmail is really that necessary.

@redredred Qualified immunity is not absolute immunity. For example, it's within a police officer's scope of duty to capture and subdue suspects, but that didn't prevent Officer Chauvin from prosecution for killing George Floyd. Absolute immunity would have meant that not only could he not be prosecuted for that, but the act couldn't even be used as evidence in a prosecution for a crime he committed when he wasn't on duty.

@LeopoldBloom Yes, as an English major I’m well aware of the meaning of “qualified” but thanks for pitching in.

@redredred So now it goes back to Judge Chutkan to decide what counts of the indictment cover "official acts" and which ones don't. Any ruling will then be appealed to SCOTUS, giving them the opportunity to clarify. We'll probably end up with something similar to what we had before. The DOJ has always had a policy to not indict a sitting president. Before you know it, the election will be over and it won't matter. The goal all along was to delay the DC trial until after the election. SCOTUS shouldn't have granted cert on this case; instead, they held up the proceedings for months. Mission accomplished. With Judge Cannon holding up the Florida case in the hope of getting a seat on SCOTUS if Trump wins, and the Georgia case on indefinite hold, Trump skates yet again.

@LeopoldBloom The goal all along was to mount unconstitutional lawfare against a popular candidate the Uniparty fears. Slice and dice the data any way you want but that’s the clearest description of what has been going on since 2016