Part of the ruling was that the conversations between the Department of Justice, the main law enforcement arm of the US federal government, and the President -- which are among his "official duties" -- cannot be entered into a criminal proceeding as evidence against him. Part of the criminal case brought against Trump regarding his attempted coup on January 6 relied on evidence and testimony from conversations where he requested unlawful things or showed an unlawful motive, but he did so within the framework of his official duty as President. The case now returns to a lower court and the prosecutor must prove it without that evidence.

So henceforth from this Supreme Court ruling, the President can call up the Attorney General ("official duties," remember) and say, "find a reason to investigate and arrest my political opponent."

That act, that conversation is now protected. And that action will be carried out, and there is no legal recourse, at least not long after much damage has been done.

At many junctures, not only the January 6 capitol riot, but many others, Trump was only prevented from disastrous anti-democratic actions by principled staff and officials around him. This time around, Trump (or any other dictatorial pretender) will not make the mistake of filling their administration with anyone but sycophants. Trump installed many federal judges. Even leaving it up to the courts to decide if something is an "official" or "unofficial" act, after the fact, is now left to fiat.

> That act, that conversation is now protected.

It's even worse than that. The Supreme Court says prosecutors can't even question the motive for that corrupt action, meaning that essentially all conversations between a President and his AG are de jure assumed to be above board.

We must assume the President opened an investigation into his opponent because he had a good reason to do so. Otherwise we might restrict his ability to take bold and decisive action, according to the court.

You would think so right?

The problem is, the way things have been for the last couple of decades, many of us are not absolutely certain that the Senate would ever convict a sitting president unless it was 2/3rds of the opposite party -- which is pretty rare.

Probably, if a sitting president (regardless of party) assassinated a political rival, the Senate would convict. Probably.

They are almost certainly hyper-partisan Senators (of both parties) who would not convict a president from their own party no matter what.

The reasons for that would be multiple... greed, fear, a weird sense of loyality to the person, or even just a warped view of reality.

For example, if you thought Trump was Hitler 2.0 coming to take over the government and hunt down minorities and LGBTQ people, then you might feel justified in doing anything possible to prevent that -- including assassination.

Interesting, thanks for the insight! Hard to judge what's going on in the US sometimes from the other side of the pond :)

What’s happening in the U.S. isn’t politics. It’s a quasi-religious schism that goes to fundamental beliefs about the nature of human society, how government should work, etc.

It doesn’t map on in obvious ways to what you see in Europe. In Denmark, for example, immigration was a political issue. When it turned out the people wanted to restrict immigration, the left of center government supported “far right” immigration restrictions.

In America, a large part of the left sees immigration as a moral issue, not a political one. When Trump was first inaugurated, the left refused to even accept Trump as legitimate because of his opposition to immigration. Hilary Clinton called his supporters “deplorables” and said he was “illegitimate.” This was long before any of the bad things he did.

> This was long before any of the bad things he did.

The reason Trump is now a convicted felon is due to conduct that happened while he ran for office.

Are we not allowed to call into question the legitimacy of someone who commits crimes to get elected, and then uses his position to cover up for those crimes?

What were the crimes? At the debate, Biden said Trump was convicted for “sleeping with a porn star while his wife was pregnant.”

34 counts of falsification of business records.

I don't know what this is supposed to mean, but here is a detailed list of all 34 felony convictions.

https://www.npr.org/2024/05/30/g-s1-1848/trump-hush-money-tr...

If you have a point just make it.

You’re throwing around “34 felonies,” I’m trying to understand what you think was the legal theory he was convicted on.

Then you should have just asked that. My knowledge about the convictions comes from the court proceedings, not the debate. If you need info about the the charges you should read the transcripts.

Did you follow the trial? He committed election fraud by paying a porn star hush money in order to buy her silence, an expense which he didn't report, lied about, and then covered up with business fraud. For this he was charged and convicted with 34 felonies.

What makes it election fraud?

He used campaign funds to do it.

Moreover, the payments should have been reported as a campaign expenses, but they were not because doing so would have defeated their purpose. So the payments were fraudulently misrepresented to be lawyer fees, and when it was discovered, Trump lied about the scheme.

> the payments should have been reported as a campaign expenses

You have it exactly backward. The law is clear that "campaign expenses" cannot have any personal component. That makes sense, because the focus of the law is to prevent candidates from calling things "campaign expenses" that are actually for personal benefit. John Edwards was prosecuted for using campaign funds to keep his mistress silent because hiding an affair has a personal component in addition to a political component.

If Trump had been charged with a campaign-finance violation, his straightforward defense under well-established precedent would be that paying off Stormy Daniels had a personal component (avoiding personal embarrassment and his wife finding out), in addition to whatever effect it had on the campaign. The prosecution would have been required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump's marriage was so dysfunctional that the only reason he would have paid off Stormy Daniels was the election.

That's why prosecutors didn't charge him with a campaign finance violation.

Whatever you're trying to say here is lost in the weeds.

You also can't have your personal lawyer take out a loan and spend it on expenses for your campaign and not report that as a campaign expense.

If you're running for public office, you can't commit fraud to hide things from the electorate because you don't want them to find out. That can't be allowed in free and fair elections. If you get elected doing that, people have every reason to question your legitimacy. If you get caught and lie about it, expect people not to trust you. If you get charged with a crime related to that conduct, don't be surprised when a jury finds you guilty, because it's shady af. This is all very straightforward stuff.

> Whatever you're trying to say here is lost in the weeds.

No, I’m talking about the law. You’re wrong about what you think campaign finance law says.

> You also can't have your personal lawyer take out a loan and spend it on expenses for your campaign and not report that as a campaign expense.

The law is the exact opposite. You cannot call something a “campaign expense” if it is an expense you would incur “irrespective of the campaign.” (That’s the magic phrase in FEC regulations.) If you pay off your mistress and call it a campaign expense, you’ll be prosecuted for campaign finance violations, because the prosecutor would say that you could have non-campaign reasons to do that. John Edwards was prosecuted for doing exactly that.

The New York federal prosecutor (SDNY) investigated the exact theory you are talking about: charging Trump with a campaign finance violation. They didn’t bring the case because all Trump would have to do is prove that he would have paid off Stormy Daniels “irrespective of the campaign.”

And? Like I said you’re lost in the weeds. I think you’re focused too much on being coy, rather than what I’m saying.

> The law is the exact opposite.

As far as I know if you spend money on a campaign you have to report it. If you get someone to spend money for you, you have to report it.

Seems like what you're trying to say is he didn't have to report it because arguably it had a personal component. Okay but that apparently wasn't the case; after the trial it is clear the payments were mostly for the campaign and not to save his relationship or himself of personal embarrassment. If you're trying to say "well he wasn't charged that way so it can't be election fraud" then again, I think you're missing my point.

Either way, I'm left at trying to guess your point because you haven't been clear in making it.

> They didn’t bring the case because

And?? Leaving aside you don’t know why any prosecutor didn’t bring a case, what are you implying? Make your point instead of dancing around it for 2 days.

Whether a prosecutor thinks they can prove that at trial is a different matter. That he was charged under a different law doesn’t make the underlying conduct okay from an elections perspective whether or not some federal prosecutor decided to charge that.

Either way what he did was he committed fraud and lied about it as POTUS, committing some of those crimes in the Oval Office, all to increase the chances of being elected. That is not okay. That makes one arguably (and definitely in my mind) illegitimate as a public servant. Apparently it’s also a felony.

If you think that conduct is okay because of whatever technicalities you can come up with, you’re missing my entire point.

How could it be about "campaign funds" when the charge was about the Trump organization's business records? What you're describing is a straightforward campaign finance violation, which he could have been charged with if it were true.

34 felonies for paying someone not to talk about something? That sounds like the mundane, everyday activity I can possibly imagine at the highest level of politics.

Meanwhile we’re sending billions of dollars to obliterate a people in the Middle East which is a crime that will someday result in violence on our doorstep. Bill Clinton is on record flying to Epsteins island, and I could go on about the insane things our government has got away with.

I dont know anything about politics but that’s my reaction when people bring up “34 felonies”.

"I dont know anything about politics" ... "activity I can possibly imagine at the highest level of politics."

So you don't know what you're talking about and you're just making up scenarios in your head?

>This was long before any of the bad things he did.

You haven't been paying attention for long, have you?

Donald Trump was known as a fraudster and a genuine piece of shit since the 1980s at a minimum.

I grew up in a very wealthy suburb of NYC in the 90s and early 00s and was well aware of Donald Trump being a sideshow joke and a wannabe rich dude about 20 years before he was elected. Nobody in my hometown that had real money thought Donald Trump was anything besides a lawsuit-happy wannabe with midget hands.

None of that changes what parent's points you're trying to respond to. The a partisan divide in the US is so bad now that neither side accept the results of elections being legitimate. Or court rulings for that matter. There's no nuance, and everything is a partisan conspiracy to take over the country, or wreck it.

None of that changes the parent's points you're trying to respond to. The a partisan divide in the US is so bad now that neither side accept the results of elections being legitimate. Or court rulings for that matter. There's no nuance, and everything is a partisan conspiracy to take over the country, or wreck it. Trump is lousy and shouldn't be president, true. But he's a symptom or result of the ongoing partisanship and failed politics.