this post was submitted on 08 Feb 2026
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[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 1 points 7 months ago

the supreme court basically gave him a 100% pass on the insurrection, they basically declared that a president cannot be held criminally liable for anything while in office.

It's important to remember two things: SCOTUS ruled that POTUS had immunity for any OFFICIAL acts as president, AND this has not been tested in any court.

Official Acts as president would be those outlined in the Constitution, not literally everything he does, like MAGA likes to tell you (hint: they lie, all the time). MAGA was making noise about charging Obama with murder for his drone strikes of terrorist targets (even though they'd have no problem doing worse), but this ruling would give him immunity for that, since that falls under his Constitutional responsibilities. On the other hand, if Trump were to make good on his threat to shoot someone in the head on Fifth Avenue, he could still be charged with murder, since the murder of an innocent American citizen would NOT fall under his Constitutional responsibilities. Gee, where did the order for ICE to start shooting people in the street originate?

Likewise, there is no possible way that any activity as seditious as leading an Insurrection could ever be interpreted as within a president's Constitutional responsibilities, nor would stealing hundreds of classified documents, some of which were likely sold.

He will still get away with countless crimes, hidden by his presidency as well as the sheer flood of corruption that flows from him on an industrial scale. But there are plenty that he can still answer for. For instance, his corruption has directly violated the emoluments clause in mind-boggling ways, and all of it is expressly forbidden in the Constitution, and therefore could NEVER be construed as "OFFICIAL" acts.

The Supreme Court has never put guidelines on the presidency before that ruling, and now there are actual boundaries, as defined by "OFFICIAL Acts." Obviously, MAGA is going to interpret that as broadly as possible, and it's up to the rest of America to interpret it tightly, and test it in court, over and over and over.