The Supreme Court's "Originalism" Unmasked
Say what you will about those conservative Supreme Court justices, they certainly have a fine sense of irony. Two hundred forty-eight years almost to the day after colonial leaders announced that they were done with monarchy, the Supremes — in the Trump immunity ruling issued on July 1 — basically announced that actually, no, we’re not done with monarchy.
Let’s hope that’s not the last word. For now, though it is the word.
After Richard M. Nixon left the White House in disgrace, he said, “if the President does it that means it is not illegal.” (Nixon might well have become the first indicted ex-President a half century before Trump claimed the honor, but his successor, Gerald Ford, pre-emptively pardoned him. Nobody then thought an ex-President was immune.) At the time, most people thought that the sleazy, megalomaniacal ex-President was just saying something outrageous. Turns out he was ahead of his time. The Supreme Court has just made that clear.
The Court came up with three levels of immunity: If the alleged act involved core Presidential functions, immunity is absolute. If the alleged offenses involve no official acts, immunity is zero. In between — if the acts are official but not core — there is a rebuttable presumption of immunity. But you can’t take evidence from the core functions to rebut it or do anything else. The President’s intent, the content of protected speech — any other niceties are irrelevant.
https://www.postalley.org/2024/07/12/the-supreme-courts-originalism-unmasked/
= new reply since forum marked as read
