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Comment by abeppu | Hacker News Reader

I dunno, I think it's a real point badly made.

In the first Trump administration, people talked about the emoluments clause and all the ways Trump was getting extra revenue from charging the Secret Service for hotel rooms at his properties when they were protecting him, or pressuring foreign diplomats to stay at his hotel to curry favor, etc etc. But the scale of this stuff was tiny in comparison to federal spending and wouldn't show up on any graph of the national debt or the federal budget.

But then he not only got away with everything, the SCOTUS ruling on immunity for "official acts" gives him broad protection for basically anything going forward. If he was directing Musk to use that Treasury Department payment system to send huge deposits directly to Trump's accounts, there would be no consequences. There's no reason not to milk the office for everything he can, and the institutional safeguards have collapsed.

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> the SCOTUS ruling on immunity for "official acts" gives him broad protection for basically anything going forward

How is this any different than the qualified immunity given to many law enforcement officers? I mean, personally I am in favor of qualified immunity going away…but why is it surprising that the president wouldn’t have something similar?

Seems to me that both a LEO as well as the president can lose their immunity if it’s determined that what they have done that they need immunity from falls outside of “official acts”. Might be harder to prove for the president, but not insurmountable.

IANAL:

- to my understanding, qualified immunity of law enforcement or other government officials is from civil lawsuits; if I get injured while being arrested, I can't sue the arresting officer. It also only applies while they're actually doing their job, and not violating clearly established law.

- the presumptive immunity that SCOTUS claims the president enjoys is a shield from criminal prosecution. The definition of "official acts" is unclear but seems to extend to tweeting to a mob during one's term in office.

But further, I think in context the SCOTUS recognition of such an immunity was surprising because it came after the DOJ had maintained that even if Trump was committing crimes in office, it was against department policy to prosecute him while in office, and then once he's out of office and charges are pursued, the court claimed that charges still could not be pursued.

> the president can lose their immunity if it’s determined

Determined by the 6-3 conservative court? I think that's unrealistic.

He said in his first campaign that he could shoot someone on fifth avenue and not suffer any consequences, and it turns out he was right.

>He said in his first campaign that he could shoot someone on fifth avenue and not suffer any consequences, and it turns out he was right.

Actually, that would probably be one of the few things that fail the "official act" test. Ordering the military to shoot someone, however....

> qualified immunity of law enforcement or other government officials is from civil lawsuits;

To a degree law enforcement officers are immunized by their official acts. Where as some of those same acts are inherently criminal if a civilian was to do them. The argument being that police need an assurance that a violent act they must undertake (that would be criminally illegal for a civilian to do) in the course of doing their duty will not be, by default, prosecuted as if they were a civilian.

I think it’s not that different an argument for the president. A good example is President Obama’s drone strike against Al-Awlaki which essentially was a pretty stark violation of the 6th Amendment. That same immunity protection applies here as well. By arguing that fighting the war on terror as an official duty of the president, the President has immunity from the criminal act of intentionally killing a US citizen as a part of that duty.

> He said in his first campaign that he could shoot someone on fifth avenue and not suffer any consequences

Obvious bluster about his popularity and not relevant. However even to do that today he would need to have the predicate of it being an official act, without that he would be liable…and from what I have seen of this court, the conservative justices do not always vote in lockstep with each other.

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