Rude Pundit: The Question that Justice Sonia Sotomayor Should Have Asked About Absolute Immunity for Presidents [View all]

https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-question-that-justice-sonia.html

Last week's Supreme Court hearing in Trump v. United States (as accurate a case name as I've seen), aka "The One About Immunity from Prosecution," was, to put it mildly, a shitshow at the monkeyfuck factory. In a case that should never have been taken, at least 5 of the justices, all the men, seemed to actually believe that Donald Trump and, presumably (but who knows), every president should have some immunity from being charged and tried as a criminal from acts done while president. In this case, it's to try to get Trump out of any responsibility for the January 6 insurrection, which Special Counsel Jack Smith is trying to get to trial. Frankly, the hearing was a disgrace, a disgusting display of a deviant ideology that was disposed of in the goddamned Declaration of Independence. These right-wing dickholes actually tried to come up with ways that laws don't apply to a president.

Early in the arguments, Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Trump's attorney, D. John Sauer, the question on everyone's mind: "If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person and he orders the military or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?" And Sauer gave the answer that everyone expected: "It would depend on the hypothetical. We can see that could well be an official act." In other words, "Yes." In otherer words, the president can render the death penalty without any due process at all. In otherest words, there really is no difference between a president and a king and fuck the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the entire history of the country.

Later in the hearing, Alito tried to throw aside Sotomayor's speculation about assassinations like he tosses civil rights into the garbage. "I think one could say it's not plausible that that is legal, that that action would be legal," Alito stammered to Sauer, trying to unfuck the fucked up implications of what he plainly believes. "And --and I'm sure you've thought --I've thought of lots of hypotheticals, I'm sure you've thought of lots of hypotheticals, where a president could say, I'm using an official power, and yet the president uses it in an absolutely outrageous manner."

See, what Sotomayor should have asked at that moment of panicky bullshit from Alito was "Could President Biden decide Justice Alito is corrupt and order that he be assassinated? Is that an official act for which he could get immunity?" Because then Sauer would have had to repeat his answer that it "could well be an official act" and then that puts things in fucking stark territory: A vote to uphold this insanity is a vote for your own murder.