The issue is that blanket immunity for official acts is not just raising the bar, it's launching it into orbit. Not only can a president not be prosecuted for questionable decisions or on scant evidence, they can not be prosecuted when their crimes are heinous and obvious so long as it is plausibly within their domain.
I have no problem choosing between the chance there will be a President who abuses immense power over everyone in the nation with no real accountability, and the chance a slew of people (prosecutors, investigators, judges) will act maliciously and repeatedly to persecute a single person. Does SCOTUS really fear that federal Judges like them can't recognize malicious and baseless indictments?
What issue? That's never been an issue in 200 years.
I can't make up my mind if this is "movie plot threat" or not. Has it happened to other important figures before?
And can the prosecution be punished for this kind of behaviour?
Then again, I guess if you can shop around for (politically-appointed) judges, it wouldn't be too hard to find a judge to indulge some bullshit prosecution.
This is laid out clearly in the dissent, complete with references for further reading. Meanwhile the majority’s argument is “lack of immunity (which has, so far, not existed!!!) would make the president too timid, so we’re adding immunity”.
Impeachment is only a prerequisite to the Senate possibly convicting in the political rather than criminal trial and removing the person from office, and then possibly disqualifying them from future federal office. It has no bearing on whatever criminal procedures are not blocked by immunity.
More specifically, the role of the house impeachment and senate hearing is removal someone from office. That's it. There's no potential for punitive action (fines, jail, etc).
Only, the requirement of a supermajority means that a minority can prevent a president from being convicted of blatantly criminal acts. This system is demonstrably weak against corruption, to which the USSC has given its full-throated approval.
Trump was acquitted by the Senate for his conduct on Jan 6. It’s OK to disagree with the acquittal but it did in fact happen.
Ultimately it’s really hard to design a constitution that is effective in opposing half of the population. You can’t solve mass social issues with laws.
"there are probably 10s of 1000s of them" also feels a little lacking to me. Do we have concrete examples?
[1] https://mwi.westpoint.edu/ten-years-after-the-al-awlaki-kill...
How many former presidents or rivals tried to prevent the transfer of power?
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-coup
There's a specific reason why Trump is being investigated. We're not talking about jay-walking here.
And there's also intent with action, using yet another case: Biden had classified documents in his home residence, but he handed them back to the government with minimal fuss. Trump had classified documents and moved them around even after being subpoenaed to return them:
* https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/12/donald-trump...
* https://apnews.com/article/trump-justice-department-indictme...
As best I can tell, most who voted for him didn't actually believe he would do that - and he didn't. The whole "because you'd be in jail" was Trump being Trump, not a campaign promise.
When Trump says something like that, knowing whether he's in earnest or being bombastic is like knowing what parts of the Bible are literal and what parts are figurative - it's very much open to individual interpretation.
What illegal acts did Obama do, while POTUS, yet outside of his 'official duties', what would warrant prosecution?
Remember the context for this decision: Trump's participation in the events of January 6:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capito...
You know, the insurrection in which people have been found guilty of seditious action:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_proceedings_in_the_Ja...
Were his January 6 actions part of his official duties?
No one (that I know of) seriously thought he should go to prison for those acts, but honestly the argument seems pretty easy to be made without some sort of immunity.
We have monarchy after monarchy to show that sovereign immunity builds toxic ontological relationships between participants of a political system, and often invites tyranny. Your suspicions, for 238 years straight, have been amiss.
This ruling serves one specific purpose: to protect one single person from the consequences of their crimes.
This has always been presumed to be the case yet it has never resulted in what you say. It's a nonsense theoretical as cover for what is otherwise utterly indefensible as making the president king.
