The Court Crowns an ‘Alleged’ King

No, Not This Guy, the Crazy One

The SCOTUS ruling on Trump’s immunity plea is deceptive. MAGAs are getting away with saying it just upholds the Constitution or there is no change because it centers on specific language- that is- that there is immunity only for official acts, and not for unofficial or private acts. So, they sent it back to the lower court to decide which acts were official and which weren’t.

Still, liberals say that it gives the president unlimited powers.

Does it?

Well, yes.

While it sounds all patriotic n’shit to say only ‘official acts’ are immune, there are three vast chasms in the ruling that serve to destroy the foundation of our democracy- that no one is above the law.

First, and most importantly, the question itself is altered to fit the Trump narrative- are ‘alleged official acts’ immune? It ignores criminal status throughout the decision. It says the president is immune from prosecution for all alleged official acts, and since he can absolutely ‘allege’ anything is an ‘official act’, that includes breaking the law. So, as Justice Sotomayer pointed out in her dissent- bribery, assassination, extortion- all can be an ‘alleged official act’ and suddenly legal for one person.

Second, it expands ‘official acts’ to the vaguely described ‘outer perimeter’ of presidential duties, which is where Trump claims he gets his directive to ‘investigate fraud’ and even to run for office again. He claims they are all ‘official acts’ if he did them. And it imposes ‘presumptive immunity’ for most of the White House staff’s actions. Yes, it’s circular logic. Yes, it’s batshit, too. But, now it’s SCOTUS Approved batshit.

Thirdly, it immunizes all interactions and communications with staff from subpoena, testimony or criminal charge in all cases. And it makes it specifically illegal for a prosecutor to use inter-office testimony to establish a president’s motive. This literally means that Chief of Staff Mark Meadow’s testimony likely can’t be admitted in Trump’s J6 trial, nor any of the correspondence or records of discussion or interactions with the staff. Part of Smith’s case is the attempted weaponizing of the DOJ to spread the lie about voter fraud in 2020. This charge may now have to be dropped.

All of this pretzel logic was twisted out of that 1st deception- the Court’s phrasing it as ‘alleged official acts’- Trump’s defense- instead of ‘criminal acts’- Smith’s case. The Circuit Court decision was based on the original ruling by Judge Chutkan that Trump was not immune from prosecution for criminal acts committed in office. The question was- are criminal acts by the president immune? They said no. The Trump defense throughout was that these were ‘official actions’ because he was president. The courts said they weren’t, and that criminal actions couldn’t be official.

That’s why the question the SCOTUS addressed was ‘are alleged official actions’ immune from prosecution?’

The SCOTUS made this change in the question to allow this decision.

And, from there, they just went to town, inventing new executive branch laws that degrade prosecutions and fairness in the legal system.

One of the cornerstones of modern law is the ‘crime/fraud exception’.

If a felony crime is involved, the person or act is not immune. As everyone knows from TV shows, at least, attorney client privilege is sacred until you get to felonies. You can’t protect criminal actions.

But, now, those crimes are immune as long as the president was involved. Communications between staff and Trump laying out the plan for the Elipse rally and the attack on the Capitol can’t be used against him. Indeed, the entire case against Jeffrey Clark is likely moot because all inter-departmental functions fall under the new definition of ‘immune official acts’.

Several of Trump’s lawyers have already been charged or convicted for crimes relating to J6 and the elector’s scheme. Several staff were involved. Much of the evidence that supports their cases is now inadmissible and immune. So, Trump may be immune from the forgery charge because his involvement was through intermediaries.

Trump has already filed to have his conviction in NY for election fraud overturned because of the new immunity ruling. He has claimed in his Florida docs case that he is immune because he took them when he was president. And he already maintains that everything he did pertaining to J6 was an ‘official act’.

So, everything now has to go through the evidentiary review process in the lower courts, where most of it will obviously be ruled unoffical and criminal, be appealed by Trump to the same circuit that already said he has no immunity, and then back to the SCOTUS where the ‘FedSoc 6’ will give it to him anyways.

This is a calculated plan to keep Trump from being jailed before the election, yes, but the MAGA backers know that if Trump loses and can’t just expunge everything, the trials can be overwhelmed with an eternal string of motions filed pursuant to this ruling that will stop the progress of every case.

And one judge, Aileen Cannon in the Florida documents case, is visibly doing this now, entertaining and holding hearings for some of the most ridiculous motions to cross a bench. Like, allowing consideration of the Presidential Records Act as exculpatory based on Trump’s outright blatant lie that it lets him keep anything he wants. It most explicitly doesn’t, and every other judge would have denied the motion.

But no, Cannon actually ordered both parties to write hypothetical jury instructions based on Trump’s fabricated assertion as the law. She still hasn’t ruled on it, keeping it in her pocket in case there has to be a trial, to launch a dismissal over it as soon as ‘jeopardy’ attaches, meaning Trump can’t be tried again for the same charges.

And, now, after stalling again with the immunity decision, she has dismissed the case outright over the outrageous idea that the Special Prosecutor, Smith, was illegally appointed.

So, yes, it’s all just bonkers.

Twi- I mean X, ffs, was alive with liberal commenters asking, demanding that Biden use this newfound immunity to just throw Trump in jail, add more justices, etc.

The problem with that is we already know that the Republican machine is nothing if not cartoonishly hypocritical.

McConnell said, after acquitting Trump twice, that the law would still apply to him- we see now that it won’t. So, too, will any attempt by Biden to use this immunity be called ‘unofficial’ by this SCOTUS, and likely, that’s when they’ll remember the word ‘criminal’.

That’s why Sotomayer lamented the lack of distinction of criminal acts as unofficial. By leaving it out in favor of only ‘alleged’ official versus unofficial, they have surreptitiously immunized the president from actual crime. Abuse of the office itself is now immune, because the court is allegedly worried that prosecuting a president for such a crime would jeopardize the job.

Yes, they think a president might hesitate to take ‘bold action’ out of fear of prosecution if forced to transgress the law in the course of their duties.

They and Republicans have been silent on exactly which crimes a president may need to commit while in office (but suffice to say, it’s ‘all of them’).

Or why, out of 46 presidents, only the one convicted of a felony and facing 3 more trials for alleged felonies during his term is asking for immunity.

We still have the sitting president non-indictment doctrine, where none are charged during their term, which came about as a result of Nixon. That’s, of course, the primary reason Trump is running- winning guarantees his freedom.

So, how can it affect his job when he’s out of office? No, not that ‘fear of prosecution’ crap again. How, really?

What they mean is, prosecuting Trump would jeopardize him and the Republican agenda.

I mean, face it, if they had to rule on every crime Trump committed in office, they’d be there every day for months. No one has that kind of time.

But, ultimately, the GOP’s, Cannon’s and SCOTUS FedSoc 6’s job right now is just to keep Trump out of jail. Delay as much as possible until after the election. If he wins, all cases are moot. If he loses, these new immunities will mean years of motions.

But, the most important thing this ruling does is set up those immunity expansions and interoffice secrecies, blurring the line between criminal and official behavior and giving Trump more freedom to manipulate executive branch departments, just as Project 2025 is looming to give him direct control over almost all of the physical government.

So, yes, if you’re into conspiracy shit, this sure is one. The way SCOTUS and Cannon are treating theses cases falls completely in line with the powers and controls laid out in Project 2025.

The system that makes these corrupt rules will gladly talk out the other side if Biden or any Democrat tries to push back by taking advantage of the newly hatched immunities. While Trump’s talks with Barr are now immune, any news of Biden even discussing anything with Merrick Garland would still be considered a criminal exemption by Republicans.

So, it’s the little parts of the ruling that really sting us all in the ass. The expansion of official duties to ‘outer perimeter’, the immunization of executive staff and the lack of criminal distinction are the real points.

Project 2025, I hope to God you know, is the Heritage Foundation-backed plan for a complete conservative Christian Nationalist takeover of the government to be executed in Trump’s first 180 days. It includes everything from banning all abortion to imprisoning immigrants to leaving NATO and banning CRT and DEI, dismantling the EPA, the IRS and the Department of Education, criminalizing LGBTQs and making Christian doctrine official policy. It’s 900 pages of conservative culture war complaints and their plan for control under a Trump administration.

So, the SCOTUS FedSoc 6 has joined the team, working to make sure Trump doesn’t get derailed by, um, prison. They join the Republicans, Putin, Fox News and Heritage in working to make Project 2025 the new reality.

If you’re thinking that would be really, really bad, you’re right.

Republicans must lose the 2024 election spectacularly if our republic is to survive as Constitutional and democratic.

We must make that happen.

C.2024 Cousin B