All the focus on Joe Biden’s political future this week overshadowed one of the more jaw-dropping allegations in American political history.
Did the U.S. Supreme Court really just give presidents the right to murder their political opponents?
Liberal justices argue it did.
In their dissent in the historic presidential immunity case, Trump v. United States, the court’s minority claimed the decision did more — much more — than just help the former U.S. president potentially escape his most serious legal predicament. It imperilled American democracy, they argued. And President Joe Biden has taken up that theme, warning that America’s nearly two-and-a-half-century-old republic is under assault.
“In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, signed by two colleagues.
“[Let’s say he] orders the Navy’s Seal Team Six to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon?
“Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”
The court’s majority opinion dismissed her writing as hyperbolic. But it never specifically denied the charge; in fact, the majority ruling was strangely muted on such an explosive allegation, one which calls into question the future of the republic.
Legal analysts seem split. Some, but not all, accuse Sotomayor of exaggerating. The outlet Politico quotes constitutional lawyers arguing the ruling did, in fact, potentially give the president dictatorial powers.
U.S. Supreme Court ruling on immunity criticized as ‘dangerous’
Donald Trump was quick to celebrate a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing presidential immunity for official acts while in office, a decision his opponents described as ‘unjustifiable’ and ‘dangerous.’
Here’s what the decision clearly does: It makes the president immune from prosecution for actions where he’s obviously exercising his official role. He is not immune for acts unrelated to his role. But in ambiguous cases, he’s presumed to be immune, and courts must decide on a case-by-case basis. But the court was light on specific examples.
The Supreme Court then punted the issue back to a trial court, further delaying Trump’s criminal trial for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election; it also weakened that case by forbidding the use of some evidence.
So what to believe here? Did the court actually provide a license to kill, in other words, allowing a violent dictatorship?
Yes, if you read it at face value
“Strictly read, on its face, is this what [the opinion] would permit? The answer is yes,” said Harold Hongju Koh, a Yale Law School professor who teaches national-security law and was legal adviser to the State Department during the Obama years.
“The way this opinion is worded, it’s broad enough to cover the most outrageous set of facts. So Justice Sotomayor was not being hyperbolic.”
In the minority opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor excoriated the decision, listing its dramatic implications. The chief justice didn’t appreciate it and called those examples hyperbolic. (Carolyn Kaster/The Associated Press)
But he adds a massive caveat: That the majority justices didn’t intend to address that issue. Instead, he said, they made clear they see this as their first presidential immunity case among potentially several, and they wanted to say as little as possible right now about other future scenarios.
In his view, an especially troubling part of the ruling sounded less dramatic and got less attention: The part forbidding the use of certain evidence against the president.
For example, the court forbids using Trump’s conversations with his acting attorney general about the 2020 election. This would seem to chop out part of the evidence against Trump in the indictment that accuses him of trying to steal the last election, as it refers to such conversations dozens of times.
What the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on immunity means for Donald Trump
Analysts discuss what happens now that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided anything a president does in an official capacity is immune to prosecution.
That’s a read shared by Jon Michaels, a professor of constitutional law at UCLA, who focuses on presidential power, national security and administrative law.
Chief Justice John Roberts may have tried pooh-poohing Sotomayor’s nightmare scenario, describing her writing as unnecessarily doomful, and disproportionate to the substance of the ruling. But Michaels says it’s his own fault.
He says the substance of the court opinion is problematically vague, and it’s even more troubling given the real-life personality at the centre of it who has repeatedly shown contempt for the law, including after the 2020 election.
“I believe the dissent is correct in characterizing the majority opinion in elevating the president above the law,” Michaels said.
“We’re not in hypothetical land. We’re dealing with Trump, who prides himself on pushing the bounds that constrain the rest of us.”
Another constitutional law professor told CBC’s Front Burner podcast that she shares this view, when asked about Sotomayor’s comments that the court has elevated presidents into kings above the law.
“I think they’re very fair and very concerning,” said University of Michigan professor Leah Litman.
A courtroom sketch shows, from left, Supreme Court justices Sonia Sotomayor, Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan listening to arguments about whether Trump is immune from prosecution on April 25 on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (Dana Verkouteren/The Associated Press)
Counterpoint: No way the court meant that
However, even some scholars who call Sotomayor’s interpretation fair, based on the strict wording of the court ruling, say it’s obviously not what the court meant.
The court didn’t provide an exhaustive list of potential scenarios, such as presidents murdering and bribing people, because this ruling was intended as the first of several eventual immunity cases, Koh says, and the full parameters of what’s allowed will be defined over time.
What the court did do was offer some specific examples from Trump’s election-overturning case. The Washington, D.C., court deciding that case must now consider these instructions before any trial.
“Were this [murder] case actually to arise, it could not possibly be the case that the president would be immune for ordering Seal Team Six to shoot a political rival,” Koh said.
“If we got to that point, and God help us if we did, you would hope it would be foreclosed.”
He said a dictatorial president could someday try claiming he was lawfully exercising his commander-in-chief power in issuing orders to kill, but really: “It’s just murder, or assassination.”
The very idea that the Supreme Court might ever allow this is preposterous, said Thomas Lee, a law professor at Fordham University in New York.
Sotomayor was wrong to even bring it up, said Lee, who is also former Pentagon lawyer and a U.S. naval cryptology officer. He noted there were more useful criticisms of the decision, which he agreed went too far.
He liked Amy Coney Barrett’s partial dissent. The more conservative justice distanced herself from some parts of the ruling, arguing it defined immunity too broadly, and erred in keeping official conversations from juries and courts.
Lee called Sotomayor’s claim an “unhelpful hypothetical.”
“There is no plausible argument that the president can use his commander-in-chief powers to use military forces to assassinate a political rival within the United States,” he said.
In a victory for former president Donald Trump, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that all presidents are immune from criminal prosecution for some ‘official acts’ but may still be prosecuted for ‘unofficial acts’ once they’ve left office. About That producer Lauren Bird explains what the ruling means for the legal challenges against Trump, and just how far presidential immunity extends.
He says there’s nothing in the Constitution’s list of presidential powers under Article Two that authorizes using the military, at home, against a political rival.
Plus, he said, even if a president tried to do such a thing, soldiers have a right and responsibility to refuse to follow an unlawful order.
Elena Chachko, a Berkeley Law professor whose focus includes administrative and national-security law, says it’s clear that the decision enhances presidential power, and could give an unscrupulous president wide scope for corrupt behaviour.
But killing a rival? No.
“The dissent exaggerates when it says that the court’s decision makes the president ‘a king above the law,’ [and empowers him] ‘to violate federal criminal law,’ ” she said.
The Supreme Court severely damaged the prosecution’s case against Trump and what they allege was his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, culminating in this attack against the U.S. Capitol by his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. The majority opinion offered specific examples related to that case, but was otherwise vague. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP/Getty Images)
So what is the court trying to do?
One thing the court unquestionably did was delay, and potentially fatally undermine, what is arguably the most politically serious case against Trump involving his actions in the lead-up to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
It’s also clear, these observers say, that the court wanted to avoid addressing a fuller range of hypothetical future cases involving presidential acts.
To illustrate his point, Koh summarizes the disagreement between the two sides in more colloquial language. He notes that Roberts seems to be saying that for some acts it’s clear a president can’t be prosecuted, for those where it’s not clear the courts will have to decide, and for others you obviously can prosecute a president — but this decision gives no examples of the latter.
In her dissent, Koh says, Sotomayor was pointing this out. “Like, ‘Are you kidding me? If ordering Seal Team Six to kill your political rival would not be immune, you should just say so right now, right here,’ and he doesn’t do it,” he said.
“Instead, he just sort of dismisses it as hysteria or emotions, which I thought was, you know, the most arrogant response you could imagine.”
Then again, Michaels said, Roberts’s caustic quote about Sotomayor peddling unrealistic scare-scenarios might be comforting to some, as he’s implicitly brushing off her Seal Team Six possibility.
In Lee’s view, the chief justice draws some blame for the confusion. While Roberts clearly wanted to step aside and let lower courts deal with any specific future cases, his vagueness has resulted in eye-popping takeaways.
“Roberts didn’t do himself any favours by being so vague,” Lee said.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston says it’s “disgraceful and demeaning” that a Halifax-area school would request that service members not wear military uniforms to its Remembrance Day ceremony.
Houston’s comments were part of a chorus of criticism levelled at the school — Sackville Heights Elementary — whose administration decided to back away from the plan after the outcry.
A November newsletter from the school in Middle Sackville, N.S., invited Armed Forces members to attend its ceremony but asked that all attendees arrive in civilian attire to “maintain a welcoming environment for all.”
Houston, who is currently running for re-election, accused the school’s leaders of “disgracing themselves while demeaning the people who protect our country” in a post on the social media platform X Thursday night.
“If the people behind this decision had a shred of the courage that our veterans have, this cowardly and insulting idea would have been rejected immediately,” Houston’s post read. There were also several calls for resignations within the school’s administration attached to Houston’s post.
In an email to families Thursday night, the school’s principal, Rachael Webster, apologized and welcomed military family members to attend “in the attire that makes them most comfortable.”
“I recognize this request has caused harm and I am deeply sorry,” Webster’s email read, adding later that the school has the “utmost respect for what the uniform represents.”
Webster said the initial request was out of concern for some students who come from countries experiencing conflict and who she said expressed discomfort with images of war, including military uniforms.
Her email said any students who have concerns about seeing Armed Forces members in uniform can be accommodated in a way that makes them feel safe, but she provided no further details in the message.
Webster did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At a news conference Friday, Houston said he’s glad the initial request was reversed but said he is still concerned.
“I can’t actually fathom how a decision like that was made,” Houston told reporters Friday, adding that he grew up moving between military bases around the country while his father was in the Armed Forces.
“My story of growing up in a military family is not unique in our province. The tradition of service is something so many of us share,” he said.
“Saying ‘lest we forget’ is a solemn promise to the fallen. It’s our commitment to those that continue to serve and our commitment that we will pass on our respects to the next generation.”
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill also said he’s happy with the school’s decision to allow uniformed Armed Forces members to attend the ceremony, but he said he didn’t think it was fair to question the intentions of those behind the original decision.
“We need to have them (uniforms) on display at Remembrance Day,” he said. “Not only are we celebrating (veterans) … we’re also commemorating our dead who gave the greatest sacrifice for our country and for the freedoms we have.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender said that while Remembrance Day is an important occasion to honour veterans and current service members’ sacrifices, she said she hopes Houston wasn’t taking advantage of the decision to “play politics with this solemn occasion for his own political gain.”
“I hope Tim Houston reached out to the principal of the school before making a public statement,” she said in a statement.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
REGINA – Saskatchewan Opposition NDP Leader Carla Beck says she wants to prove to residents her party is the government in waiting as she heads into the incoming legislative session.
Beck held her first caucus meeting with 27 members, nearly double than what she had before the Oct. 28 election but short of the 31 required to form a majority in the 61-seat legislature.
She says her priorities will be health care and cost-of-living issues.
Beck says people need affordability help right now and will press Premier Scott Moe’s Saskatchewan Party government to cut the gas tax and the provincial sales tax on children’s clothing and some grocery items.
Beck’s NDP is Saskatchewan’s largest Opposition in nearly two decades after sweeping Regina and winning all but one seat in Saskatoon.
The Saskatchewan Party won 34 seats, retaining its hold on all of the rural ridings and smaller cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
HALIFAX – Nova Scotia‘s growing population was the subject of debate on Day 12 of the provincial election campaign, with Liberal Leader Zach Churchill arguing immigration levels must be reduced until the province can provide enough housing and health-care services.
Churchill said Thursday a plan by the incumbent Progressive Conservatives to double the province’s population to two million people by the year 2060 is unrealistic and unsustainable.
“That’s a big leap and it’s making life harder for people who live here, (including ) young people looking for a place to live and seniors looking to downsize,” he told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
Anticipating that his call for less immigration might provoke protests from the immigrant community, Churchill was careful to note that he is among the third generation of a family that moved to Nova Scotia from Lebanon.
“I know the value of immigration, the importance of it to our province. We have been built on the backs of an immigrant population. But we just need to do it in a responsible way.”
The Liberal leader said Tim Houston’s Tories, who are seeking a second term in office, have made a mistake by exceeding immigration targets set by the province’s Department of Labour and Immigration. Churchill said a Liberal government would abide by the department’s targets.
In the most recent fiscal year, the government welcomed almost 12,000 immigrants through its nominee program, exceeding the department’s limit by more than 4,000, he said. The numbers aren’t huge, but the increase won’t help ease the province’s shortages in housing and doctors, and the increased strain on its infrastructure, including roads, schools and cellphone networks, Churchill said.
“(The Immigration Department) has done the hard work on this,” he said. “They know where the labour gaps are, and they know what growth is sustainable.”
In response, Houston said his commitment to double the population was a “stretch goal.” And he said the province had long struggled with a declining population before that trend was recently reversed.
“The only immigration that can come into this province at this time is if they are a skilled trade worker or a health-care worker,” Houston said. “The population has grown by two per cent a year, actually quite similar growth to what we experienced under the Liberal government before us.”
Still, Houston said he’s heard Nova Scotians’ concerns about population growth, and he then pivoted to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for trying to send 6,000 asylum seekers to Nova Scotia, an assertion the federal government has denied.
Churchill said Houston’s claim about asylum seekers was shameful.
“It’s smoke and mirrors,” the Liberal leader said. “He is overshooting his own department’s numbers for sustainable population growth and yet he is trying to blame this on asylum seekers … who aren’t even here.”
In September, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller said there is no plan to send any asylum seekers to the province without compensation or the consent of the premier. He said the 6,000 number was an “aspirational” figure based on models that reflect each province’s population.
In Halifax, NDP Leader Claudia Chender said it’s clear Nova Scotia needs more doctors, nurses and skilled trades people.
“Immigration has been and always will be a part of the Nova Scotia story, but we need to build as we grow,” Chender said. “This is why we have been pushing the Houston government to build more affordable housing.”
Chender was in a Halifax cafe on Thursday when she promised her party would remove the province’s portion of the harmonized sales tax from all grocery, cellphone and internet bills if elected to govern on Nov. 26. The tax would also be removed from the sale and installation of heat pumps.
“Our focus is on helping people to afford their lives,” Chender told reporters. “We know there are certain things that you can’t live without: food, internet and a phone …. So we know this will have the single biggest impact.”
The party estimates the measure would save the average Nova Scotia family about $1,300 a year.
“That’s a lot more than a one or two per cent HST cut,” Chender said, referring to the Progressive Conservative pledge to reduce the tax by one percentage point and the Liberal promise to trim it by two percentage points.
Elsewhere on the campaign trail, Houston announced that a Progressive Conservative government would make parking free at all Nova Scotia hospitals and health-care centres. The promise was also made by the Liberals in their election platform released Monday.
“Free parking may not seem like a big deal to some, but … the parking, especially for people working at the facilities, can add up to hundreds of dollars,” the premier told a news conference at his campaign headquarters in Halifax.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
