Its more like "immunity for any action within the realm of presidential power, regardless of motive or criminality". Accepting a bribe in exchange for a pardon would be A-ok on the basis that pardoning is a “conclusive and preclusive”
authority of the president.
> The opposite holding, where they are liable for everything, would be untenable.
Literally no one was arguing for this and there are much more reasonable interpretations of presidential immunity you could compare this one to.
> The President’s authority to pardon, in other words, is “conclusive and preclusive,” “disabling the Congress from acting upon the subject.”
> Congress cannot act on, and courts cannot examine, the President’s actions on subjects within his “conclusive and preclusive” constitutional authority. It follows that an Act of Congress—either a specific one targeted at the President or a generally applicable one—may not criminalize the President’s actions within his exclusive constitutional power. Neither may the courts adjudicate a criminal prosecution that examines such Presidential actions. We thus conclude that the President is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for conduct within his exclusive sphere of constitutional authority.
Further evidence is that Sotomayors makes the claim in no uncertain terms and that the majority makes zero effort to dispute it.
Yes, I agree - the President is immune for the official act they undertake, the existence of which allows for a the charge of bribery.
They are not immune for the non-official act of soliciting or accepting bribes in exchange for an official act, which is the charge of bribery.
So if the President took a bribe in order to make someone ambassador to Sweden, they could not be prosecuted for making that person the ambassador, but they could be prosecuted for taking the bribe.
Note that the majority opinion forbids prosecutors from referencing the official act in court, no matter the charge. So they'd have to prove the President accepted a bribe, but never mention anything about the ambassadorship. How could a jury ever reach a guilty verdict? At most, the evidence would point to a President receiving a lavish monetary gift.
This isn't a misreading of the ruling. Justice Barret dissented from that particular part of the majority opinion, bringing up the hypothetical of bribery.
If you read footnote 3 it says the prosecutor may reference official records of the act. They simply may not reference the president’s personal records. So you are not really correct.
SCOTUS has repeatedly hemmed in the scope of bribery charges and expanded executive privilege. The only way to nail the president for a corrupt appointment at this rate would be:
Enter LOBBYIST and POTUS on CONGRESS floor
LOBBYIST: projecting voice I am now rendering payment in exchange my appointment as ambassador to Sweden. What say you?
POTUS: projecting voice Yes, I knowingly accept these improper funds and -
CONGRESS immediately gathers a quorum, impeaches, and removes POTUS mid-sentence
How can you determine that the bribe was for an official act if “… courts cannot examine the President’s actions on subjects within his “conclusive and preclusive” constitutional authority”? In other words, if courts cannot even examine the official action, then what is the bribe even for? A bribe needs to be connected to an action to be considered a bribe at all.
They can reference the action. They just can’t examine the presidents motivation. But they could present evidence like “President X received $500,000 in cash from Mr Y as recorded on this video. Two days later President X pardoned Mr Y’s brother.”
They just decided last week in Snyder v. United States that its only a bribe if you have clear evidence, and a suspicious gift is just fine and perfectly legal.
Discussing the expectations of appointments with potential candidates is an official act as president and would enjoy immunity the same way that conferring to commit crimes with the DOJ does. It is theoretically possible that the dumbest person alive could get convicted but generally the latitude seems to be insanely wide.
We just established last week that obviously the bribe would come after the official act, making it a gratuity and thus free and clear of any whiff of wrongdoing.
> The opposite holding, where they are liable for everything, would be untenable.
Literally no one was arguing for this and there are much more reasonable interpretations of presidential immunity you could compare this one to.