Who gets to decide the lawfulness of the order, and what physical power does the Executive have at his disposal to bring to bear to tip their judgment?
iirc every US service man/woman is empowered to disobey orders. I think they call it "answering to a higher authority" or something like that, granted there are severe consequences for disobeying an order that turns out to be lawful no matter how much you don't like it.
The courts. Military courts have been handling this for a long time. No reason civilian courts couldn't apply the same standards in the case of a president.
If the president is able to bring physical power to bear, then it matters little what the law says anyway.
The previous POTUS is accused of using his office to perform a series of actions that culminated in disruption of the function of Congress.
Several Congresspeople then concluded he could not be impeached because by the time they were able to consider the question, he had left office.
This ruling by SCOTUS suggests there is now no avenue to hold such a President accountable for such actions.
... and that's before we broach the question of whether "Removal from the Oval Office" is sufficient punishment for all manner of crime the President could commit from his position of power, because that is the upper limit of the effect of a Congressional impeachment. This seems to give a sitting President carte blanche to throw the Constitution in a wood-chipper if he can interpret it is within his official acts to do so.
>The previous POTUS is accused of using his office to perform a series of actions that culminated in disruption of the function of Congress.
Yes, and was impeached for that.
>Several Congresspeople then concluded he could not be impeached because by the time they were able to consider the question, he had left office.
That's how checks and balances work. They may have made that conclusion, but the impeachment carried on anyway and failed to gain the 2/3rds majority.
>This ruling by SCOTUS suggests there is now no avenue to hold such a President accountable for such actions.
It doesn't suggest that at all.
>whether "Removal from the Oval Office" is sufficient punishment for all manner of crime the President could commit from his position of power, because that is the upper limit of the effect of a Congressional impeachment.
It's removal from office AND "the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.[0]" They can still be found guilty for insurrection after impeachment.
>This seems to give a sitting President carte blanche to throw the Constitution in a wood-chipper if he can interpret it is within his official acts to do so.
That's not how it works because at the end of the day the President doesn't interpret the law, and isn't shielded from impeachment and justice through state/federal courts as I outlined above. This is literally the majority opinion. Similarly, just because a military officer interprets their actions are lawful doesn't make them so.
