“Boring,“ I said when I first learned of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity last Monday.

The ruling seemed pretty straightforward: A former president is immune from later prosecution for any official acts committed during his presidency, but not entitled to immunity for unofficial acts.

“Under our constitutional structure of separated powers,’ wrote Chief Justice John Roberts for the court’s 6-3 majority, “the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.”

To break that down a bit: a former president can’t be criminally prosecuted once he leaves office for actions he committed while carrying out his core constitutional duties.

For every other official act, a president is immune from prosecution, but there’s a catch: a court can find that prosecution would not encroach on future presidential duties and let it proceed. Or it can find that the act was not an official act.

If the act was not an official act, such as if the president decided to recreate the Burning of Washington and intentionally set fire to the White House, there’s no immunity whatsoever. Better keep the matches away from Joe.

It makes sense to me. Immunity is sometimes necessary when carrying out the core duties of the presidency because a president who fears later prosecution for fulfilling those duties could easily avoid them altogether. President Barack Obama likely wouldn’t have ordered the killing of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden if he thought he’d be charged with conspiracy to commit murder after leaving office. Most of us like bin Laden a lot better as a dead terrorist than we did as a live one.

Last Monday’s ruling on immunity involved claims brought by former president and presumed GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, who is celebrating the ruling as a huge victory in his numerous criminal cases. It’s hardly a get-out-of-jail free card for his remaining federal and state criminal charges.

But according to the politicians and pundits of the left wing who collectively lost their Tater Tots, the Supreme Court might as well have put Constitution through the shredder and given a sitting president the right to execute by guillotine anyone who irritates him.

In a speech Monday afternoon, freshly spray-tanned President Joe Biden said Monday said there were now “virtually no limits” on what crimes a president could get away with.

A senior politics reporter for HuffPost put out a piece Monday night headlined “Supreme Court Gives Joe Biden The Legal OK To Assassinate Donald Trump.”

MSNBC pundit Joy Reid had a straight-up meltdown on her TikTok account. (I thought she had an actual show where she can do that.)

Even some of the Court’s liberal justices went down the crime spree rabbit hole. “When (the President) uses his official powers in any way,” wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor, “Under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution.”

Wrong.

“Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 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.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

How in the wide world would a court even arrive at concluding that assassinating a political rival is official presidential business? I didn’t have “Ponder how a president could assassinate his political rivals” on my 2024 bingo card, but we’re here, so let’s do it: The president would surely need to have evidence up the ying-yang that his rival posed such imminent danger to the public that anything other than instantly neutralizing the rival would put lives, health and safety at risk.

That would require Osama bin Laden-like evil, manifested in someone who at the same time had already beguiled the public enough to rise to the level of a presidential challenger or congressional opposition leader.

The evidence would have to be so plentiful and irrefutable that in comparison, a judge tasked with determining whether the hit job qualified as an official act would be less convinced that water is wet.

We may be living in interesting times and dealing with unprecedented questions, but we are not that far into the mesosphere of absurdity yet. Not by a long shot.

And frankly, to revisit whether a president truly can order Seal Team Six to take out his political rivals now: If it really were true, Biden should have ordered it done the same day the Court’s decision was released — before that 10:00-4:00 time frame during which he’s “dependably engaged” had a chance to expire. If the last 10 days are any indicator, that may be his only way to beat Trump.

Monday’s ruling has huge implications, for sure. Nobody is suggesting that a court should be totally oblivious to or ignorant of the real impacts of its rulings. To suggest otherwise is a dishonor to those who have endured the pains undertaken in past pursuits of justice, especially in some of the Court’s most landmark cases.

But the courts cannot, as Roberts wrote, “fixate exclusively, or even primarily, on present exigencies,” for it would have “profound consequences for the separation of powers and for the future of our Republic.”

Very few Americans remember an education system where students were purposely separated among racial lines. But in 1954, school segregation was still tolerated widely, even required by law in 17 states and explicitly mandated by multiple state constitutions. The justices who unanimously decided Brown v. Board of Education surely knew before they issued their ruling that it would result in tremendous political and social backlash and resistance in the form of violence.

Imagine if those justices had actually allowed that imminent political and social fallout to temper their decision-making and dissuade them from ruling in favor of integrating our schools.

In 1966, the Supreme Court threw out the conviction of an Arizona man who had made a written confession to kidnapping and sexually assaulting a teenage girl, finding that his constitutional rights were violated when he was not informed of his right to remain silent or to have counsel present.

The Court surely knew that by overturning Miranda’s conviction, they were freeing a confessed rapist and hindering chances of a conviction upon retrial. They also likely knew that their ruling in Miranda v. Arizona would result in dangerous people eluding conviction for heinous crimes in the future over investigators’ technical mistakes.

But if they hadn’t ruled as they did, imagine how many undeserving people over the past six decades would have experienced a life that was altered — or worse, ruined — because they weren’t informed of their legal rights.

The presidential immunity case does what all cases before the Supreme Court do: address a pressing judicial question within the boundaries of the Constitution and the rule of law.

If the Court were to avoid the merits of the case and rule based on the implications or ramifications or doomsday-level fearmongering that we’ve now seen, the Court would have treated Donald Trump not as above the law, but beneath it.

Contrary to what some would have you believe, the federal (and state) criminal cases against Trump are just as alive as they were before the Supreme Court’s ruling. Lower courts have yet to determine if any of those charges will be dropped or dismissed. Those courts could easily — perhaps even likely — find that not all of Trump’s alleged criminal actions constitute official actions and are not subject to presidential immunity.

But he still gets a chance to first have those determinations. No matter how much you hate him, Donald Trump is entitled to the same civil and constitutional process that you and I are. And when the cases involve unusual or unprecedented circumstances, it’s wholly reasonable that the application of the law would first require interpretation.

That takes time, of course, and it’s apparent that the trials themselves — particularly the verdicts — will not happen after the November election.

That’s what truly has the left wing so irate. They’re not actually worried about a president using Seal Team Six to take out his opponent(s) or sell nuclear secrets to bad dudes on the other side of the world. That’s all part of the strategy to get voters to question the legitimacy of the ruling. And maybe even that of the Court itself.

They’re mad because they likely no longer get to use any upcoming criminal verdicts as evidence against Trump in the court of public opinion, where the jury is every eligible American voter and the question is which one to hold our noses and vote for. There are no delays in that case. Deliberations conclude and a verdict is to be rendered on November 5.

Let the hysteria continue if it must. Let the Democrats and their panic machine try to convince you that they’re running against the Supreme Court this election. Let them think that SCOTUS is their biggest worry right now. (Sure.)

But don’t taint the judicial process to satisfy political desires, either. To do so would be … well, unjust.

Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com

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