Edit - Politics Stack Exchange

You are not logged in. Your edit will be placed in a queue until it is peer reviewed.

We welcome edits that make the post easier to understand and more valuable for readers. Because community members review edits, please try to make the post substantially better than how you found it, for example, by fixing grammar or adding additional resources and hyperlinks.

8

A lot of people are misunderstanding the significance of these ruling. It's less that it grants the American president immunity while in office — there were already some cases establishing this for civil matters, and there was a Justice Department policy that made it the case for criminal matters (and obviously, what Justice Department is going to allow a federal prosecution of the president that appointed it?) It's that it produces a lifetime immunity for such acts, even when the person is no longer president.
– Obie 2.0
Commented Jul 3 at 16:44
4

@Obie2.0 Immunity for a particular act would be largely toothless if it had an expiration date, or did you mean something else?
– IllusiveBrian
Commented Jul 3 at 16:47
8

@IllusiveBrian - And yet, such immunity did not exist in US case law until the case in question was decided.
– Obie 2.0
Commented Jul 3 at 16:47
2

@Obie2.0, there was no reason until now for there to be any case law about such immunity. I am troubled by the SC's ruling in this case, but the absence of relevant case law is not at all a concern to me.
– John Bollinger
Commented Jul 3 at 16:53
10

@MichaelLorton - It's significant because previously, there existed the possibility that a court might have held a former president criminally liable for official conduct during office that violated applicable laws, and now it is quite unlikely to do so. I would think the significance is obvious.
– Obie 2.0
Commented Jul 3 at 16:57

| Show 8 more comments

Correct minor typos or mistakes
Clarify meaning without changing it
Add related resources or links
Always respect the author’s intent
Don’t use edits to reply to the author

create code fences with backticks ` or tildes ~
```
like so
```
add language identifier to highlight code
```python
def function(foo):
print(foo)
```
put returns between paragraphs
for linebreak add 2 spaces at end
_italic_ or **bold**
quote by placing > at start of line
to make links (use https whenever possible)
<https://example.com>
[example](https://example.com)
<a href="https://example.com">example</a>

formatting help »
answering help »