@admitsWrongIfProven@qoto.org i hope it doesn’t come to that. we’ve loved our visits, though.

@admitsWrongIfProven@qoto.org gack ! wrong link! sorry! https://zirk.us/@interfluidity/112770750218274846

@LouisIngenthron

@admitsWrongIfProven@qoto.org https://zirk.us/@interfluidity/112770728992704471

Is it fair to describe Biden as having released his delegates, when he answered they can do what they want?

@Geoffberner I don’t think there’s ever been a more perilous moment. But you are more certain than I am about how it resolves.

@Geoffberner as I said, I am not sure what will or should happen.

@Geoffberner no. my baselines were the debate and the Stephanopoulos interview, and this was much better than either.

i don’t know what will or should happen, and sure there were stumbles, but Biden substantially outperformed my expectations in this press conference.

NAAN
OTTO

@nicholas yes. by “the law was fine with it” what i meant is that even absent formal immunity, the bar to prosecution has always been extraordinarily high and a “public action” affirmative defense at the ready, so that Presidents, as Kissinger quipped, “do immediately” what is illegal but can be justified on public grounds, and have never been prosecuted for it. the only real risk they have faced when they use official power for reasons not colorably intended to advance a public interest.

@realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @Hyolobrika yes.

@realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @Hyolobrika i guess read the memo. (i did, but years ago, i can’t recapitulate it for you now.) i thought the whole thing, the whole drone assassination program, let alone of a US citizen, was horrific. https://www.interfluidity.com/v2/2255.html

@realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @Hyolobrika there’s a norm against prosecuting Presidents while in office that held through the Trump years. afterwards, as Mitch McConnell insisted when arguing against impeachment, was the time for accountability. until after July 1 it wasn’t. there is now no time for Presidential accountability.

@realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @Hyolobrika Obama, fearful of prosecution when he was finally about to assassinate a US citizen, had the OLC preemptively do a lengthy legal analysis that concluded a combination of the public action defense, the GWB/war on terror’s authorization of military force, and the President’s military prerogatives enabled it. https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/assets/2014-06-23_barron-memorandum.pdf

@realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @Hyolobrika there is a huge difference between a high bar and no bar. the possibility of punishment with a high bar still has a deterrent effect on egregious behavior. no bar, no possibility of accountability, becomes outright permission.

@realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @Hyolobrika Trump was not prosecuted for military action. He, like Obama before him, engaged extensively in drone assassination, and that was fine as far as the law and the Biden DOJ were concerned. The public action / public authority defense was already very capacious, a very high bar to clear!

@realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @Hyolobrika except SCOTUS just made this whole framework up. it is written nowhere in the Constitution, prior Supreme Courts and almost all legal scholars did not find its logic implicit in the Constitution. John Roberts invented it and now it is supreme law of the land.

@realcaseyrollins@noauthority.social @volkris @realcaseyrollins@social.teci.world @AltonDooley @Hyolobrika we do want them prosecutable, though. the bar to successful prosecution should be very high. Justice Jackson emphasizes in her dissent all the hurdles a successful prosecution has to overcome, all the ordinary defenses well resourced defendants generally have against criminal prosecution, plus public action defenses only available to public officials.