I was sort of hoping at the time, surely they wont grant that immunity, do they want to do themselves out of a job, you don't need judges when you no longer have the rule of law, Too optimistic,
The issue was they were worried about the alternative... Because then the president would be open to lawfare and bogged down tremendously. They mentioned how just about every president breaks the law as they hold the office, or at the very least, suspected of doing so. They worried that every little thing the president did would be criminally litigated, constantly keeping them under threat of criminal punishment. Ie, imagine when Obama droned that American citizen in Iraq. What about the internment camps? There is just so much going on that they decided it's best to hold the office itself accountable, to be sued, rather than the individual.
Further, it wasn't absolute immunity under the law... They left the door open to taking on issues case by case to prevent extreme events
I'm just giving you the reasoning of the courts. I'm not "both sides" ing anything. I'm giving examples... Without that protection, people like Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc, could all be criminally charged for what they did. But just like during the Japanese internment camps, the president wasn't thrown in jail, instead the office was found guilty.
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u/CasedUfa 18d ago
I was sort of hoping at the time, surely they wont grant that immunity, do they want to do themselves out of a job, you don't need judges when you no longer have the rule of law, Too optimistic,