For several months, I have been saying that the Supreme Court is going to give Donald Trump some type of immunity. While they may not give him the immunity that has been awarded to judges — that being Absolute Immunity — they will be granting the Office of the Presidency some type of immunity.
The concept of immunity through the Judicial System has been running amok for years as the Rule of Lawyers and insurance companies who cover the conduct of government officials try to prevent large payouts to citizens whose rights have been violated through “Official Acts”. The insurance agencies hire lawyers who then seek to redefine official acts and how they should be allowed to occur with impunity, legal or not. We have gotten to this point in our history as, over the years, the courts have ruled officials have all kinds of immunity. For themselves, the courts have been given Absolute Immunity. Other officials may have Diplomatic Immunity, Sovereign Immunity, Qualified Immunity, and/or Official Immunity. Some states have codified into law what I have coined as “Uniform Immunity” or the ability for department officials to be free from legal action against them if other state departments are also acting similarly. An example would be, health departments closing restaurants or forcing vaccination, or censoring citizens and practicing prior restraint in the name of “public health”.
Presidents have, in fact, had immunity the entirety of this country’s history. I distinctly remember this conversation in an upper level course about the Presidency my senior year of college, because I was given the nickname, “The Cynic” by my fellow pre-law students for being outraged at knowing that George W. Bush would never be charged with war crimes after lying to Congress that we needed to go to war with Iraq, that his military was looting gold during this war, and that they were torturing prisoners at Guatanamo.
Before then, I had been rather naive and thought this country was based on freedom and all men being created equal. I had asked, “Why wasn’t the incoming President — likely Barack Obama — going to charge Bush with crimes?” The answer turned into a nearly week-long discussion as students sat in disbelief while we discussed Presidents who had violated the law throughout American history, and how none of them had been convicted of any of their crimes.
The answer: Presidents had immunity.
You see, there are different ways to reach immunity.
The definition of immunity is fairly straightforward. Immunity refers to legal protection that exempts a person from liability or legal action that would otherwise apply.
This means former president Richard Nixon was actually granted immunity through pardon, or receiving protection from liability or punishment. It should be noted that, daily, criminals make plea deals often with enforcement officials at all levels of government in exchange for cooperation, and receive immunity for said cooperation. The argument — that Nixon needed to be pardoned provides proof that Presidents don’t have immunity — is fallacious. Presidents have immunity and that is why he was pardoned.
Same with Bill Clinton, he was immune from obligation and responsibility through a plea deal, receiving a fine and immunity from prison for lying to Congress under oath. As we can see from the recent spat of cases, usually prison time occurs for those lying to Congress.
However, the much more sinister immunity that has occurred throughout American history is the immunity to not be charged at all. All forms of government from federal to local have the choice to bring forth charges against someone violating the law, and oftentimes, the government chooses not to bring charges against its own officials who violate the law.
Simply put, incoming Presidents had an unspoken agreement and a continuing tradition that they would not pursue criminal charges against former Presidents for criminal actions taken while in office.
Why would they have this Agreement for the Office of the Presidency?
Public officials have fiduciary duties when they take public office. Comparatively speaking to private and non-profit directors who only have, generally, three listed fiduciary duties, public officials have five fiduciary duties they should constantly consider when making decisions on behalf of the citizenry.
Those duties include:
- The Duty of Care (reasonable consideration)
- The Duty of Obedience (following laws and regulations)
- The Duty of Loyalty (acting in the best interest of government)
- The Duty of Impartiality (enacting laws evenly to effect all citizenry equally)
- Lastly, the Duty of Trust. Officials are required to follow (by law here in Colorado) and maintain the public’s faith in government. That faith requires that we not watch former Presidents are charged every 4 or 8 years as they leave office for the crimes they have committed while in office and performing “official” acts as the executive of the federal government.
Some nefarious acts that presidents have committed in the past include illegal taxation, the formation of the Federal Reserve, enacting Social Security, violating treaties with Native American tribal governments, war crimes, lying to Congress under oath, using the military to squash protests on American soil, using agencies to kill Americans without due process, using agencies to spy on Americans without probable cause, using drone strikes to kill Americans on foreign soil, allowing unmitigated migration into border states, and even paying for people’s student loans after requiring that the government take them over from failing loan originators years ago.
As it stands, historically, most Presidents have, in fact, openly violated laws, and some have tarnished the Constitution, essentially rendering it useless now as Judges, Congressmen, and now the Presidents have or will be granted some form of immunity from the courts and unlawful legislative acts (see: NOT The Constitution).
If the presidential line was continuously broken so that predecessors could be charged by incoming Presidents, the government would quickly fall as people realized they can’t have faith in a government that the laws don’t apply to, soon chaos would ensue as people realized the fragile justification of arbitrary enforcement of the law, and our American legacy would crumble to ruin.
The laws don’t apply, actually, as the government is not a signatory to the Constitution, and, therefore, not required to follow it, thus the highly questionable oaths of office instead of having to follow the law.)
The modern day administrative assassination of outgoing Presidents is akin to ancient generals murdering their emperors in Rome in order to take power for themselves (and, in this case, their political parties), and the Supreme Court Justices hearing Donald Trump’s immunity case have mentioned, during their oral arguments, that unstable and faithless leadership causes republics to fall. In a weird form of desperation, they will try to save the faith Americans have in their government by exempting officials for their crimes.
Americans now have a choice about the slow decay of our Constitution in favor of government that is corrupt and does not have to follow its own laws, due to immunity granted through the courts. We can either sit back in disgust and continue to watch, popcorn in hand, the government eat itself to destruction or we can call for a Constitutional Convention for amendments that prohibit the government from violating the Constitution in favor of continued “faith” in their actions.
As it stands, it seems like the Supreme Court is simply putting off the inevitable decay of our Republic (republics usually only last about 250 years or so and we are due for historical destruction) by being poised to grant the Office of the Presidency some type of court-appointed immunity.
How they gave themselves the authority to do this is also highly questionable, as Judicial Review is a power they granted to themselves in Marbury v. Madison.
By trying to keep The People’s faith in government by granting immunity, they are, in fact, admitting we should be questioning, with the strictest of scrutiny, everything they do.
Rachel Suh lives in Pagosa Springs, and is a Certified SCRUM Master and Strategic Consultant working in facilitation, mentoring, training, and coaching. She has a passionate hobby of Political Activism.