More on the implications of U.S. presidential immunity from prosecution after the truly fascist SCOTUS decision of July 1, was brought to us by Curt Wechsler who edits FireJohnYoo.net, a project of World Can’t Wait which grew out of our mission to stop the illegitimate U.S. “war of terror.”
When he worked for the Bush White House, lawyer John Yoo drafted the Torture Memo in 2002 (known officially as the Memorandum Regarding Military Interrogation of Alien Unlawful Combatants Held Outside The United States as cover for the CIA’s “enhanced” interrogations. He and others are unquestionably responsible for the deaths and injury of known and unknown tortured prisoners held by the U.S. Even after extensive study of of the torture regime by the U.S. Senate, no significant criminal charges were ever brought.
Now, in response to criminal indictments of Trump for the January 6 coup attempt, Bush torture lawyer John Yoo calls for revenge prosecutions against Democrats:
“Do unto others as they have done unto you,” urged the shameless Berkeley Law professor, misappropriating the ‘Do unto others as you would have done to you,’ maxim. “In order to prevent the case against Trump from assuming a permanent place in the American political system,” said Yoo, “Republicans will have to bring charges against Democratic officers, even presidents.”
Lawrence Douglas, Amherst College, wrote in The Guardian,
“Back in the day of George W Bush’s misbegotten “war on terror”, John Yoo, at the time a lawyer in the office of legal counsel, wrote a notorious memo opining that the federal law criminalizing torture would be unconstitutional if applied to the president in times of war. This ominous claim led the senator Patrick Leahy to ask the then attorney general Alberto Gonzales, during a congressional hearing, whether the president could legally order genocide. At the time, Gonzales refused to answer, dismissing the question as hypothetical. Now the Supreme Court has offered a clear and shocking answer to the senator’s question.
The SCOTUS decision gives any president immunity for any act deemed to be under their “official” duties. While it does not explicitly protect those other than presidents from criminal prosecution, it almost explicitly does encourage a president to pardon anyone convicted.
It’s worth re-reading Justice Sonya Sotomayor’s verbal dissent of the majority decision:
… The long-term consequences of today’s decision are stark. The court effectively creates a law-free zone around the President, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the Founding.
The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. 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….