#emolumentsclause

@lindasgoluppiart@mastodonapp.uk Other unprecedented judicial activism by the Roberts Court has additionally held that the scope of "official acts" by the POTUS incorporates almost everything that xe does. And there are doctrines of both sovereign immunity and executive immunity for official actions. Nixon tried to rely upon them. Per the Roberts Court, and quite contrary to the stated contemporary intent of people like #AlexanderHamilton as well as post-Watergate lawmaking, the POTUS now has the same immunity as King Charles 3. So there's a question of most of the President's activity, 'personal' or no, actually being covered by immunity and being wholly unaddressable anywhere within the U.S.A. judicial branch, even after xe has left office. #USLaw #ConstitutionalLaw #EmolumentsClause #Federalist69

@lindasgoluppiart@mastodonapp.uk As a legal question, keeping the politics out of it, this is actually a tricky one. It involves, amongst other things, a part of the U.S.A. Constitution known as the Emoluments Clauses (Article 1 §9 ¶7 and Article 2 §1 ¶7). These have had very little testing in the courts, most people in history having avoided issues of foreign/domestic bribery and corruption; and current indications are that the Roberts Court, which is one of the most judicially active #SCOTUS es in history, will hold that no-one actually has standing to sue under the Emoluments Clauses, rendering it effectively defunct. It has already done this with other parts of the Constitution, so has form. Other legal issues include one that seems bizarre to outsiders: there is actually an argument that people take seriously, that the President of the United States is not considered an officer of the U.S.A., and the Constitution only talks about officers. #USLaw #ConstitutionalLaw #EmolumentsClause