Just a reminder, presidents can't be charged with crimes for anything that happens while they're in office
I thought that only applies to things he does presidentially.
so if he, for example, murdered someone in cold blood...
Iiii'llll say it again. We. Don't. Actually. Know. That.
To stop directing a statement directly a neo or slu, a quick overview, to summarize stuff that's very, very easy to find. There are exactly three cases specifically addressing presidential immunity that have come before SCOTUS, as near as I can tell.
Mississippi v. Johnson. Where it was ruled only one kind of presidential action is exempt from being
sued. It was many things, but what it wasn't was a criminal case. Then there was
Nixon v. Fitzgerald. Which explicitly ruled that the president
was not immune to criminal charges, only liability for civil damages, and again, only when in pursuit of discretionary presidential actions. The latest was
Clinton v. Jones. In which the SCOTUS was very explicit that civil lawsuits filed for acts previous to office and ones not accrued by action made during function of office, that did not defensibly impact the president's ability to perform the duties of office, still have weight.
The summation is that presidential power protects you from
civil suits brought about because of exactly one sort of presidential action (discretionary). And that's it. All. Nothing else.
Civil suits from before presidency, good. Ones brought against actions having nothing to do with the execution of presidential duties (and goddamn, has trump been trying to set himself up for that one), in the clear.
Anything having to do with criminal charges, for any reason and by anything the president does in the pursuit of anything? We don't know. It hasn't been ruled on. It hasn't been tested.
If the times are sufficiently fun, we get to find out somewhere in the next few years.
E: Okay, wow. I'm just going to spoiler this because I seriously can't be arsed to format this thing, but let me share some of my quick notes from some early morning checking into a previous observation. Also note: Trump? Reported as >25 million in BlackRock. BlackRock CEO? Was (still is?) on presidential business advisory council.
See, before? I had noticed a connection, but, y'know, expected that I was just seeing a one-off thing or somethin'. Now? Now, every single fucking thing I've checked about that nam deal has been connected to at least BlackRock -- and by extension trump and the trump presidency. I kinda' want to finish checking as much of this shit as I can find, and look into the other stuff that's been mentioned in the news, but holy
shit this is looking increasingly skeevy as all goddamn.
E2: Okay, let me just add another spoiler, update of the last one with, like. Another 10 minutes of checking in:
Every. Every. Single. Goddamn. Company. I can find mention of that nam deal going to. Has major investments in it by blackrock. What the living hell.