Joe Biden, Still Flying Flag Right Side Up, Rips Supreme Court Immunity Decision
A Fourth of July reminder: America doesn't want kings.
President Joe Biden last night blasted yesterday’s bizarre Supreme Court ruling that presidents can never be held responsible for crimes they commit in office, as long as those crimes involve “official” actions. Biden called the decision a "a dangerous precedent" and said it "undermines the rule of law,” because he still believes in the old-fashioned notion of equal justice under law, which six members of the Supreme Court appear to have forgotten is carved right above the entrance to their building.
The decision, he said, was a “terrible disservice to the people of this nation.”
Biden reminded Americans that the United States was
founded on the principle that there are no kings in America. Each, each of us is equal before the law. No one, no one is above the law. Not even the president of the United States
Biden said that one of the key parts of the job is having “the courage to exercise the full power of the presidency,” but also that any president will “face moments where you need the wisdom to respect the limits of the power of the office of the presidency."
The Court’s decision, he said, “almost certainly means that there are virtually no limits on what the president can do,” and that the only limits on presidential power “will be self-imposed by the president alone.” Not even the Supreme Court, he warned, will have the ability to rein in a lawless president who wants to abuse their power.
Biden said the ruling means there’s little chance Donald Trump will face justice for fomenting the violent January 6, 2021, attempt to overthrow the 2020 election, even though Americans should have “the right to know the answer about what happened on Jan. 6 before they are asked to vote again this year.” Since the Supremes have abdicated the responsibility to let the legal system decide whether Trump is held accountable, it’s now up to voters:
The American people must decide whether Donald Trump’s assault on our democracy on January 6th makes him unfit for public office in the highest office in the land. The American people must decide if Trump’s embrace of violence to preserve his power is acceptable.
Perhaps most importantly, the American people must decide if they want to entrust once again the presidency to Donald Trump now knowing he’ll be more emboldened to do whatever he pleases whenever he wants to do it.
Biden himself said no thank you to the Supreme Court’s grant of immunity for criming in office, saying, “I know I will respect the limits of the presidential powers, as I have for three and a half years.” But he warned that the court’s — I dunno, should we still capitalize that? — decision means that from now on, following the law will be entirely a matter of personal preference, and that “any president, including Donald Trump, will now be free to ignore the law.”
Biden also pointed to the blistering dissent written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, saying he concurred with her warning that “In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law. With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”
To that, Biden added, “So should the American people dissent. I dissent.”
And just as Sotomayor departed from the usual “I respectfully dissent,” Biden added something new to his usual closing:
May God bless you all. And may God help preserve our democracy. Thank you. And may God protect our troops.
It’s up to Americans now, although sure, may as well invoke the almighty as well, since the law and the courts are far less reliable.
[The White House on YouTube / NBC News / CNN]
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Good tweet on all this from Janel Comeau:
"Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords actually sounds like a pretty decent alternative right now"
https://x.com/VeryBadLlama/status/1807973960664936758
That speech alone convinced three of my friends to get the fuck off the fence and vote for Joe. One debate of an old, convicted felon who probably has sold top secret intelligence information to our adversaries versus a 35 year statesman who has lost a son serving this country is the point of this election.