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Presidential immunity does have limits. Congress is the court that can prosecute him for crimes committed while in office. That's what impeachment is.
Trump's whole argument is that there are no limits to presidential immunity. Even after 2 impeachments and a coup attempt. The courts are dragging their feet making a decision. My hypothetical involves forcing the supreme court to rule on that claim on someone who isn't Trump.
Yeah, it's an interesting hypothetical. But it's important to remember, this isn't Trumps argument, it is longstanding precedent. The president up until now has not been subject to criminal proceedings for conduct in office outside of impeachment. It was long held by everyone in government, not just some party, that the government can be held civilly liable for executive actions but that the president cannot be held personally or criminally liable except to congress. Whether you think he deserves to face criminal charges or not, fact is this breaks from that and will seriously change the way the government functions, it will have far reaching consequences. You may think this is a good thing, Trump argues that it isn't as has every president before him, but it will absolutely fundamentally change the way the government works if he isn't ruled to be immune by the court.
What if the president detonates a bomb in Congress of finds some other way to kill the members who would impeach the president? Then they can be president for life.
That sucks? Doesn't change the rules, although I think if a president did something that destructive to the government of the US then the rules no longer apply and we are in military coup treason tribunal territory.
That doesn’t work as a Republican controlled congress and president would then have impunity to perform whatever atrocities they like. It’s a big reason we have a coequal judicial branch.
It might not work for you but thems the rules.
Look, there are some unwritten rules in the system of government that exist de facto due to it's structure. One of them is that there is a balance of real power, not "balance of power" due to some document saying so, but that these groups, factions, institutions in government have power distributed in such a way that it ensures the continuity of the state among other things. For example, the court can basically rule anything unconstitutional, and the president appoints the court. If the court rules something like free speech isn't protected, this deligitimizes the court and the government loses real power. If the president packs the court, this delegitimizes the government and so on. They don't not pack the court because they have integrity, they don't pack the court because it would reduce their legitimacy and mandate. Politics in it's truest sense is taken into account in the encoding of the machine.
The more we turn it into a team game the more likely what you're talking about becomes true. When the parties have to feign a loyalty to a higher virtue, the president can't just commit atrocities because his party controls the congress. His own party members have to impeach him to maintain their power. But when it is reduced to a team game they're more likely to be able to maintain political viability by doing just that.
Our government has the integrity that we have, and IMO it doesn't have much integrity left, because the power center, not on paper but real power, moved due to architectural changes behind the scenes that were made during world war 2, what we are living with today is the inevitable outcome of decisions made then.