Former US Attorney General Bill Barr chastised opponents of outgoing President Donald Trump this week following the US Supreme Court’s decision to exempt presidents from criminal punishment for official activities they perform while in office, but not for informal behavior.
After left-leaning Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a much criticized dissenting opinion in which she asserted that “the President is now a king above the law,” Barr made these comments in an interview.
“There’s absolute immunity when he’s acting directly under the constitution, carrying out a function under the constitution.There’s presumptive immunity when he performs an official act, and the government has the burden of showing that it can prosecute him for that without impairing the executive function. And finally, there’s no immunity for unofficial or private acts. And I think the — and the practical effect of this is that the district court is gonna do what it really should have done at the beginning, which is the government really should have had it do, which is do the analysis so that the facts are going up to the Supreme Court.” Barr remarked during the interview.
“He has the right to go and tell the Department of Justice to investigate something, but an example used by Justice Sotomayor was, ‘Oh, then he can fabricate evidence, give the evidence to the department, and use that evidence to indict them.’ He doesn’t have authority to fabricate evidence,” Barr continued.
“That’s not carrying out an executive function. And the worst example, I think — the one that makes no sense whatsoever is that he can use SEAL Team 6 to kill a political opponent. The president has the authority to defend the country against foreign enemies — armed conflict and so forth. He has the authority to direct the justice system against criminals at home. He doesn’t have the authority to go and assassinate people.” he added.
“So whether he uses the SEAL Team or a private hitman, it doesn’t matter. It’s not a carrying out of his authority. So all these horror stories really are false.” Barr concluded.
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