I'm still reading the opinion in Trump v United States, but here is the early take of one random non-practicing lawyer on the Internet:
1. POTUS has total immunity when exercising the powers the Constitution explicitly grants the President (like issuing pardons). Okay, but Roberts's explanation comes very close to saying "anything the President does to carry out these powers cannot be a crime," which can't be right. 1/
If your official act as Commander in Chief is to line up our troops against a wall and shoot them all, that can't not be a crime just because POTUS gave the order. Or if POTUS orders troops quartered in civilian homes, that has to still be a 3rd Amendment violation. It's not a Constitutional right if this one guy can pretend it doesn't exist. 2/
2. POTUS has "presumptive immunity" for non-core official acts. Which okay this is a thing for a lot of government officials. It basically means courts have to assume you're immune unless the prosecutor can convince them otherwise. Reasonable people can differ on whether it SHOULD exist, but it DOES.
The problem is that for POTUS, it throws the entire process into chaos because we have no standards for measuring this. 3/
2a. SCOTUS, realizing we have no standards, TAKES IT UPON ITSELF TO INVENT SOME OUT OF FUCKING NOWHERE BASED ON HOW THEY WANT TRUMP'S JAN 6 CASE TO END.
This is not how our courts are supposed to work. Those standards should be articulated AT TRIAL, where the judge has the complete record in front of them, has heard witnesses in person, etc. Not by six assholes writing fanfiction. 4/
I want to underscore that, in conjunction with Project 2025's plan to reclassify most agency employees as political appointees, this decision is very, VERY bad. It hands a HUGE amount of power to one person. ONE.
I don't care if that person shares your politics or not. ONE person is not meant to have that much power in our system. No one person should have that much power in ANY system. 7/
"Indeed, if presumptive protection for the President is necessary to enable the “effective discharge” of his powers when a prosecutor merely seeks evidence of his official papers and communications, id., at 711, it is certainly necessary when the prosecutor seeks to charge, try, and imprison the President himself for his official actions."
This is not reasoning. This is bullshit. 9/
@danialexis page 28? That is some thin soup. It glides over the fact the AG conversation was patently _not_ in service of their duty to preserve,
protect, and defend the Constitution. Barr has said so.