
A former director of the CIA, who is also a veteran of multiple Presidential administrations who has held multiple high-level posts over the course of his career is making public his worries over the presidential immunity ruling recently issued by the Supreme Court.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion in a ruling published on July 2, which held that former President Donald Trump, along with all other presidents, enjoys “absolute immunity” for any and all acts performed using the core powers of the presidency as outlined in the Constitution. Presidents are thus entitled to a presumption of immunity for all official acts they perform, though not for private and/or unofficial acts carried out either as President or during the term in which they hold the office of the President.
This ruling troubled John Brennan, who was Obama’s head of the CIA. He said in a recent column that the decision had dangerous implications for the future of the United States, and is so sweeping it took his breath away. In the opinion piece published by MSNBC, he accused the Supreme Court of changing the 235 year old rules that govern presidential authority. The President, he argued, is not above the law, but Brenner believes that the court has green-lit the plenary abuse of power by any future president, regardless of the constraints of the law. The ruling, he says, effectively makes the U.S. President a king.
Brennan went on to accuse the six Supreme Court Justices who ruled in the majority of apparent indifference and a display of “abject ignorance.” He added that if a politically corrupt and unprincipled individual were elected to the White House, the practical consequences of this ruling could be “deeply disturbing.”
Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote the dissenting opinion for the three justices who voted against Trump, in which she seemed to agree with Brenan’s pronouncements. The President, she wrote, is not a king, and not above the law.