It is only the President who has no protection for their behavior in the elected office?
Is "good behavior" for the Justices limited only to when they are on the bench hearing oral arguments or when they release their rulings?
Is "going to and returning from" Congress an official act of Congress?
So why are enemies of President Trump arguing that the President has no immunities for himself, or that they are so limited in scope to be narrower than even members of Congress and the Supreme Court enjoy?
The problem with trying to determine "core Presidential acts" is that this is often out of the control of the President; events will decide what is "Presidential" or not and will overtake the President's schedule.
For example:
When President Bush was reading a storybook to kindergartners on the morning of 9/11, was that a Presidential or personal act? I'd say it was presidential as the President is out meeting the people. Was it a "core" presidential act? I think many people could debate both sides of this, saying that "core" presidential acts are those that interact with Congress or involve meeting with foreign leaders, or when acting as Commander-in-Chief. You know... things spelled out in the Constitution.
So, if President Bush reading books to children is not a "core" Presidential act, would he not have immunity for doing it? Suppose that a parent didn't like the story Bush was reading and wanted to sue him for exposing their child to content not appropriate to the beliefs of the parents?
And then, when aides interrupted President Bush with the news of the plane crashes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, did Bush suddenly "snap" into core Presidential mode? In other words, is there a switch that flips on and off outside of the President's control that categorizes his minute-to-minute existence as core, non-core, and personal, or do we just say the President is in a very fluid, dynamic, and often stressful role as the sole elected official of the Executive branch, and everything he does is core to the role?
Presidential immunity would finally put some backbone into the Senate to convict someone if properly impeached in the House, because impeachment conviction overrules Presidential immunity. We might finally see some impeachment convictions instead of political impeachments if SCOTUS rules that convictions were actually required in order to prosecute a former President.
-PJ
Agree. I have been making the same arguments. It is impossible to separate presidential actions into official and personal, especially when you are trying to distinguish them based on his motivation where personal and national interests are often impossible to separate. Does he not do something he thinks it is good for the country because it could personally benefit him and open him to subsequent indictment and conviction? If he believes an election was stolen is he required to not act or speak of it because it impacts him personally? How about if he knows for a certainty it was stolen? Does he do nothing to protect our democracy because his political opponents will indict him? These are the hypotheticals that should be considered not some far fetched stupidity like the president murders someone. However if you do want to consider murder by a president it has already happened under Obama with an extrajudicial drone strike on an american citizen the the DoJ said was fine as long as the DoJ approves of it.