There were so many things that happened yesterday in the Supreme Court’s hearing on presidential immunity that it’s hard to know to start. But one part that captured it for me was Sam Alito’s line of argument that presidential immunity might be necessary to make it possible for presidents to leave office voluntarily, or that without some broad grant of immunity it would make refusal to leave office more likely. Here’s one of the quotes. “If an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is gonna be able to go off to a peaceful retirement, but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy? And we can look around the world and find countries where we have seen this process, where the loser gets thrown in jail.”
Want to keep reading?
Join TPM and get The Backchannel member newsletter along with unlimited access to all TPM articles and member features.