“officials said that U.S. Secret Service agents opened fire after spotting the suspect near the golf course’s perimeter. It remains unclear if the individual fired any shots before fleeing in an SUV. The suspect was taken into custody in a neighboring county.
The incident happened around 1:30 p.m. ET, authorities said. Palm Beach County Sheriff Ric Bradshaw stated that the suspect, armed with an AK-style rifle, was positioned roughly 300 to 500 yards away from Trump, concealed in shrubbery that lines the course just a few holes ahead of where Trump was.”
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“The suspect fled in a vehicle but was quickly apprehended on I-95 in Martin County, north of Palm Beach.
Martin County Sheriff William Snyder said the suspect was unarmed at the time of the arrest. Bradshaw said that a witness saw a man fleeing the golf course bushes. The witness took a photo of the suspect’s black Nissan, and a license plate reader spotted the vehicle.”
“Violent crime levels have dropped significantly in the first half of the year, according to a new report from the Major Cities Chiefs Association.
Overall, violent crime dropped by 6 percent and homicides fell by 17 percent in 69 cities compared to the same period last year. Columbus, Ohio, saw the biggest drop in violent crime at 41 percent, according to an Axios data analysis. But cities including Miami, Washington, DC, and Austin, Texas, also saw large declines. Notably, New York City was not included in the data, though other reports have indicated that violent crime is falling there, too.
It’s hard to say exactly what’s causing the decline, which comes after a major Covid-19 crime wave. It may be partially due to policies aimed at tackling crime at the federal, state, and local levels. But it may also just be a symptom of the fact that normal life in America has resumed post-pandemic — or a combination of those and other factors.
Republicans have long tried to use concerns about crime as a political cudgel against President Joe Biden’s administration. While former President Donald Trump doesn’t appear to be giving up on that attack strategy just yet, Democrats can now use the new data as a defense. Whether that will be effective, however, is far from certain.”
“The theme of the Republican National Convention’s second night was “Make America Safe Again,” and the roster of speakers repeatedly criticized Biden’s record on crime and immigration: Randy Sutton, a retired police officer, said there was a “war on cops.” Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said that Biden treats “police like criminals, and criminals like victims.” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz declared that “your family is less safe, your children are less safe, the country is less safe,” as a result of Biden’s presidency.
But the Republican speakers’ rhetoric on crime spiraling out of control was out of touch with reality.
While there was indeed a rise in crime during the pandemic, recent data has shown that crime is declining nationwide. According to the FBI, murder is down 26 percent and robberies have declined by 18 percent in the first three months of 2024 compared to the same time last year. That didn’t stop Republican speakers throughout the night from singling out incidents of heinous crimes and drug overdoses to conjure up an image of lawlessness and disorder.
So why are Republicans plowing ahead with their “Make America Safe Again” messaging despite data that shows America is already getting safer? The answer is simple: Most Americans believe that crime is getting worse, so it’s not a particularly tough message to sell.”
“”A disproportionate number of undocumented immigrants are convicted of driving without a license” or “using a false Social Security Number,” notes the Law Enforcement Immigration Task Force. But immigrants “are less prone” to committing crimes that are unrelated to their immigration status, it continues. “Existing evidence shows that immigrants do not represent a threat to public safety any more than every other segment of the population.””
“Both sides in the case agreed that a former president can be prosecuted for “unofficial acts,” a point that Chief Justice John Roberts affirmed in his majority opinion. But Roberts added that a former president is “absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for conduct within his exclusive sphere of constitutional authority.”
It is not clear exactly which conduct falls into that “exclusive sphere,” although Roberts said conversations in which Trump urged the Justice Department to investigate his bogus claims of systematic election fraud clearly did. Adding to the uncertainty, the majority said even “official acts” outside “the core” of a president’s duties merit “at least a presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution,” which the government can overcome only if it “can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no ‘dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.'”
The strictness of that test, combined with the lack of clarity about which acts are “official,” suggests that the distinction between “absolute” and “presumptive” immunity is apt to dissolve in practice. And even if it proves meaningful, the Court said absolute immunity might ultimately be required for all conduct “within the outer perimeter” of a president’s “official responsibility.”
Under the majority’s reasoning, Justice Sonia Sotomayor warned in a dissent joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, a president “will be insulated from criminal prosecution” when he “uses his official powers in any way.” That shield, Sotomayor said, would extend to a president who “orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival,” who “organizes a military coup to hold onto power,” who “takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon,” or who insists that the Justice Department use fabricated evidence in a criminal case.
Instead of explaining why immunity would not apply in such situations, Roberts faulted Sotomayor for “fear mongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals.” He dismissed the threat posed by lawless presidents because he was focused on the supposed need to protect “an energetic executive” from the threat of criminal liability.
As Sotomayor noted, however, presidents have been operating under that threat for a long time. “Every sitting President,” she wrote, “has so far believed himself under the threat of criminal liability after his term in office and nevertheless boldly fulfilled the duties of his office.”
Former President Richard Nixon, who did not suffer from a notable lack of executive energy, evidently shared that long-standing assumption. After he resigned amid the Watergate scandal, Nixon accepted a pardon from his successor, Gerald Ford, that covered any federal offenses he may have committed as president.
According to the proposed articles of impeachment, those offenses included many acts that would count as “official” in Roberts’ book, such as “false or misleading public statements,” misuse of the CIA and the IRS, and interference with an FBI investigation. If Nixon was immune from prosecution for those acts, his pardon is a bit of a puzzle.
As that episode illustrates, we need not conjure “extreme hypotheticals” to understand the danger of a president who feels unbound by the law. In the real world, the risk of presidential paralysis pales beside the risk of presidential impunity.”
“A few years out from the start of the pandemic, it does appear that the rise in homicides in the United States was unique. According to multiple studies and a systematic review of crime data for 2020, in most countries crime fell following Covid-19 lockdowns, then gradually returned to their pre-pandemic levels once the lockdown measures lifted. Homicide was the exception to the rule — but not the way it was in the United States.
Homicides around the world, according to the 46 studies the authors reviewed, didn’t change significantly due to the pandemic. “Most studies reported no relationship between Covid-19 and homicides,” the authors of the study wrote. A majority of the studies, they noted, found no relationship between the implementation or easing of lockdown measures and killings.
The Small Arms Survey, which gathers and analyzes data about firearms ownership and violence across the world, also found that the global rate of violent deaths decreased worldwide in 2020.
What was different in the United States?
“There was no other country that experienced this kind of sudden increase in gun violence,” says Patrick Sharkey, a sociologist at Princeton University who studies the intersections of urban segregation, economic inequality, and violence. It was gun violence, specifically, that sent violent crime soaring. Americans bought guns in record numbers during the pandemic, and according to an analysis by Rob Arthur and Asher for Vox, there’s evidence that more people were carrying guns in 2020 — even before crime soared that summer. “Guns don’t necessarily create violence on their own, but they make violence more lethal,” Sharkey says.
While experts caution that it’s difficult to definitively prove what caused the rise in violent crime, there are a few other factors that likely contributed to it.
One was the killing of George Floyd by police and the unrest surrounding it, accompanied by a withdrawal in policing that followed. Previous research has shown that high-profile incidents of police violence correspond with a pullback by police and a rise in crime — specifically, robberies and murders. Data following the unrest after Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis and elsewhere shows a marked decline in policing and arrests that summer.”
“Democrats didn’t convict Trump; a jury of 12 ordinary Americans did. The Biden administration played no role in prosecuting the case; the indictment came from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and was issued after federal prosecutors declined to go after Trump on similar charges.”
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“The current Republican party is so hostile to the foundations of the American political system that they can be counted on to attack the possibility of a fair Trump trial. Either Trump should be able to do whatever he wants with no accountability, or it’s proof that the entire edifice of American law and politics is rotten.”
“Broadly speaking, Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion reaches three conclusions. The first is that when the president takes any action under the authority given to him by the Constitution itself, his authority is “conclusive and preclusive” and thus he cannot be prosecuted. Thus, for example, a president could not be prosecuted for pardoning someone, because the Constitution explicitly gives the chief executive the “Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States.”
One question that has loomed over this case for months is whether presidential immunity is so broad that the president could order the military to assassinate a political rival. While this case was before a lower court, one judge asked if Trump could be prosecuted if he’d ordered “SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival” and Trump’s lawyer answered that he could not unless Trump had previously been successfully impeached and convicted for doing so.
Roberts’s opinion in Trump, however, seems to go even further than Trump’s lawyer did. The Constitution, after all, states that the president “shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” So, if presidential authority is “conclusive and preclusive” when presidents exercise their constitutionally granted powers, the Court appears to have ruled that yes, Trump could order the military to assassinate one of his political opponents. And nothing can be done to him for it.”
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“Roberts’s second conclusion is that presidents also enjoy “at least a presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for a President’s acts within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility.” Thus, if a president’s action even touches on his official authority (the “outer perimeter” of that authority), then the president enjoys a strong presumption of immunity from prosecution.
This second form of immunity applies when the president uses authority that is not specifically mentioned in the Constitution, and it is quite broad — most likely extending even to mere conversations between the president and one of his subordinates.
The Court also says that this second form of immunity is exceptionally strong. As Roberts writes, “the President must therefore be immune from prosecution for an official act unless the Government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no ‘dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.’”
Much of Roberts’s opinion, moreover, details just how broad this immunity will be in practice. Roberts claims, for example, that Trump is immune from prosecution for conversations between himself and high-ranking Justice Department officials, where he allegedly urged them to pressure states to “replace their legitimate electors” with fraudulent members of the Electoral College who would vote to install Trump for a second term.
Roberts writes that “the Executive Branch has ‘exclusive authority and absolute discretion’ to decide which crimes to investigate and prosecute,” and thus Trump’s conversations with Justice Department officials fall within his “conclusive and preclusive authority.” Following that logic, Trump could not have been charged with a crime if he had ordered the Justice Department to arrest every Democrat who holds elective office.
Elsewhere in his opinion, moreover, Roberts suggests that any conversation between Trump and one of his advisers or subordinates could not be the basis for a prosecution. In explaining why Trump’s attempts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to “fraudulently alter the election results” likely cannot be prosecuted, for example, Roberts points to the fact that the vice president frequently serves “as one of the President’s closest advisers.”
Finally, Roberts does concede that the president may be prosecuted for “unofficial” acts. So, for example, if Trump had personally attempted to shoot and kill then-presidential candidate Joe Biden in the lead-up to the 2020 election, rather than ordering a subordinate to do so, then Trump could probably be prosecuted for murder.
But even this caveat to Roberts’s sweeping immunity decision is not very strong. Roberts writes that “in dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives.” And Roberts even limits the ability of prosecutors to pursue a president who accepts a bribe in return for committing an official act, such as pardoning a criminal who pays off the president. In Roberts’s words, a prosecutor may not “admit testimony or private records of the President or his advisers probing the official act itself.”
That means that, while the president can be prosecuted for an “unofficial” act, the prosecutors may not prove that he committed this crime using evidence drawn from the president’s “official” actions.
The practical implications of this ruling are astounding. As Justice Sonia Sotomayor writes in a dissenting opinion, “imagine a President states in an official speech that he intends to stop a political rival from passing legislation that he opposes, no matter what it takes to do so,” it follows from Roberts’s opinion that the ensuing murder indictment “could include no allegation of the President’s public admission of premeditated intent to support” the proposition that the president intended to commit murder.
Monday’s decision, in other words, ensures that, should Trump return to power, he will do so with hardly any legal checks. Under the Republican justices’ decision in Trump, a future president can almost certainly order the assassination of his rivals. He can wield the authority of the presidency to commit countless crimes. And he can order a subordinate to do virtually anything.