Someone actually voted 'yes.'

Is there a reason this is a poll rather than a market? That's a lot of missed trader bonuses

I'm not grasping the connection, since the mere existence of legal immunity (not counting impeachment) is far from sufficient reason for killing someone. But if such immunity doesn't exist, maybe Obama should be tried for the extra-judicial murder of an American citizen (al-Awlaki).

@AlQuinn Obama's case rested on al-Awlaki being an enemy combatant by virtue of his assistance to Al-Qaeda, not an argument that US Presidents may arbitrarily kill people.

@HarrisonNathan as proven by what evidence heard in which court? Ctrl+f "enemy combatant" turns up zero matches in the Constitution. (Tangentially, SCOTUS just ruled 9-0 for Fikre in FBI vs Fikre regarding the Kafkaesque absurdity of the no fly list)

@AlQuinn I think the connection is that if the supreme court grants unconditional presidential legal immunity then Biden would suddenly be allowed to kill Trump so he can't get defeated in the election

@AlQuinn This is the kind of thing that obviously is not going to be specified in the constitution itself. Just look at the extremal case though: what if a President had to give every potential enemy combatant his day in court, in case he wanted to argue that he wasn't fighting against the United States, before authorizing US armed forces to target him? Then, clearly, the President would be unable to authorize the armed forces to use lethal force, which is his job according to the constitution and statute. So that interpretation is never going to hold up. There is room for argument as to how far the President's authority to determine who is a legitimate military target extends, but that's quite different from an argument that the President is not subject to law whatsoever.

@AlQuinn I believe it was the use of a drone far from any active combat zone that was controversial in the Obama case, not that he ordered the strike against an American citizen. He didn't pose an immediate threat to anyone. To say that the president can't order a strike against an American citizen extra-judicially because it isn't a power specifically enumerated in the constitution is nonsense. Dick Cheney, for example, ordered Norad to shoot down a civilian airliner filled with genuinely innocent Americans on 9/11 but did anyone claim this was a violation of their civil rights? Of course not because the plane posed an imminent danger.

@TheAllMemeingEye My point is that even if he would technically be allowed, he would not for many other reasons which I suspect are too obvious to list.

@AlQuinn Trump would do it, though.

@HarrisonNathan Trump would do it because it would benefit Trump. The interests of the country never cross his mind.

@HarrisonNathan @BTE I actually agree substantially with your arguments, which is why I think the question of presidential immunity should not be dismissed out of hand with a glib unrealistic (hopefully) thought experiment. Obviously, historical actions by presidents indicate substantial immunity exists in practice. But what would the legal basis be for where to draw the line between al-Awlaki and Trump?

@BTE I don't believe Trump would do it, and if he ordered it, the orders would likely not be followed, and if the orders were followed, he would be impeached, removed from office, and tried for murder.

@AlQuinn

Much of Barron’s reasoning rests on the 2001 congressional authorization of military action in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. It also argues the operation would not constitute murder or violate laws of war.

“High-level government officials have concluded, on the basis of al-Aulaqi's activities in Yemen, that al-Aulaqi is a leader of [al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula] whose activities in Yemen pose a ‘continued and imminent threat’ of violence to United States persons and interests,” Barron wrote.

The assassination “would be carried out against someone who is within the core of individuals against whom Congress has authorized the use of necessary and appropriate force," he wrote.

Barron conceded that the strike “would occur in Yemen, a location that is far from the most active theater of combat between the United States and al-Qaida."

"That does not affect our conclusion,” he wrote, because of al-Awlaki's affiliation with the umbrella jihadist group.
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/06/23/drone-memo-assassination-us-citizen-anwar-al-awlaki-released

It's a borderline case but the argument in this memo is based on an interpretation of the AUMF and doesn't reference any putative Presidential immunity.

@AlQuinn "I don't believe Trump would do it, and if he ordered it, the orders would likely not be followed, and if the orders were followed, he would be impeached, removed from office, and tried for murder."

Maybe these are good questions for a conditional market. I wouldn't put much mana into it myself because I don't like questions that likely resolve N/A, but I suspect you are wrong in all three of these predictions.