The Supreme Courts decision that Donald Trump has full immunity for official acts he took as president is so sweeping and vague that it opens the door for sitting presidents to do whatever they want without any accountability, including assassinating a political rival.

Legal experts said Monday that yes, as horrific and authoritarian as that sounds, the 6-3 decision by the courts conservative supermajority means that President Joe Biden could theoretically order that Trump be killed and be immune from criminal prosecution.

Presumptively, he has the power to assassinate a rival, John Dean, who was White House counsel to former President Richard Nixon, told HuffPost on a call with the Defend Democracy Project, a group that advocates for free and fair elections.

Making matters worse, said Dean, is that the court ruled that official acts by a president cant be used as evidence of criminal conduct for unofficial acts. So in a hypothetical scenario involving Biden ordering people to kill Trump, his actual giving of the order would be potentially unavailable for evidence, he said.

The former White House counsel, who called the Supreme Courts decision radical, said the conservative majority also just raised questions about immunity for people who carry out a presidents official but criminal activities.

When Nixon warned that, When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal, he went on to say, How could staff operate if they didnt have a president who was totally immune? said Dean. Presidents are good at giving orders. They dont execute those orders themselves. So you have a whole lot of people who have criminal exposure, and this opinion in my quick reading doesnt cover that.

Norm Eisen, who served as former President Barack Obamas ethics czar and as special counsel for Democrats during Trumps 2019 impeachment trial, said the dissenting opinion by the three Democrat-appointed justices is an unprecedented and dire warning.

Led by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the dissent says the immunity created by the ruling now lies about like a loaded weapon for any president to use however they want, for their own financial interests or political gain, knowing they are insulated from criminal prosecution.

Orders the Navys Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune, Sotomayor wrote.

When dissenting justices warn that the majority may have just legalized murder by one individual in our country, that warning is to be taken very seriously, Eisen said. No more are the consequences of the majority opinion able to be read in isolation. One of the majority party candidates has repeatedly, not in isolation, made a variety of autocratic promises, including to be a dictator on day one .