The Constitution says nothing about a President being unchargeable or untryable or unconvictable in the criminal justice process.
Are you under the impression that impeachment takes its place for them? Or do you not see the part where that is specifically separated?
It’s common sense. There are probably millions of regulations and statutes on the books across all of the many jurisdictions that the president serves. It would be impractical to the point of absurdity to suggest that the president could be held criminally liable and subjected to criminal trial proceedings while in office for violating any of these offenses. He could certainly be tried after leaving office if the behavior is found to be criminal and not associated with the normal functions of his job, but to suggest he can be criminally prosecuted while serving is laughable.
He can be charged, convicted, locked up with the key thrown away – after he is removed from office. It would be dangerous to our nation’s political stability, however, to have potential rivals coming out of the woodwork and deciding to charge the president with all sorts of criminal conduct while he’s serving. There’s a reason that impeachment has a political standard (a very high one) and not a legal one.
I don’t see it as a big deal. I know many people who have managed to avoid prosecution for 4 or even 8 years despite all those millions of regulations and statutes.
But even if it would be “impractical to the point of absurdity”, I don’t think you can create laws on that basis alone. If that’s indeed the case, then pass a law or amendment supporting it.
You seem much more sure of this than a lot of legal minds are. I think you way overestimate what the Constitution actually says about this.
There is nothing in the Constitution or the law to require such forbearance.
We survived it with Johnson and Clinton, didn’t we? In Nixon’s case, we had to do it, and the same for Trump.
There is no standard for what is impeachable.
Collusion has always meant secret cooperation, and ghostwriting a pro-Russia op-ed is both secret and cooperative. This is textbook collusion in spite the fact that you prefer to use an extremely non-standard definition of collusion and your insistence that everyone was using your weird definition of collusion at the start of this.
Not going to bother with semantic games.
Though I should add that you’re misrepresenting the facts in a manner that fits your position. Manafort didn’t try to write a “pro-Russia op-ed”. He tried to write a pro-Manafort op-ed.
You are the only one playing semantic games. You are the one with the unique definition of collusion. Collusion means secret cooperation. You can look it up. Manafort’s ghostwriting activities were both secret and cooperative regardless of the content of the op-ed. This is a canonical example of collusion. Insisting that secret cooperation is not collusion is the kind of semantic game that causes “colluding with Russians” to lose all meaning.
By all means, have fun.
Thanks buddy. I will.
The president could just end a criminal investigation and dare congress to throw him out of power. He could keep firing attorneys generals, federal agents, and lawyers until he’s forced out of power, either by congress or military coup. The president can do whatever the hell he wants until he is stopped by political force. If he doesn’t want to be investigated, he won’t be. It has nothing to do with legal minds.
Precisely - because it’s a political process that doesn’t involve criminal courts.
This conclusion is by no means a given, and many legal minds (including Ken Starr) have argued the opposite: a sitting president can be criminally indicted. However, no court has had the opportunity to rule on this.
I’m not sure this is true but even if it is (which I doubt), I say screw the Founders. They didn’t anticipate having a criminal president conspiring to turn the nation over to a hostile foreign power and having one so intent on ignoring the rule of law. This fucker needs to be convicted and imprisoned (better yet, executed) as an example so that future would-be dictators aren’t tempted to follow his destructive, criminal, treasonous path.
Kaveladze again?
There is also no reason that a sitting president couldn’t continue in office after he was indicted or even convicted. So, unless you want to initiate a constitutional crisis, it seems rather pointless to even try to convict before impeachment and removal from office.
This doesn’t preclude the Oval Office being reduced to a more rectangular 6x9 cell, does it? We are well into uncharted territory here.
In fact, the Constitution also says, “Judgment in Cases of Impeachments shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust, or Profit under the United States, but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment, and Punishment, according to Law.” That seems to indicate that the Founding Fathers expected that people who are impeached would also be tried for crimes.
IANAL, but I see this as an exclusion to double jeopardy, in that the impeachment and Senate trial do not obviate another, criminal trial (“shall nevertheless be liable”).