Why a sitting President cannot be indicted for crimes he committed before being elected?
I am not a Constitution expert by any stretch of the imagination and yesterday I heard in the news (maybe fake?) that the President cannot be indicted. My reasoning if this is true is that the 3 Powers set by our Founding Fathers in the Constitution have equal weight i.e. the executive, the judicial and the legislative therefore if the president were indicted for crimes he committed before being elected, it would violate the equality of Powers. I guess this is the reason why Rudy Giuliani has said that Bob Mueller cannot indict the President even if he finds that he colluded with Russia. He will just submit his report to Congress and let them decide whether to impeach him or not. Does anybody know for sure whether the President cannot be indicted and prosecuted??
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Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.The Constitutional method provided to remove a president from office is impeachment, not indictment. Consequently, even if a president were indicted, and convicted, successful impeachment would still be necessary to remove that president from office. Consequently, actual indictment and prosecution of a president for a crime, which has never been tried and so has never been 100% settled, is almost a mute point, but which makes for great political theater. Impeachment does not require a previous indictment, let alone a conviction of a crime, to remove a president from office. If a president were to indicted and convicted of a crime, it would, of course, raise the possibility that such a president would then be successfully impeached, but it would not guarantee it. It's really all about the votes.
Heraclitus
Level 8
May 21, 2018
1
Great answer.
As of yesterday, Trump has decided to obstruct again the Mueller's investigation by investigating the investigators. I couldn't believe that he is so lucky that he found a FBI informant, "spying" during his presidential campaign. This clearly indicates that the FBI is not clean. Remember when they were spying on Martin Luther King Jr and the infamous Edgar Hoover asked him to commit suicide because of his infidelity to Coretta?? Also he was accused of being a communist. In other words, the FBI has the same amount of moral authority as Trump, i.e. NONE.
I am sorry to be pessimistic about all this nightmare but I sometimes think that the nazi buffoon will be reelected and the Democratic Party will be obsolete. A horrible but possible scenario. He may even be impeached and absolved, increasing his popularity even more.
@Condorandino Yes, that is why it is so important that any impeachment attempt is not premature. If he is impeached and absolved, not only would he play it up as a martyr and a victim of a conspiracy, but you could get the "wounded tiger syndrome" and he would be more dangerous than ever once the threat of impeachment has passed.
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