Can a sitting President be indicted? (1 Viewer)

[timschochet]

I wanted to add this question: what if the World Court at The Hague charged our President with a war crime? Would it be legal for him to stand trial? 

 

[sho nuff]

You made it about you in your very first post in this thread

when you decided to speak for the collective of "leftys" in here about some slight that you yourself perceived.

By asking him to explain his actual comment...that has nothing to do with me...stop with that ridiculousness.

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

I wanted to add this question: what if the World Court at The Hague charged our President with a war crime? Would it be legal for him to stand trial? 

This came up with Bush. The answer is No.

It applied to Serbia because Serbia was exhausted from civil war. There are almost no nations that would tolerate that.

 

[zoonation]

Rather than a comment like this...how about explain what you mean.  Otherwise it’s pretty insulting.

Pro tip:   Stop asking.  They post so little of actual substance in any thread.  They are here for the triggered Democrat schadenfreude.

 Joffer is right. Swim away. 

 

[The Commish]

I wanted to add this question: what if the World Court at The Hague charged our President with a war crime? Would it be legal for him to stand trial? 

Most likely no

 

[jon_mx]

I wanted to add this question: what if the World Court at The Hague charged our President with a war crime? Would it be legal for him to stand trial? 

It has no jurisdiction or enforcement mechanism.  It is mostly an advisory board.  And since the US has veto power on the security council, it would be pointless.  What authority do you think the World Court actually have? 

 

[jon_mx]

The question of the thread, if I am understanding, is can a President be indicted.  An indictment doesn't require taking him into custody.  Had a little text session with my buddy and he sees nothing in their procedures around indictments.  He's of the opinion, still, as I conveyed above that DOJ policy <> law.  If a state agency wanted to actually take him into custody, it would have to go through the courts and have the Supreme Court and have an official precedent set once and for all via the Judicial Branch of the government.  DOJ policy is based on the sorts of things jon posted above, but they really aren't all that specific.  I'm pretty confident our founding fathers and early Supreme Court Justices never though in a million years that the state of this country, today, was possible.

Which I agree with this.  But as it stands the secret service which is under Homeland Security and which is under the Executive branch would abide by the current policy and not recognize an indictment nor allow the President to be arrested until/unless that policy is changed or ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.  

 

[The Commish]

Which I agree with this.  But as it stands the secret service which is under Homeland Security and which is under the Executive branch would abide by the current policy and not recognize an indictment nor allow the President to be arrested until/unless that policy is changed or ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.  

To be clear indicted <> arrested.  I should also add that his feeling was that this only be an issue from a state level indictment.  Outside some very vague rulings in the 1800s there don't seem to be any addressing indictment at a federal level.  The concern then was a state having too much power to muck up the federal government.  Fast Forward to today and it seems like the Secret Service would follow the desires of the DOJ.  So if the DOJ decides to buck their policy, the Secret Service would follow suite.  I don't think there's a chance of that happening based on who's in charge at the DOJ though, but it would be interesting if more "law and order" types were in those positions.  To the comment "recognize an indictment", I'm not sure what you're saying.  They can't simply ignore a ruling of the court.  It would have to be addressed and they would have to follow the court's ruling.

 

[jon_mx]

To be clear indicted <> arrested.  I should also add that his feeling was that this only be an issue from a state level indictment.  Outside some very vague rulings in the 1800s there don't seem to be any addressing indictment at a federal level.  The concern then was a state having too much power to muck up the federal government.  Fast Forward to today and it seems like the Secret Service would follow the desires of the DOJ.  So if the DOJ decides to buck their policy, the Secret Service would follow suite.  

The discussion in the original thread, which my position had been grossly distorted, was concerning a state trying to indict and arrest the President.  If the state of New York for instance tried to arrest the President for fraud or something, I doubt an arrest would be allowed until it has been blessed by the Supreme Court as legal order.  At the federal level it could play out differently, but I still think it would be up to the USSC.  Of course regardless, the secret service are still law enforcement officers who have a duty to stop/prevent/arrest an individual who is committing a felony.  So they would still have a duty to stop and even arrest a president from unlawfully killing someone.   

 

[The Commish]

I think I am happy I missed that last discussion...sounds like a doozy.  

 

[zftcg]

The Argument That the President ‘Cannot Be Indicted’ Is Surprisingly Weak

The easy answer to such a conundrum would be to indict a deserving president for purposes of tolling the statute of limitations—which is generally five years for federal crimes—and conduct the trial once the president is a private citizen and no longer in office. The DoJ memo doesn’t address this seemingly easy fix to what is otherwise a full-blown constitutional crisis of unaccountability at the highest echelon of power in the United States.

One thing is for sure: If a sitting president made it a habit of shooting bystanders through the window of his limo while rolling down Fifth Avenue in New York, or if he regularly siphoned off U.S. Treasury funds to a personal bank account in the Seychelles, nobody would expect law enforcement to turn a blind eye because the Constitution somehow implicitly requires it. The constant refrain of “you can’t indict a president” is thus vastly overblown.

Moreover, that a decision of such momentousness is being dictated by a 19-year-old internal memo drafted by unelected employees within the president’s chain of command should trigger deep skepticism in all of us. The question whether it’s constitutional for a president to be indicted can be resolved definitively only by the U.S. Supreme Court.

And the only way to get the question before that body is—if warranted by the facts, of course—for a grand jury to issue an indictment and see how things shake out for this president, and for those that follow.

 

[jon_mx]

The Argument That the President ‘Cannot Be Indicted’ Is Surprisingly Weak

Moreover, that a decision of such momentousness is being dictated by a 19-year-old internal memo drafted by unelected employees within the president’s chain of command should trigger deep skepticism in all of us. The question whether it’s constitutional for a president to be indicted can be resolved definitively only by the U.S. Supreme Court

The position is based on the words of several of our founding fathers and has some limited legal precidence behind it, not some 19-year old internal memo.   

 

[SaintsInDome2006]

The position is based on the words of several of our founding fathers and has some limited legal precidence behind it, not some 19-year old internal memo.   

There are two solutions to this:

• Because it's DOJ policy, rescind the memo (which hasn't happened) as well as the Nixon era memo (also hasn't).
  
• Indict the president - arguably stopping the statute of limitations - and then allow the USSC to sort it out. Note, no one wants to waste time or resources on this. If the DOJ were to do that they'd have to generate a memo explaining why they can indict the president to justify bringing it to the USSC. That hasn't happened yet.