re: #133 Eric The Fruit Bat

Pelosi knows that running the impeachment track will be a dead end once it hits the Senate (cf. Clinton)

Now if she’s thinking that criminal charges from the US and State(s) will be proffered while Trump is in office and avoiding the impeachment process? Now that is a road less traveled.

If Trump is the subject to a criminal indictment and they try to unseal that indictment, impeachment must happen. You can’t have the president running the country from a prison cell, or attempting to pardon himself and his family/staff (but I repeat myself), or ordering the charges dropped.

The whole reasoning behind “a sitting president can’t be indicted” is because all executive power in our system flows from the office of the president. He would effectively be on both sides of the “v” in United States v. Trump; he could tell the AG to drop the charges, and as the AG (and the US Attorney) serve at the pleasure of the president, the AG would have to follow the order or resign (or be fired). It’s the Saturday Night Massacre all over again, in that scenario.

Here’s the other thing, the special counsel regulations contain this provision (28 CFR 600.8(c)):

At the conclusion of the Special Counsel’s work, he or she shall provide the Attorney General with a confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions reached by the Special Counsel.

That’s the report that everyone is waiting on. And if it includes a section saying, “we can (or have) prepared indictments for the following causes of action against the president (see exhibits A through ZZZ), but did not file them because of DOJ regulations/policy regarding the indictment of a sitting president…” the feces shall collide with the ventilation system in a very real and big way.