re: #143 Backwoods_Sleuth

I respect Tribe a whole lot, but I think he’s wrong on this. The main problem with his position is that the president is the chief law enforcement officer under the constitution. The constitution specifically vests the executive power of the government in the president alone (which is why cabinet secretaries serve at the pleasure of the president), and he is responsible for seeing that the law is faithfully executed. So, in essence, Trump would be standing on both sides of the proverbial V in a United States v Trump case. He would, theoretically, at least, have final say in how the prosecutors proceeded against him. That conundrum is why the Framers, as evidenced by Hamilton’s writings in the Federalist Papers saw impeachment as a necessary first step in dealing with a criminal president.

An alternative view would be to say that a sitting president is subject to indictment, but the statute of limitations is tolled while he is in office.

This is different from enforcing a subpoena, because in those cases, it is technically within the Court’s power to compel witnesses to produce evidence.