By Laurence H. Tribe is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard University. He is an accomplished Supreme Court advocate, holder of eleven honorary degrees, and the author, most recently, of “To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment” (co-authored with Joshua Matz).

~Snipit, read full article:http://www.lawfareblog.com/yes-constitution-allows-indictment-president

Former OLC head Walter Dellinger has authoritatively canvassed the complex history of the Justice Department’s wavering views on the indictment of a sitting president and analyzed the arguments underlying the relevant OLC memos and executive-branch submissions to the Supreme Court. He concludes that “putting a president on trial would be inconsistent with the Article II responsibilities of the modern presidency,” although indicting the president and postponing the trial might not be.

I will shortly discuss the postponement option, but what is essential now is to focus on one conspicuous fact about the OLC memos and Justice Department briefs: They simply don’t address the situation that appears to be unfolding in the United States at the moment. There is mounting reason to ask whether the president and his associates sought to secure his election by conspiring with foreign adversaries and domestic accomplices to defraud the American people. Yet the memos in question would shield him from being held accountable precisely because he won that office. There is a maddeningly circular, bootstrap quality to arguing that even a crime committed to put somebody into a privileged position can’t be pursued because, well, it helped put him into that position of privilege.

In closing: Thus, even if trial and sentencing are to be delayed, there is a compelling case for indicting such a president in plain view and offering him a choice. If he wishes, he could be publicly tried and invoke Section 3 of the 25th Amendment if he is ready to certify that the burdens of criminal trial prevent him from “discharg[ing] the powers and duties of his office” so that those powers and duties devolve on the vice president for the duration of the trial.

Or his trial could be deferred if he expressly agrees, as a binding condition of such postponement, that he will not invoke the statute of limitations or accept a pardon to avoid trial and possible conviction once he is no longer in office. This seems to me the very least that the American legal system should ensure whenever the crime with which the president is charged goes to the very legitimacy of his role as leader of the government and head of state.

Should the president been indicted long ago?

By Laurence H. Tribe is the Carl M. Loeb University Professor and Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard University. He is an accomplished Supreme Court advocate, holder of eleven honorary degrees, and the author, most recently, of “To End a Presidency: The Power of Impeachment” (co-authored with Joshua Matz).

~Snipit, read full article:http://www.lawfareblog.com/yes-constitution-allows-indictment-president

Former OLC head Walter Dellinger has authoritatively canvassed the complex history of the Justice Department’s wavering views on the indictment of a sitting president and analyzed the arguments underlying the relevant OLC memos and executive-branch submissions to the Supreme Court. He concludes that “putting a president on trial would be inconsistent with the Article II responsibilities of the modern presidency,” although indicting the president and postponing the trial might not be.

I will shortly discuss the postponement option, but what is essential now is to focus on one conspicuous fact about the OLC memos and Justice Department briefs: They simply don’t address the situation that appears to be unfolding in the United States at the moment. There is mounting reason to ask whether the president and his associates sought to secure his election by conspiring with foreign adversaries and domestic accomplices to defraud the American people. Yet the memos in question would shield him from being held accountable precisely because he won that office. There is a maddeningly circular, bootstrap quality to arguing that even a crime committed to put somebody into a privileged position can’t be pursued because, well, it helped put him into that position of privilege.

In closing: Thus, even if trial and sentencing are to be delayed, there is a compelling case for indicting such a president in plain view and offering him a choice. If he wishes, he could be publicly tried and invoke Section 3 of the 25th Amendment if he is ready to certify that the burdens of criminal trial prevent him from “discharg[ing] the powers and duties of his office” so that those powers and duties devolve on the vice president for the duration of the trial.

Or his trial could be deferred if he expressly agrees, as a binding condition of such postponement, that he will not invoke the statute of limitations or accept a pardon to avoid trial and possible conviction once he is no longer in office. This seems to me the very least that the American legal system should ensure whenever the crime with which the president is charged goes to the very legitimacy of his role as leader of the government and head of state.

Should the president been indicted long ago?

He needs destroying, he needs to be stomped out like the Cock-roach that he is. YOU alt-right radical fascist cons are useful tools for the people pulling your puppet strings. YOU support a treasonous traitor, Trump the pussy-grabber who objectifies women, he shows no respect for them, he only patronizes the pretty ones so gimme a break here. Sleazy and crooked lawyers are more people in bed with Trump aside from the usually paid escorts, ha.

Damn straight on the Emoluments Clause, the Teflon man escaped that too. And yes to the 1st and 25th amendments.

Trump is the one who has caused this expense, with all his corrupt dealings and obstruction, you can go thank him. You people are he Kings of investigations, should we track you since Bill? Quite the tab on all of them since then and lets's not forget present-day Obama and Hillary again and again and again.

Tht legal opinion is far better than anything you got.

For three years and one month, YOU (the progressive socialist democrats) have been trying to destroy president Trump, his family, his friends, his associates, and his administration. YOU have tried to indict him, impeach him, criminalize him, imprison him. YOU have launched a covert espionage campaign to bury the man, YOU have weaponized government LE and Intel agencies to use against him. YOU have manufactured evidence and lied to the FISA Court to nail him. YOU have marched out a parade of porn stars and victimized women with sleazy lawyers to slander him. YOU have invoked the Logan Act, the Emoluments clause, the 25th Amendment, the 1st Amendment, and YOU have spent $35 million conducting an investigation led by rabid anti-Trump Hillary supporters in your attempt to destroy him and disenfranchise 63 million American voters.

And, we're supposed to accept this "legal" opinion as the straw that breaks the camel's back? GFY.