Visiting Professor Corey Brettschneider wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post about whether a sitting U.S. president is immune from criminal prosecution.
As President Trump faces deepening legal problems, the country must confront a vital question: Does the Constitution grant a sitting president immunity from criminal prosecution? According to the conventional wisdom, the Justice Department has decided the issue in the president’s favor. Yet there’s good reason to dispute that conclusion. Supreme Court case law suggests that the president should be denied this special privilege.
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The oath of office requires the president to “protect and defend” the Constitution and the country’s laws — not to use them to hide from criminal responsibility. Israel learned the hard way about the harsh consequences of granting immunity to its president. The presidential office does not make its occupant too dignified to be subject to criminal indictment. The real indignity comes from allowing a president — whose office should be used to serve others — to commit self-serving crimes that go unpunished. Thankfully, unlike Israel’s, our Constitution does not explicitly spell out a grant of presidential immunity. The American people don’t have to make the same mistake.