We told you Donald Trump can be indicted while he’s still in office
For as long as the potential criminal indictment of Donald Trump has been a foreseeable possibility, the mainstream media has insisted that DOJ policy prevented it from happening while Trump is still in office, even as Palmer Report pointed out that there was no such policy. It was only ever a stray opinion written in a DOJ memo which was never tried or tested on any level, and therefore carries no legal weight. It turns out we were more right than we knew.
This evening Rachel Maddow unearthed new historical evidence which helps spell out just how much of a non-policy that old DOJ memo is. It was written solely to try to explain why the DOJ could indict then-Vice President Spiro Agnew, arguing that he wouldn’t be nearly as busy as the President, and would therefore be in a better position to deal with being indicted.
In other words, there really truly is no DOJ policy that would stand in the way of Robert Mueller, SDNY, or anyone else from indicting Donald Trump while he’s still in office. The question is what happens if anyone decides to try it. Trump would likely make an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court in the hope of getting it struck down. But while Trump has five conservative votes, we keep seeing that he doesn’t seem to have five pro-Trump votes.
So let’s say the Supreme Court tells Donald Trump that the indictment against him is indeed valid. From there, the court would have to spell out what would happen next. Normally, when someone is indicted and charged, they’re arrested and brought before a judge for arraignment and decisions about bail. We’re not sure the courts would allow Trump to be arrested while he’s still the “President.” But the mere specter of an indictment could utterly destroy him, leaving him with no choice but to trade his resignation in exchange for reduced charges.
