You’re damn right Donald Trump can be indicted while he’s still in office

| 4:03 pm EDT July 22, 2017
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Donald Trump has panicked and revealed just how fearful he is that his decades of financial crimes will be uncovered by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. That’s put the focus on which avenues Mueller will ultimately pursue in ensuring that Trump answers for his crimes. It’s also raised the age old question: can a sitting president be indicted for his crimes? The answer is yes. I’m not an attorney, but it turns out some notable legal scholars agree with me.

The latest revelation all started back when Watergate special counsel Leon Jaworski received a memo from his legal staff confirming that he had the Constitutional authority to indict then-president Richard Nixon. Jaworski didn’t ultimately go that route, instead opting for a different strategy. But when independent counsel Kenneth Starr was going after Bill Clinton, law professor Ronald Rotunda wrote another memo once again confirming that Starr had the authority to indict a sitting president.

The Rotunda Memo – we’re going to need a better name for it than that – is just now surfacing in the New York Times (link) after having remained in a vault all these years. What this means is that Robert Mueller can ask a grand jury to indict Donald Trump. It’s far less clear as to whether Mueller can actually put Trump on trial, presumably in absentia, in a court of law, and what would happen if Trump were convicted.

The Constitution makes clear that only the Congress has the power to impeach and remove the president from office. But with this Republican Congress refusing to even entertain the notion of bringing a treasonous career criminal to justice, the only way to force Trump out of power is to make him so toxically unpopular that his own party has no choice but to reluctantly do its duty and oust him. If Mueller can get Trump indicted, it would go a long way toward demonstrating the severity of his crimes, thus driving his approval rating below the 30% mark that would likely trigger impeachment. If you find Palmer Report valuable, make a donation.