Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) suggested that there might be an indictment waiting for Donald Trump as soon as he leaves office.
The House Intelligence Committee chairman told Newsweek:
I presume the only reason the Justice Department didn’t take action against Individual 1 is that he is the president of the United States, and he is not subject to indictment. That is not going to be the case when he leaves office. One of the arguments I have been making is that the Justice Department needs to reconsider the policy against indictment of a sitting president in circumstances where the statute of limitations may toll prior to that person leaving office. It may be wise to stay the prosecution or trial. I have been making that argument publicly.
Most of the OLC [Office of Legal Counsel within the Justice Department] opinions of the past analyzed the question of whether you can encumber the president’s time by putting him through a trial. There’s been very little talk about whether you can postpone a trial. The only argument against that would be whether you place a stigma over a president before they leave office. But that ship has already sailed. Federal prosecutors in New York already identified an Individual 1 who was known to be the president of the United States. So whatever the additional stigma of formally naming the president in an indictment is, weighed against the interest of justice that no one escapes the law because of holding office, I think militates toward indictment and staying prosecution.
Rep. Schiff has been advocating that a president should not be able to use his office to run out the clock on the statute of limitations, which is a point that Sarah Jones has been making on her Politicus News show:
Schuff is suggesting that there may be a potential indictment waiting for Trump as soon as he steps foot outside of the White House as a private citizen. Schiff is right. No president should be able to escape justice, and if the voters do their jobs in 2020, “Individual 1” could go from the White House to the big house.
For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
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