Indicting the President: Can a Sitting President Be Criminally Indicted
![handle is hein.journals/swulr30 and id is 429 raw text is: INDICTING THE PRESIDENT:
CAN A SITTING PRESIDENT BE
CRIMINALLY INDICTED?
Keith King*
I. INTRODUCTION
Under United States law, ordinary citizens and public officials are
all susceptible to criminal indictment, but the question of whether a
sitting President can be criminally indicted has long been debated.'
While there is no dispute that the President is both a public official
and a citizen of the United States, the question remains whether he is
afforded immunity from criminal prosecution by virtue of his
position.2
The debate over whether the President is immune from criminal
indictment is not necessarily a dispute over the law, but rather how we
view the President and the nation,3 because [i]n the Presidency is
embodied the continuity and indestructibility of the state.4 If the
President is not afforded immunity by virtue of his position, then Pres-
idential immunity is no greater than the immunity granted any other
public official or citizen of the United States. Without immunity by
virtue of his position, the President may be criminally indicted.5
Despite the Constitution's clearly defined process by which a sit-
ting President may be impeached,6 the issue of whether the President
may be indicted while in office remains unclear. Some argue that the
* General Counsel and Corporate Secretary for the Pueblo Corporation; J.D., Southwest-
ern University School of Law; former member of the U.S. Speed Skating team.
1. Akhil Reed Amar & Brian Kaht, The Presidential Privilege Against Prosecution, 2
NEXUS, Spring 1997, at 11.
2. Id.
3. Eric M. Freedman, Achieving Political Adulthood, 2 NExus, Spring 1997, at 67.
4. Alexander M. Bickel, The Constitutional Tangle, NEW REPUBLIC, Oct. 6, 1973, at 14.
5. Amar & Kaht, supra note 1, at 11-12.
6. U.S. CONST. art. I, § 3, cl. 6-7 (granting the Senate the power of trying and impeach-
ment, states' impeached officials are subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment
after their conviction by the Senate).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/swulr30&div=20&collection=journals&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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Indicting the President: Can a Sitting President Be Criminally Indicted
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