Countering the FBI/DOJ Policy of a Sitting President's Amenability to Indictment and Criminal Prosecution

The FBI/DOJ have a long held policy that in a nutshell, shields a sitting president from indictment and prosecution for crimes. On its face, one could consider the stress of a presidential indictment would be too much for the country to bear. On the other hand, America’s resiliency has proven time and again that it can withstand stress of constitutional crisis as demonstrated by the impeachment hearings of Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. All stressful and all leaving an indelible mark on our nation, yet we persist.

At issue is perhaps the constitutionally guaranteed right to a speedy trial, which has been made moot by the FBI/DOJ policy of refusing to indict a sitting president. The framers understood that law, order and justice must in all cases prevail. To this end, they included in the Constitution a remedy by which the country can continue to operate with the least level of impairment or incapacity when confronted by monumental crisis. It’s called the “Presidential Line of Succession”.

Impeachment by Congress and criminal indictment by Federal authorities are two separate and distinct operations of our nation’s laws and institutions. They are conducted separately and the Line of Succession, which acts as a "safety net" to ensure the continuity of operation of government through times of constitutional crisis, mitigates the risk or capacity to impact negatively the other’s process and mitigates the possibility of any incapacitation of government operations.

It is this distinction and by this separation of legal processes, that the conclusions reached by the FBI/DOJ relative to the amenability of a sitting president to be criminally indicted and prosecuted appear to have been reached in error and based on the defective reasoning as stipulated on the FBI/DOJ website that; "an indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions". The Presidential Line of Succession is the constitutional remedy that not only contradicts, but makes moot the Justice Department’s policy of shielding a sitting president from indictment and prosecution for crimes.

Consistent with the American ideal that no one is above the law and therefore no seat in government is immune from indictment and prosecution from Federal crimes, even the uber conservative Republican Judge Bork agreed and addressed the question in 1973, in connection with the grand jury investigation of then-Vice President Spiro Agnew. In response to a motion by Vice President Agnew to enjoin grand jury proceedings against him, then-Solicitor General Robert Bork filed a brief arguing that, consistent with the Constitution, the Vice President could be subject to indictment and criminal prosecution. What's good for the Vice President, is good for the President.

About the author:
George Legeros is a retired, disabled, veteran and Principal IT Architect, fire-puter-outer and Design Engineer, whose last assignment before retirement was NASA's Rocket Engine Test Facilities in Stennis, MS. Also listed in 2010 Guinness Book of World Records.