We live in a country where supposedly anyone can grow up to be president of the United States—if you are straight, white, “Christian,” and rich. In my lifetime, there has only been one exception to that rule. But the idea that anyone can grow up to be president is prevalent in the mythology of the United States of America.
Most Americans are generally good people. We go to work, pay our taxes, raise our children, and try to do good things in our communities. However, as human beings, we are also imperfect. We make mistakes, we screw up, some of us break laws, most of us have likely violated at least one statute. Most of us have at some point probably driven above the speed limit, jaywalked, gotten a parking ticket, or been caught in some other minor transgression. Others have committed major crimes for which they were indicted, arrested, put on trial, and found not guilty, or found guilty and sentenced to some sort of punishment. For the most part, this system has worked for us. You commit a crime, you pay a price.
But there is one person in the country who cannot be indicted, arrested, or jailed—even if he has committed a crime. That person is the president of the United States of America, someone who is supposed to be just like us: a normal, everyday person—in other words, a less-than-perfect human being. The idea that our president cannot be indicted is not in the U.S. Constitution; it is not settled case law. There is no precedent for it. It is based on an opinion from 1973, and was reaffirmed in a 2000 memo.
In 1973, in the midst of the Watergate scandal engulfing President Richard Nixon, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel adopted in an internal memo the position that a sitting president cannot be indicted. Nixon resigned in 1974, with the House of Representatives moving toward impeaching him.
“The spectacle of an indicted president still trying to serve as Chief Executive boggles the imagination,” the memo stated.
The department reaffirmed the policy in a 2000 memo, saying court decisions in the intervening years had not changed its conclusion that a sitting president is “constitutionally immune” from indictment and criminal prosecution. It concluded that criminal charges against a president would “violate the constitutional separation of powers” delineating the authority of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the U.S. government.
“The indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions,” the memo stated.
We hold our local officials to a higher standard than we do the president of the United States. Mayors and governors are the heads of their governmental institutions, and since 2010, 21 of them have been indicted on charges that run the gamut from bounced checks to corruption.
- In 2017 Governor of Alabama Robert J. Bentley (R) resigned after pleading guilty to two misdemeanor charges: failing to file a major contribution report, in violation of Code of Alabama § 17-5-8.1(c); and knowingly converting campaign contributions to personal use, in violation of Code of Alabama § 36-25-6.
- In 2016 Mayor of Gardena, California, Paul Tanaka (R) convicted of civil rights abuses
- In 2013 Mayor of San Diego, California Bob Filner (D) was given three months of house arrest, three years' probation, and partial loss of his mayoral pension after pleading guilty to state charges of false imprisonment and battery.
- In 2010 Mayor of Hartford, Connecticut Eddie Perez (D), was sentenced to eight years, suspended after three years, with three years in prison, to be followed by three years of probation for corruption.
- In 2010 Mayor of East Chicago, Indiana George Pabey (D) was convicted by a federal court jury of conspiracy and theft of government funds.
- In 2014 Mayor of New Orleans, Louisiana Ray Nagin (D) was found guilty on 20 counts of bribery and was sentenced to ten years in federal prison.
- In 2010 Mayor of Mandeville, Louisiana Eddie Price III (R) was sentenced to 60 months on charges of income tax evasion and corruption.
- In 2010 Mayor of Baltimore, Maryland Sheila Dixon (D) was convicted of fraudulent misappropriation and was sentenced to four years of probation.
- In 2013 Mayor of Detroit, Michigan Kwame Kilpatrick (D) was sentenced to 18 months to 5 years in prison for violating his probation in 2010. In 2013 he was sentenced to 28 years in prison for federal charges including racketeering and extortion.
- In 2012 Governor of Missouri Roger B. Wilson (D) was fined $2,000 by the Missouri Ethics Commission. In July he was sentenced to two years of probation on the money laundering charge.
- In 2014 Mayor of Trenton, New Jersey, Tony F. Mack (D) was indicted for bribery, fraud, extortion and money laundering, he was convicted on all counts.He was sentenced to nearly five years in prison.
- In 2013 Mayor of Hamilton, New Jersey John Bencivengo (R) was sentenced to 38 months in prison for corruption (2013)
- In 2011 Mayor of Perth Amboy, New Jersey Joseph Vas (D) and his longtime top mayoral aide, Melvin Ramos, were indicted by a federal grand jury for mail fraud, misapplication of funds, and making false statements to the Federal Election Commission. sentenced to six-and-a-half years for federal corruption.
- In 2010 North Carolina Governor Mike Easley (D) was convicted of a federal campaign law felony.
- In 2014 the Mayor of Charlotte, North Carolina Patrick Cannon (D) was charged with accepting bribes.
- In 2014 the Mayor of High Point, North Carolina Bernita Sims (D) was convicted of a worthless check charge.
- In 2018 the Mayor of Allentown, Pennsylvania Ed Pawlowski (D) was convicted of corruption.
- In 2018 the Mayor of Reading, Pennsylvania, Vaughn Spencer (D) was convicted of corruption, bribery, wire fraud and conspiracy.
- In 2017 the Mayor of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Steven R. Reed (D) pleaded guilty to theft of public funds.
- In 2018 the Mayor of Nashville, Tennessee, Megan Barry (D) pleaded guilty to felony theft related to an affair she had with the police officer who ran her security detail.
- In 2019 Mayor of Dallas Dwaine Caraway (D) was convicted of corruption.
The above list is just for a span of 10 years, and only includes mayors and governors. If I opened it up to all elected officials, the list gets pretty damn long. It goes back to 1859, when Illinois Gov. Joel Aldrich Matteson, was accused of redeeming Michigan and Illinois Canal script that had already been redeemed. He was found guilty and forced to repay $238,000.
How the Justice Department came up with the idea that a sitting U.S. president cannot be indicted is beyond me. In the world I live in, if you commit a crime, and get caught doing it, you are going to be indicted and likely convicted, regardless of your job title (yes, I know the rich get off all the time). If the president of the United States is caught committing a crime, he should be held to the same damn standard as the rest of us. The very idea that “The spectacle of an indicted president still trying to serve as Chief Executive boggles the imagination” is absurd. If a president is indicted, he has the choice to stay in office and fight the charges, to resign in disgrace, or to invoke Section 3 of the 25th Amendment.
Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
Or the vice president and the Cabinet could invoke Section 4 of the 25th Amendment.
Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.
Thereafter, when the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that no inability exists, he shall resume the powers and duties of his office unless the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive department or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit within four days to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office. Thereupon Congress shall decide the issue, assembling within forty-eight hours for that purpose if not in session. If the Congress, within twenty-one days after receipt of the latter written declaration, or, if Congress is not in session, within twenty-one days after Congress is required to assemble, determines by two-thirds vote of both Houses that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall continue to discharge the same as Acting President; otherwise, the President shall resume the powers and duties of his office.
If anything, the indictment of a sitting president would force Congress to act upon articles of impeachment. Either way, the argument that the president of the United States is immune from criminal prosecution is not spelled out in the U.S. Constitution, nor has it ever been challenged in the courts.
I am not a legal expert, nor am I a constitutional scholar. But I do know injustice when I see it. The Justice Department failed to act in 1973 against Richard M. Nixon for the crimes he committed; in fact, it took the coward’s way out with its memo about not indicting the president because of the spectacle it would create. The Justice Department is again failing to act in the case of Donald J. Trump, who has clearly committed crimes while occupying the office of the president.