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Can a sitting President be indicted? Starr Memo
[url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/22/us/politics/can-president-be-indicted-kenneth-starr-memo.html?_r=0]Can the President Be Indicted? A Long-Hidden Legal Memo Says Yes[/url]
A newfound memo from Kenneth W. Starrs independent counsel investigation into President Bill Clinton sheds fresh light on a constitutional puzzle that is taking on mounting significance amid the Trump-Russia inquiry: Can a sitting president be indicted?
The 56-page memo, locked in the National Archives for nearly two decades and obtained by The New York Times under the Freedom of Information Act, amounts to the most thorough government-commissioned analysis rejecting a generally held view that presidents are immune from prosecution while in office.
It is proper, constitutional, and legal for a federal grand jury to indict a sitting president for serious criminal acts that are not part of, and are contrary to, the presidents official duties, the Starr office memo concludes. In this country, no one, even President Clinton, is above the law.[/QUOTE]
actual memo here: [link=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/22/us/document-Savage-NYT-FOIA-Starr-memo-presidential.html]https://www.nytimes.com/i…memo-presidential.html[/link]
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15 Replies
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Sure, because Ken Starr was someone who could look at this question with an unbiased eye.
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Great article.
Here’s another article, in the New Republic, that might shed light on SOME of what Trump and his organization can be indicted on. It’s called “Trump’s Russian Laundromat.”
[link=https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate]https://newrepublic.com/a…tional-crime-syndicate[/link]
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Quote from fw
Sure, because Ken Starr was someone who could look at this question with an unbiased eye.
Obviously in the end the decision would fall to SCOTUS. But the legal argument is pretty interesting.
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Quote from dergon
Quote from fw
Sure, because Ken Starr was someone who could look at this question with an unbiased eye.
Obviously in the end the decision would fall to SCOTUS. But the legal argument is pretty interesting.
The same legal tradition that protects the president from prosecution kept Ken Starr out of prison after his abuse of public office during the clinton1 shenanigans.
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Opinions galore, the issue is still undecided because it’s never come up. Like a President pardoning himself, don’t know law until it’s in front of judges. & even then it isn’t absolute.
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Well, since this [link=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/22/us/document-Savage-NYT-FOIA-Starr-memo-presidential.html]56-page memo[/link]…”amounts to the most thorough government-commissioned analysis rejecting a [link=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/29/us/politics/a-constitutional-puzzle-can-the-president-be-indicted.html]generally held view[/link] that presidents are immune from prosecution while in office,” who are we radiologists to argue?
Do the legal scholars try to interpret MRI’s?-
Quote from denizen
Well, since this [link=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/22/us/document-Savage-NYT-FOIA-Starr-memo-presidential.html]56-page memo[/link]…”amounts to the most thorough government-commissioned analysis rejecting a [link=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/29/us/politics/a-constitutional-puzzle-can-the-president-be-indicted.html]generally held view[/link] that presidents are immune from prosecution while in office,” who are we radiologists to argue?
Do the legal scholars try to interpret MRI’s?
On this question you can see Ken Starr and CNN on one side and the rest of the legal profession on the other.
Ken Starr had a hard-on to get Clinton on something, didn’t matter what. His prosecution through Congress failed. He is hardly a useful source of information on this question.
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I don’t think it’s true that “the rest of the legal profession” disagrees with Ken Starr. This subject is a controversial one among the legal profession, from what I’ve read.
The Constitution doesn’t directly address the question.
The closest the Constitution comes to addressing the issue is in this passage, from [link=https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/articlei#section3]Article I, Section 3[/link]: Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States: but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law.
This much seems clear: The president and other federal officials may be prosecuted after they leave office, and there is no double jeopardy protection from prosecution if they are removed following impeachment.
[link=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/29/us/politics/a-constitutional-puzzle-can-the-president-be-indicted.html]https://www.nytimes.com/2…ident-be-indicted.html[/link]
As long as he can pardon himself while president, what’s the use in indicting him, Bork has argued, according to the Times. But after he leaves office, he is accountable, unless he pardons himself.
Trump tweeted today that he thinks he has absolute power to pardon. Obviously he thinks his pardoning power is going to be relevant, indicating he worries there’s criminal action that he needs to think about pardoning.-
I think in this case Originalism has a definite and highly relevant position as what the Framers considered was contemporary to them and still is. Did they think a President could be indicted while in office, possibly found guilty & imprisoned? And most importantly then have the power to pardon himself at any point in the process?
I doubt they thought self pardoning powers was a good things it makes no sense at all. And especially in light of their concern of the totalism of the King’s powers mirrored by the President’s powers. Meaning, doubtful they’d want to grant self immunity to the Executive even with impeachment as an escape clause.
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Quote from denizen
I don’t think it’s true that “the rest of the legal profession” disagrees with Ken Starr. This subject is a controversial one among the legal profession, from what I’ve read.
[/Quote]That suggests that you are reading the popular press which currently is dominated by people opposed to the president.
As long as he can pardon himself while president, what’s the use in indicting him, Bork has argued, according to the Times. But after he leaves office, he is accountable, unless he pardons himself.
Pardons can cover actions over a period of time and preclude any prosecution for those actions. Whether a president could pardon herself has yet to be tested.
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Quote from fw
Quote from denizen
I don’t think it’s true that “the rest of the legal profession” disagrees with Ken Starr. This subject is a controversial one among the legal profession, from what I’ve read.
[/Quote]That suggests that you are reading the popular press which currently is dominated by people opposed to the president.
As long as he can pardon himself while president, what’s the use in indicting him, Bork has argued, according to the Times. But after he leaves office, he is accountable, unless he pardons himself.
Pardons can cover actions over a period of time and preclude any prosecution for those actions. Whether a president could pardon herself has yet to be tested.
It’s not just the “popular” press. Unless it’s Breitbart, Alex Jones, or Faux News, the free press reports things that are actual fact, as can be proven by cross referencing and literature searches. The fact is that this question regarding whether a president can pardon himself is controversial among the legal scholars. What the legal literature says is out there, regardless of what Bubble the Trump supporters would like to hide in.
And it’s not just the “popular” press, but legal literature. Take the Constitution itself, for example.
The question is difficult because the text of the Constitution gives us some hints but no dispositive answers. At first reading, Section 3 of Article I seems to suggest that impeachment must precede any criminal prosecution: “Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust, or Profit under the United States; but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.”
On your second point, the thought that a pardon can preclude future prosecution is not true. A presidential pardon only works for federal crimes, but states can still prosecute. And the thought that Trump can pre-pardon himself to stop the Russia investigation is ridiculous. That he even brought this up means that he thinks he is guilty of some crime that he must think of pardoning himself for.
Anyway, for radiologists to argue this tough subject that even legal scholars can’t agree on is ridiculous.
[link=http://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2573&context=facpub]http://scholarship.law.ge…573&context=facpub[/link]
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It’s understandable that Trump would think of pardoning himself, given his history.
In 1984, a Russian émigré named David Bogatin went shopping for apartments in New York City. The 38-year-old had arrived in America seven years before, with just $3 in his pocket. But for a former pilot in the Soviet Army..he had clearly done quite well for himself. Bogatin … was fixated on the glitziest apartment building on Fifth Avenue, a gaudy, 58-story edifice with gold-plated fixtures and a pink-marble atrium: Trump Tower.
When Trump Tower was built, as David Cay Johnston [link=https://www.mhpbooks.com/books/the-making-of-donald-trump/]reports[/link] in [i]The Making of Donald Trump[/i], it was only the second high-rise in New York that accepted anonymous buyers.
In 1987, just three years after he attended the closing with Trump, Bogatin [link=http://www.nytimes.com/1987/03/12/nyregion/brooklyn-fuel-distributor-pleads-guilty-in-tax-plot.html]pleaded[/link] guilty to taking part in a massive gasoline-bootlegging scheme with Russian mobsters. After he fled the country, the government [link=http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/30/nyregion/entrepreneur-who-left-us-is-back-awaiting-sentence.html]seized[/link] his five condos at Trump Tower, saying that he had purchased them to launder money, to shelter and hide assets. A Senate investigation into organized crime later [link=https://archive.org/stream/russianorganized00unit/russianorganized00unit_djvu.txt]revealed[/link] that Bogatin was a leading figure in the Russian mob in New York. His family ties, in fact, led straight to the top: His brother [link=http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/ruslobby-mogilevich-04172007.pdf]ran[/link] a $150 million stock scam with none other than Semion Mogilevich, whom the FBI [link=https://www.villagevoice.com/1998/05/26/the-most-dangerous-mobster-in-the-world/]considers[/link] the boss of bosses of the Russian mafia. At the time, Mogilevichfeared even by his fellow gangsters as the most powerful mobster in the worldwas expanding his multibillion-dollar international criminal syndicate into America….
Over the past three decades, at least 13 people with known or alleged links to Russian mobsters or oligarchs have owned, lived in, and even run criminal activities out of Trump Tower and other Trump properties. Many used his apartments and casinos to launder untold millions in dirty money. Some ran a worldwide high-stakes gambling ring out of Trump Towerin a unit directly below one owned by Trump. Others provided Trump with lucrative branding deals that required no investment on his part. Taken together, the flow of money from Russia provided Trump with a crucial infusion of financing that helped rescue his empire from ruin, burnish his image, and launch his career in television and politics. They saved his bacon, says Kenneth McCallion, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Reagan administration who investigated ties between organized crime and Trumps developments in the 1980s.
[link=https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate]https://newrepublic.com/a…tional-crime-syndicate[/link] -
…….
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Ken Starr dead at 76
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Awww. A true American.
A man who firmly believed laws only apply to Democrats, not Republicans. Who believed one should protect college footballers and rich celebrities who rape women. And get sweetheart deals for people like Jeffrey Epstein.
Hope they found a very warm place for him in the after life.
He [link=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/from-whitewater-to-blackw_b_32656]failed to secure constitutional immunity[/link] for the mercenary firm Blackwater after its contractors slaughtered four unarmed civilians in Fallujah.
Despite being busy defending opponents of same-sex marriage and private military contractors, Starr found plenty of ways to return to the world of sexual impropriety. With his plethora of connections to George W. Bushs administration, Starr [link=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/13/ken-starr-jeffrey-epstein-book]joined Jeffrey Epsteins legal team[/link] and played a crucial part in pressuring the Justice Department to drop its sex-trafficking case against the billionaire. For his efforts, Starr helped his client secure the infamous sweetheart deal that landed him in prison for just 18 months and effectively ensured him immunity from future prosecution.
Epstein wasnt the only alleged child molester Starr tried to help either. In 2013, he [link=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/former-potomac-school-teacher-to-be-sentenced-in-decades-old-molestations/2013/10/17/b41ba620-3743-11e3-80c6-7e6dd8d22d8f_story.html]wrote a letter of support for Christopher Kloman[/link], just before he was sentenced to 43 years in prison for molesting five girls while teaching at the elite Potomac School in the Sixties and Seventies.
Three years after that, Starr resigned as chancellor of Baylor University, and a professor at its law school, not long after being removed from his post as president. The reason? An investigation found that Starr and other administrators [link=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/16/sports/ncaafootball/baylor-sexual-assault-report-no-paper-trail.html]mishandled numerous accusations of sexual assault[/link] [link=https://www.wsj.com/articles/baylor-details-horrifying-alleged-sexual-assaults-by-football-players-1477681988?emailToken=JRr8f/pyZ3yXi9Ezasw23UwsabNNB%2BKVT1LTNzXKPVLWtXLEoOSugqwxg9a4rG/qXktq%2BtkAqmckXjTMhHZxGcWA3rB4lkuucn1Z64nA2ByGIF%2BexRLVIrRM7/iFrg%3D%3D]including multiple rape allegations[/link] against the schools football players.
For his final act, the man who made a name for himself trying to take down one president tried to help another stave off the same fate. First as a TV talking head, he argued against impeaching Donald Trump over the Mueller report, claiming it would be bad for the country. Starr later joined Trumps legal team when he was impeached (the first time) for abuse of power and obstruction of justice after he allegedly tried to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden.
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