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Presidential Accountability And The Rule Of Law: Can The President Claim Immunity If He Shoots Someone On Fifth Avenue?, Claire Oakes Finkelstein, Richard Painter

All Faculty Scholarship

Can a sitting President be indicted while in office? This critical constitutional question has never been directly answered by any court or legislative body. The prevailing wisdom, however, is that, though he may be investigated, a sitting President is immune from actual prosecution. The concept of presidential immunity, however, has hastened the erosion of checks and balances in the federal government and weakened our ability to rein in renegade Presidents. It has enabled sitting Presidents to impede the enforcement of subpoenas and other tools of investigation by prosecutors, both federal and state, as well as to claim imperviousness to civil …

Memorandum From University Of Illinois College Of Law Professor Ronald D. Rotunda Memorandum To The Honorable Kenneth W. Starr Regarding Whether A Sitting President Is Subject To Indictment [Portions Redacted], Ronald D. Rotunda

United States Department of Justice: Publications

Re: Indictability of the President, with particular respect to whether President Bill Clinton could be charged with indictable offenses while in federal office.

Excerpt from the New York Times article: “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 president’s official duties,” the Starr office memo concludes. “In this country, no one, even President Clinton, is above the law.”