Elizabeth Warren: Pass a law so the president can be indicted

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says “nothing is off the table,” including potential impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. (May 29)
AP, AP

Sen. Elizabeth Warren has a plan for making it crystal clear in the future that sitting presidents can be indicted.

Warren, a 2020 Democratic presidential contender, proposed the legislation on Friday after special counsel Robert Mueller cited a Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) finding earlier in the week that prohibits him from even considering pursuing criminal charges against President Trump.

“Congress should make it clear that Presidents can be indicted for criminal activity, including obstruction of justice,” Warren said. “And when I’m President, I’ll appoint Justice Department officials who will reverse flawed policies so no President is shielded from criminal accountability.”

In addition to her call for legislation, Warren said that if elected she’ll push to amend obstruction of justice statutes to explicitly allow for an indictment if a president abuses the powers of the office. She said she’d also make certain that the assistant attorney general appointed to head the OLC will reverse the Watergate-era opinion that says a sitting president cannot be indicted.

Warren’s legislative push could veer into murky legal territory. The OLC opinion and a subsequent one issued in 2000 were largely built around concerns about separation of powers. Initiating criminal proceedings against a sitting president would interfere with his or her constitutional responsibilities, the OLC concluded.

Mueller in his first public statement on the Russia investigation did not say Trump committed a crime. But the former special counsel also made clear that his team was not exonerating the president in its nearly two-year long investigation.

“If we had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” Mueller said.

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Special counsel Robert Mueller said Wednesday he believed he was constitutionally barred from charging President Donald Trump with a crime but pointedly emphasized his Russia report did not exonerate the president. (May 29)
AP

Mueller in his 448-page report detailing his findings did not offer a determination of whether Trump committed obstruction of justice. Attorney General William Barr and the then Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, however, concluded that there was no obstruction.

Barr in an interview with CBS News Thursday suggested that the OLC memo didn’t prevent Mueller from speaking more clearly about whether he determined the president acted outside the law.

 “The opinion says you cannot indict a president while he’s in office,” Barr said in the CBS interview. “But (Mueller) could’ve reached a decision as to whether it was criminal activity.”

Warren said Friday that Barr lacks credibility and has behaved as if he’s the president’s “personal defense attorney.” She says the attorney general mislead lawmakers about Mueller’s findings prior to the Justice Department’s release of a redacted version of the report.

More newsletterswrote a memo questioning whether it was proper for Mueller to even explore whether Trump obstructed justice by asking then-FBI director James Comey to drop an investigation into former national security adviser Mike Flynn’s contacts with Russia. Trump fired Comey soon after.

“It’s ridiculous,” Warren said. “The Attorney General must represent the people, not the President.”

With Mueller’s statement, the drumbeat for impeachment among Democrats has grown.

Before Mueller’s comments, six of the nearly two dozen Democratic White House candidates had explicitly supported impeachment. Now at least 10 candidates in the Democratic field say they believe the House should begin an impeachment inquiry.

Others, like Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden, have edged closer to endorsing impeachment in the aftermath of Mueller’s comments. Biden’s campaign said in a statement following Mueller’s comments that impeachment may be “unavoidable.”

So far, more than 40 members of the Democratic-controlled House have expressed support called for an impeachment inquiry. Republicans, however, control the Senate and a conviction remains unlikely.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also remains reluctant about Democrats pursuing the politically-risky route of impeachment, because she believes the electorate is not yet there.

“We won’t be swayed by a few people who think one way or another who are running for president, as much as I respect all of them and they have the freedom to be for impeachment,” Pelosi said this week. “We have the responsibility to get a result for the American people and that’s where we’re going.”

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