The Atlantic

Take Away the President’s Immunity

No legal doctrine should shield anyone—including Donald Trump, if reelected—from prosecution for criminal wrongdoing.
Source: Getty; The Atlantic

Donald Trump’s interest in another run at the presidency is reportedly connected to his intensifying concerns over the January 6 Select Committee hearings. Most recently, after the vice chair, Representative Liz Cheney, suggested that the committee might make multiple criminal referrals for his conduct, Trump exploded at the “warmongering and despicable human being Liz Cheney, who … keeps saying, over and over again, that HER Fake Unselect Committee may recommend CRIMINAL CHARGES against a President of the United States who got more votes than any sitting President in history.”

Various motivations may feed into Trump’s electoral calculation for 2024, but one in particular is coming into focus. In seeking office, he would be seeking legal immunity.

Since 1973, the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) has taken the position, which it affirmed in 2000,

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