he can be sued civilly but he cannot be indicted. we already went through this. they did do a grand jury. he testified in front of the grand jury where he lied. but that was under the independent council statute. judge jeanine: can the president be subpoenaed? not for these questions they have. they violate not only article 2 of the constitution but executive privilege and federal case law. so these questions are phooey, a real legal term. judge jeanine: a busy night, and we haven t even heard from the panel yet. katrina pierson from the trump
of his mind but he can t as long as sessions recused himself and is not in charge of the investigation. rosenstein is in charge. you put a new attorney general in place, he can bring in his own assistant to replace rosenstein and then you have trump followers in charge of the person handling the investigation, mueller. session has a lot sure, michael. i was going to say, i don t disagree, necessarily, with that, although, i think the end of that strategy, were it to be executed would be suicidal for the president. if he replaced the attorney general, imposed a new attorney general who then fired mueller, who can only be fired for cause on trumped up charges of cause z, i think he ll end up with independent council statute and mueller will be appointed under that. people will think there s something more going on here and it will spiral him into a bad place legally.
whether carter s chief of staff was on drugs and one whether his campaign manager was on drugs. no indictments in either case. the inspector law changed ultimately into the independent council law, they changed the name of it, changed it substantively a few times, re-authorized in the 80s and once again in the 90s. the democrats hated the way it was used against democratic administrations and the republicans hated the way it was used against republican administrations. the thing was in and out of court all the time being challenged on substantive constitutional grounds. finally in 1999, they killed it, they let it die. great. everybody hated that. everybody hated that way of dealing with it so the independent council statute, it died. there is still this underlying problem, right? still the underlying existential
investigations take us. but we have to have the investigation. and you think a commission rather than a special prosecutor, and if so, why? well, a special prosecutor would be appointed by the justice department by the president of the united states. it s a path. there can be some investigation from the two committees in the house the one in the house and senate, if they ever if mr. nunes recuses himself and the new chairman is there for that investigation. it doesn t have to be for everything before the committee. but for the this particular investigation. that s something that they do a prosecutor, that s interesting. but the outside that s what we did on 9/11. it had so much commanded so much respect. nobody thought of it in terms of being political. but there is a third way, which is, of course, the independent council statute which only congress can reauthorize? do you think it s time to talk about that? the idea there is an independent council put in for essenti
out of the department, it s essentially saying the department of justice can t do justice, and that s not a healthy think let s put this issue aside, institution ali, it s a bad idea, it s why the independent council statute was not renewed. the special council regulations envision a conflict with the department so so veer that not only is the attorney general recused, but the department of justice itself is not capable of conducting a fair and independent investigation. and that s not a good idea. john, you take umbrage to that, i can tell. the justice department as we now have it is headed by a person who lied to the senate who promised them an explanation, he hasn t given them, who wouldn t even talk to the press today, when they were rolling out the new immigration policy and does america trust that department? that s why you have an independent investigation. there are so many conflicts in