office can be above the law, can escape the enforcement of the law by essentially waiting out statute of limb statiitatiolimi. solomon, welcome back. all these conversations about indicting a sitting president and this notion that that simply cannot be, i read that you say that s actually ridiculous. tell me why. i just to me i ve never bought the argument that a sitting president can t be indicted. it s not written in the constitution. to me it doesn t flow inexorably from the constitution. however, the congressman is nuts if he thinks d.o.j. is going to change its policy during this administration. by the way, the policy that a sitting president can t be indicted is overwhelmingly mainstream the mainstream
where do you think we are now on it? there seems to be a lot of shifting opinion now toward the validity of indicting a sitting president. i thought back in watergate days that the president should be and could be indicted. the evidence was overwhelmingly clear during watergate. we don t know everything mueller knows, but we know enough now to see in plain sight that crimes have been committed by the president. and we cannot have a society where he could escape either because a statute of limitations runs while he s in office or because he has a speedy trial violation claim that would prevent him from going to trial later on or business witnesses die in the interim waiting so that there s not enough witnesses to testify. it would be wrong. and so whether we go with the political method, which would be
can t indict a sitting president under circumstances which the failure to do so may mean that person escapes justice. because if it were the case that it was now or never, that if you waited until after the president leaves office that they could not be brought to justice, that could create an exception to that olc rule if not revisiting and revising the rule altogether. jill, you ve lived with this issue longer. you ve seen various opinions of it over time. where do you think we are now on it? there seems to be a lot of shifting opinion now toward the validity of indicting a sitting president. i thought back in watergate days that the president should be and could be indicted. the evidence was overwhelmingly clear during watergate.
we found of new contact with russians between michael cohen and a russian emissary, possibly trying to put the president in direct contact with vladimir putin. in the manafort filing, we find out about new contacts between manafort and the white house as recently as earlier this year after he had been indicted. you know, there was plenty of new information here. and explicitly stating that the president here had directed michael cohen to potentially break these campaign finance laws. we had seen some implications of that previously. this underscored it in a way that was different. there s a role question about where congressional republicans are on this. and that s a key question as it plays out. the department of justice has a standing policy or guidance against indicting a sitting president. and so what seems most likely moving forward is that we might see prosecutors, be it in new york or the special counsel, mueller, recommending action via congress filing a report to congressional
and there s this entirely separate legal argument about indicting a sitting president. harry, i don t want to go too long between wise legal voices, and i also want to get you on the tea leaves. are we reading the wrong tea leaves with asking those questions about what might the delay of ten days for the manafort sentencing have had anything to do with? that s a really interesting point, and it should come up. maybe we ll know in 45 minutes. other than the suppositions you have, it s possible. the only other thing i could think of is that manafort was getting wiggly and mueller said to him, look, you know, finally you ve got to be full and complete cooperator and we ll give you a final ten days. on the other points you ve made, on statute of limitations, if it s conspiracy, it doesn t start. the clock doesn t start until the very end of the conspiracy. so that s one way to extend it for trump. the other is potentially a tolling agreement that some