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Remarkable op-ed from Elliot Richardson's top aide, JT Smith in the NYT today.
"Most people take for granted that both Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the attorney general, William Barr, accept the current Justice Department legal position — reached in a 2000 opinion — that a sitting president cannot be indicted...
"Yet since 1973, the Justice Department has revisited its position five times on the question of indicting a sitting president and reached different conclusions...
"As executive assistant to Nixon-era AG Elliot Richardson, I can speak to the circumstances that delivered that first opinion: The principal purpose of the 1973 Watergate-era legal opinion — which concluded that a sitting president cannot be indicted — was...
"...to aid in removal from office of a criminally tainted vice president, who, the memo concluded, could be indicted. But it was not intended to set an ironclad precedent that would forever shape how a president might be treated...
"The durability of the Office of Legal Counsel’s 1973 opinion is curious. It was prepared under extraordinarily stressful and unique circumstances — borne from the investigations that led to the resignations of Vice President Spiro Agnew that year and President Nixon in 1974...
"Mr. Agnew resisted pressure to resign. Attorney General Richardson sought guidance on the indictment question in an effort to bring pressure on the vice president...
"When the legal opinion was written, it was a very close question and was ultimately shaped by Mr. Richardson’s goal to remove the vice president from his office...
"The Office of Legal Counsel determined 'there is no express provision in the Constitution which confers such immunity upon the President'...
"In light of the gravity of our circumstances, it would be timely and appropriate for the Justice Department to reconsider the shaky policy regarding indictability of a sitting president."
