Former President Donald Trump, now running for president again in 2024, plans to expand a Nixon-era policy memo that limits the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) ability to charge a sitting president with a crime to include former presidents if he wins in November, sources with knowledge of his discussions have said.
Doing so would help Trump avoid future criminal charges should he become president again.
That DOJ memo, written by the department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) in 1973, does not technically have the force of law. However, it is so ingrained in the department’s thinking that it has been cited multiple times since, including by special counsel Robert Mueller during the Russia election interference investigation to explain why no charges were brought against Trump.
Trump has demanded multiple times over the past several months that the policy be applied now to shield him from the dozens of criminal charges he faces, including those relating to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to President Joe Biden. Trump claims that presidents, including ex-presidents, need to have such immunity recognized beyond their tenure, even in situations where they “cross the line.”
“Any mistake, even if well intended, would be met with almost certain indictment by the opposing party at term end,” Trump said in a recent Truth Social post.
No other president besides Trump has ever been indicted after serving in office. But if he’s elected president again, Trump may direct the OLC to extend the memo to protect ex-presidents, too.
According to two sources speaking to Rolling Stone, Trump and his political and legal advisers have discussed for several months the idea of expanding the scope of the memo. The sources noted that they themselves have also discussed presidential immunity with Trump.
If Trump is elected this fall, he will almost certainly use the presidency to drop all federal charges against him. The Rolling Stone report suggests that he will also seek to ensure that he won’t be held accountable after leaving office.
Trump’s demands for “absolute immunity” both during and after a president exits office are hypocritical, according to a report from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW). The organization showcased multiple instances of Trump, prior to becoming president and during his time in the White House, suggesting that his presidential predecessors be charged with crimes, including treason.
Legal experts have been critical of Trump’s demands for immunity long after departing from the Oval Office.
“What Trump wants is immunity from being scrutinized at all. Like an emperor who decrees that none shall be allowed to gaze directly upon him, Trump wants all his actions to be immune from accountability,” said former federal prosecutor Shan Wu in an op-ed for The Daily Beast last week, prior to the Rolling Stone report.
[Trump] wants to say the quiet part out loud by making it the law of the land that he cannot be prosecuted. This is the kind of dark American future Donald J. Trump seeks to keep himself out of jail.
Unlike mainstream media, we’re not capitulating to Trump.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.