The vote by a Manhattan grand jury to indict former President Donald J. Trump raises novel legal and political questions because he is running for the Republican nomination for president again.
Any indictment or conviction would not bar Mr. Trump from running. A clean criminal record is not among the criteria the Constitution sets for who is eligible to be president. (Officials who have been impeached and convicted of “high crimes and misdemeanors” may be barred from future office, but the Senate acquitted Mr. Trump at both his impeachment trials.)
Still, it would be extraordinary for a person who is under indictment, let alone convicted of a felony, to be a major party nominee.
There are only a few historical examples of somewhat serious candidates who even come close. They include the unsuccessful run in the 2016 Republican primary by Rick Perry, the former governor of Texas, after he was indicted on charges of abuse of power (the charges were dismissed months after he dropped out of the race), and the 1920 run by Eugene V. Debs as the Socialist Party nominee while he sat in prison for an Espionage Act conviction.
If Mr. Trump were to be elected president while a felony case against him was pending or after any conviction, many complications would ensue.
The Justice Department has taken the position since the Nixon administration that even indicting a president while in office would be unconstitutional because it would interfere with the president’s ability to perform duties as head of the executive branch. Mr. Trump would surely try to get the case dismissed on that basis. There is no definitive Supreme Court ruling because the issue has never arisen before.
Notably, in 1997 the Supreme Court allowed a federal lawsuit against President Bill Clinton to proceed while he was in office. That was a civil case, however — not a criminal one — and it was in the federal system, not the state courts, as the indictment in Manhattan would be.
In that opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in passing that a similar case brought in the state court system might raise “federalism and comity concerns, as well as the interest in protecting federal officials from possible local prejudice,” but he did not say whether those factors would change the outcome.
Even more extraordinary complications would arise were Mr. Trump to be convicted and incarcerated and yet elected anyway. One possibility is that he could win a federal court order requiring his release from state prison as a result of a constitutional challenge. Another is that upon the commencement of his second term, he could be immediately removed from office under the 25th Amendment as “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
