Trump can be indicted as president for finance violations, Obama Justice Department official says

A former top official in Barack Obama’s Justice Department has argued Donald Trump can be indicted as a sitting president, laying out a roadmap of how the controversial move could take place in a new interview.

Speaking with Yahoo News “Skullduggery" podcast, former Deputy and Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal said there are no laws preventing a presidential indictment, adding that a prosecution could then occur upon Mr Trump leaving office.

In that event, Mr Katyal said the president would have “one card to play … the same card that [Vice President] Spiro Agnew played in 1973, which is, ‘I’m facing serious jail time, I care a lot about myself’ … [and] say to prosecutors, ‘I’ll resign in exchange for no jail time.’”

Mr Katyal noted the president could avoid prosecution by securing another victory in the 2020 election, as the statute of limitations for his possible crimes would expire while he was still in office.

“I think it’s a bad constitutional argument to say, ‘I’m the president. I get immunity from prosecution while I’m a sitting president,” he said in the podcast, released Friday.

“That is literally putting the president above the law … That cannot possibly be the Constitution of the United States, which is built entirely on a rebellion against King George’s powers in this respect," Mr Katyal added added.

There is in fact no law preventing a sitting president from being indicted; rather, that position has been made in longstanding Justice Department guidelines, while legal analysts have debated the stance for years.

The former Obama official’s comments arrived amid explosive new developments surrounding Michael Cohen, the president’s former lawyer and ex-deputy finance chairman of the Republican National Committee, who was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison for a series of crimes he committed while working for the president.

Cohen said he sent hush money payments to women who claimed to have extramarital affairs with Mr Trump during the 2016 election at the president’s direction, adding during his sentencing hearing this week he had been living in a “personal and mental incarceration” while working for him.

Mr Trump has denied the affairs and said there was nothing wrong with the payments.