Did the US Founding Fathers Miss Something?

The Muller Report is Coming. Here’s What to Expect, ran a recent headline in the New York Times

The proposition that the Mueller report will likely form the basis for further criminal prosecutions is encouraging, but the notion of Presidential immunity from prosecution makes it less appealing.

While the courts have been somewhat ambiguous regarding the prosecutability of a sitting President, the current situation has led to a Presidency that leads without fear.

Let’s consider the upcoming presidential elections in 2020. An ordinary citizen would face justice and if convicted, he would be out of the running. But a sitting president with similar circumstances could run for re-election and continue to keep an injustice by virtue of re-election.

In a country where many states abolish the right to vote upon criminal conviction for ordinary persons, a sitting President enjoys to a wide degree the supposition of immunity from prosecution. By running for a second term, a potentially criminal President gets to keep this unfair advantage unavailable to any other candidate. Congress needs to look at this loophole that appears to give a President a special advantage by running for re-election.

While the US Constitution, penned nearly two hundred and fifty years ago, provided a number of” inalienable rights it was less specific in detail as regards the right to vote as well as preferential treatment for a President.

Through the years, a number of court decisions led us to where we are today. The current situation is mournfully defective and needs to be fixed. The US as a country may well be going down the drain when executive privilege and Presidential immunity are comparable to the equivalent of a Mafia boss may not be prosecuted as long as he remains a Mafia boss.