Don’t Indict Presidents

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/05/opinion/letters/president-indict.html

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To the Editor:

Michael Avenatti offers some good arguments in his Sept. 14 Op-Ed essay, “The Case for Indicting the President,” but I see some reasons for not indicting a president.

The overarching reason is that the process leading to an indictment could, and I believe would, become politicized. The Republicans politicized the impeachment process when they directed it at President Bill Clinton, wandering through a real estate deal, the suicide of Vincent Foster and other distractions until they came up with a “sex scandal” that involved a relationship between two consenting adults. The process took more than five years and involved Judge Brett Kavanaugh, who is now opposed to the indictment of a president.

What would stop the Republicans from encouraging a federal court in a district where they have influence to bring a case against a Democratic president that could lead to an indictment that might eventually end up before a Supreme Court leaning 5 to 4 Republican, including a Justice Kavanaugh, who has already indicated that he would not recuse himself in such a case?

So as long as the country remains so politically polarized, I think we should not think of indicting a president.

Jack HerschlagWoodland Park, N.J.