LAWYERS: Can a sitting President be tried for crimes?

The OLC memorandum concluded that all federal civil officers except the President are subject to indictment and criminal prosecution while still in office; the President is uniquely immune from such process. Second, the Department addressed the question later that same year in connection with the grand jury investigation of then-Vice President Spiro Agnew. In response to a motion by the Vice President to enjoin grand jury proceedings against him, then-Solicitor General Robert Bork filed a brief arguing that, consistent with the Constitution, the Vice President could be subject to indictment and criminal prosecution. See Memorandum for the United States Concerning the Vice President's Claim of Constitutional Immunity (filed Oct. 5, 1973), In re Proceedings of the Grand Jury Impaneled December 5, 1972: Application of Spiro T. Agnew, Vice President of the United States (D. Md. 1973) (No. 73-965) ("SG Brief"). In so arguing, however, Solicitor General Bork was careful to explain that the President, unlike the Vice President, could not constitutionally be subject to such criminal process while in office.