So, mowing the lawn last night, I came up with 2 reasons why it makes sense for Mueller - or anyone in the DOJ - to say POTUS can't be indicted. I'm curious what INGO might think of these.
1. He's the Chief Executive. That means, all those DOJ prosecutors work for him. Ultimately, in a technical way, he gets to decide what gets filed and what doesn't. The US Attorneys are delegated the task of prosecuting, but if a POTUS wanted to, I think they could look at every single indictment and decide which ones to file. Of course, functionally, the POTUS hands that task to the AG. But, in a very real way, POTUS could tell the AG not to allow anything to be filed against him. If Trump did that, what would INGO think? On a related note, it is difficult to imagine a US Attorney (or special counsel, since under the CFR, the special counsel is part of the DOJ) filing an indictment against their boss.
2. He's the Pardoner in Chief. This would be a bit crazy, but let's say an indictment did get filed. He could - I think - pardon himself. And everyone else involved. He could pardon Manafort now. There's a bit of precedent for pardoning people even before charges are filed. So, he could go on TV and make the case that this is a witch hunt/effort to delegitimize him/too flawed of an investigation/oh look at the latest playmate side piece I banged and that to help the country move one, he's going to pardon himself and any family members who are indicted. Because he knows they didn't intentionally do anything wrong and they're good people. I don't think he'd lose any of his base. The left would go even more crazy, which would ultimately help him.
Would something like that impact INGO-people's opinions of him and his presidency?
When you say indicted, are you speaking federally or at the state level as well?