Now that Michael Cohen has placed President Donald Trump squarely in criminal crosshairs, a constitutional crisis appears to be looming: If there is evidence that Trump committed a crime, can he be indicted while in office?
This isn’t settled law, though most legal analysts conclude that an indictment is unlikely — the Justice Department has had an internal policy since 1973 that sitting presidents cannot be indicted. But there is another policy that can use the 1973 Office of Legal Counsel opinion to its advantage and achieve the same effect as an indictment without having to issue one: the special counsel regulations under which Robert Mueller is appointed.