Donald Trump recently claimed in a social media post that U.S. presidents “must have complete and total presidential immunity” from prosecution even if they “cross the line” while in office. His attorneys made that immunity claim before a federal appellate court last month, arguing that the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith charging Trump with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election should be dismissed.
One Trump attorney suggested under questioning by the three-judge panel that even a president directing SEAL Team Six to kill a political rival would be an action barred from criminal prosecution unless the president was first impeached by the House and convicted in a Senate trial.
And Rolling Stone, citing two sources close to Trump, reported that Trump and his allies “are plotting a way to give presidents a legal shield for life if he wins in 2024.” The plan would be to have the Trumpified Department of Justice expand an existing Office of Legal Counsel memo prohibiting the prosecution of sitting presidents to apply to presidents after they leave office.
Now the principle that “no one is above the law” is a fundamental tenet of democratic societies. The only U.S. president to ever come close to facing a criminal indictment after leaving office was Richard Nixon, who was pardoned by President Gerald Ford.
RELATED STORY: ‘That’s crazy’: Swing-state voters aghast to learn of Trump’s immunity claim
And former leaders of democratic countries around the world have been convicted of crimes, including French Presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, Israeli President Moshe Katsav and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and South Korean Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently facing trial for fraud and corruption. Tens of thousands of Israelis took part in protests against Netanyahu’s proposals to overhaul the judiciary and weaken the Supreme Court before the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
But there is one country where a former president enjoys the type of immunity from prosecution that Trump would like to see the Supreme Court grant him here. In December 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed legislation approved by the Duma, or parliament, that grants former presidents immunity from prosecution for any crimes committed during their lifetime. Previously, ex-presidents were protected from prosecution only for actions taken while they were in office.
The Guardian wrote at the time:
Another bill granted former presidents a lifetime seat in Russia’s Federation Council, or senate, a position that also assures immunity from prosecution upon leaving the presidency, The Guardian reported.
The Moscow Times wrote that there was only one way an ex-president could lose immunity from prosecution and the bar is very high.
Before the legislation was signed into law, opposition leader Alexey Navalny tweeted, "Why does Putin need an immunity law now?" And then he asked, "Can dictators step down of their own free will?" Navalny was then recovering in Germany after being poisoned in Russia in August 2020. He was immediately arrested when he returned to Russia on Jan. 21, and is serving a lengthy sentence in a harsh Siberian prison colony.
This immunity legislation came up in an interview with Boris Nadezhdin, an anti-war candidate who is trying to get on the ballot to run against Putin in Russia’s mid-March presidential election. The interview was conducted by the independent Russian news outlet Meduza, now operating out of Latvia, which published an abridged English translation on Jan. 20. Nadezhdin was asked whether Putin can be prosecuted. He replied:
And Nadezhdin added that in the unlikely situation that he did become president, he did not think the law should be changed: “What if I mess up in the future, do something someone doesn’t like, and they start prosecuting me for it? Why open that can of worms?”
He did have a specifically Russian rationale for not changing the law:
Dmitry Medvedev is the only living former Russian president. He held the post from 2008-2012 after Putin had served the then-constitutional limit of two four-year terms. Putin was prime minister during Medvedev’s term. The president’s term had been extended from four to six years when Putin won the 2012 presidential election and was reelected in 2018.
In July 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Russian voters backed a referendum on constitutional changes that enabled the lifetime presidential immunity law. It also included a provision that allowed resetting Putin’s term limits so he could run for two more six-year terms, enabling him to remain president until 2036, when he turns 84. That’s assuming Putin isn’t toppled from power or dies.
Medvedev, a strong Putin ally, is now the deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council. Since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he’s become known for making extremely bellicose statements about the war, nuclear saber-rattling, and issuing threats to Western leaders.
There’s now another country that has granted lifetime immunity to the president. Last month, Putin’s close ally, President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, the strongman who has been in power for almost 30 years, signed a similar law that would give him as a former president lifelong immunity from criminal prosecution, The Associated Press reported. The law also gives his family lifelong immunity and bans opposition leaders living outside Belarus from running in future presidential elections.
The Associated Press wrote:
Putin himself isn’t entirely beyond the law. In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin for alleged war crimes in Ukraine involving the unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia. Russia responded by issuing its own arrest warrants for ICC prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan and several judges on the court.
But there’s a problem in bringing Putin to justice. It’s extremely unlikely that the Russian leader would ever visit any country that would arrest him and extradite him to stand trial before the ICC, which is located in The Hague in the Netherlands. Seeing Putin’s behavior just imagine if Trump had all that extra power.
RELATED STORY: Trump delaying his trials might not be the win he thinks it is
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One Trump attorney suggested under questioning by the three-judge panel that even a president directing SEAL Team Six to kill a political rival would be an action barred from criminal prosecution unless the president was first impeached by the House and convicted in a Senate trial.
And Rolling Stone, citing two sources close to Trump, reported that Trump and his allies “are plotting a way to give presidents a legal shield for life if he wins in 2024.” The plan would be to have the Trumpified Department of Justice expand an existing Office of Legal Counsel memo prohibiting the prosecution of sitting presidents to apply to presidents after they leave office.
Now the principle that “no one is above the law” is a fundamental tenet of democratic societies. The only U.S. president to ever come close to facing a criminal indictment after leaving office was Richard Nixon, who was pardoned by President Gerald Ford.
RELATED STORY: ‘That’s crazy’: Swing-state voters aghast to learn of Trump’s immunity claim
And former leaders of democratic countries around the world have been convicted of crimes, including French Presidents Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy, Israeli President Moshe Katsav and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, and South Korean Presidents Lee Myung-bak and Park Geun-hye.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is currently facing trial for fraud and corruption. Tens of thousands of Israelis took part in protests against Netanyahu’s proposals to overhaul the judiciary and weaken the Supreme Court before the Oct. 7 Hamas attack.
But there is one country where a former president enjoys the type of immunity from prosecution that Trump would like to see the Supreme Court grant him here. In December 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed legislation approved by the Duma, or parliament, that grants former presidents immunity from prosecution for any crimes committed during their lifetime. Previously, ex-presidents were protected from prosecution only for actions taken while they were in office.
The Guardian wrote at the time:
Another bill granted former presidents a lifetime seat in Russia’s Federation Council, or senate, a position that also assures immunity from prosecution upon leaving the presidency, The Guardian reported.
The Moscow Times wrote that there was only one way an ex-president could lose immunity from prosecution and the bar is very high.
Before the legislation was signed into law, opposition leader Alexey Navalny tweeted, "Why does Putin need an immunity law now?" And then he asked, "Can dictators step down of their own free will?" Navalny was then recovering in Germany after being poisoned in Russia in August 2020. He was immediately arrested when he returned to Russia on Jan. 21, and is serving a lengthy sentence in a harsh Siberian prison colony.
This immunity legislation came up in an interview with Boris Nadezhdin, an anti-war candidate who is trying to get on the ballot to run against Putin in Russia’s mid-March presidential election. The interview was conducted by the independent Russian news outlet Meduza, now operating out of Latvia, which published an abridged English translation on Jan. 20. Nadezhdin was asked whether Putin can be prosecuted. He replied:
And Nadezhdin added that in the unlikely situation that he did become president, he did not think the law should be changed: “What if I mess up in the future, do something someone doesn’t like, and they start prosecuting me for it? Why open that can of worms?”
He did have a specifically Russian rationale for not changing the law:
Dmitry Medvedev is the only living former Russian president. He held the post from 2008-2012 after Putin had served the then-constitutional limit of two four-year terms. Putin was prime minister during Medvedev’s term. The president’s term had been extended from four to six years when Putin won the 2012 presidential election and was reelected in 2018.
In July 2020, at the height of the pandemic, Russian voters backed a referendum on constitutional changes that enabled the lifetime presidential immunity law. It also included a provision that allowed resetting Putin’s term limits so he could run for two more six-year terms, enabling him to remain president until 2036, when he turns 84. That’s assuming Putin isn’t toppled from power or dies.
Medvedev, a strong Putin ally, is now the deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council. Since Russia’s February 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, he’s become known for making extremely bellicose statements about the war, nuclear saber-rattling, and issuing threats to Western leaders.
There’s now another country that has granted lifetime immunity to the president. Last month, Putin’s close ally, President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, the strongman who has been in power for almost 30 years, signed a similar law that would give him as a former president lifelong immunity from criminal prosecution, The Associated Press reported. The law also gives his family lifelong immunity and bans opposition leaders living outside Belarus from running in future presidential elections.
The Associated Press wrote:
Putin himself isn’t entirely beyond the law. In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin for alleged war crimes in Ukraine involving the unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia. Russia responded by issuing its own arrest warrants for ICC prosecutor Karim Ahmad Khan and several judges on the court.
But there’s a problem in bringing Putin to justice. It’s extremely unlikely that the Russian leader would ever visit any country that would arrest him and extradite him to stand trial before the ICC, which is located in The Hague in the Netherlands. Seeing Putin’s behavior just imagine if Trump had all that extra power.
RELATED STORY: Trump delaying his trials might not be the win he thinks it is
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