The New York Times: Biden Promised to Revisit Presidential Immunity. He Hasn’t.
Presidential Reform Project co-chairs Bob Bauer and Jack Goldsmith are featured in this New York Times article.
When Joseph R. Biden Jr. was running for the White House in 2019, he sharply criticized the Justice Department’s longstanding view that presidents who commit crimes are immune from indictment while in office and promised to have it reconsider that position.
But more than two years into his presidency — and now facing an investigation into whether he or his team mishandled classified documents when he left the Obama administration — Mr. Biden has yet to order that review, according to people familiar with the matter.
A White House spokesman declined to comment.
Mr. Biden made his pledge a few months after the special counsel Robert S. Mueller III completed the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. The Justice Department’s position on presidential immunity had complicated Mr. Mueller’s consideration of whether various efforts by President Donald J. Trump to impede the inquiry constituted criminal obstruction.