President Donald Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani says his client won't be indicted because of Department of Justice rules against indicting a sitting president, but Judge Andrew Napolitano said Thursday there are two schools of thought from the DOJ over whether an indictment can happen.
"I don't know what Bob Mueller told Rudy Giuliani, but there are actually two memos from the DOJ," Napolitano, the senior judicial analyst for Fox News, told "Fox & Friends" program.
"One says the president can be indicted; the other says the president cannot be indicted."
On Wednesday, Giuliani told CNN that Mueller, the special counsel in the Russia election probe, has told Trump's legal team that he will not indict a sitting president, because "they have to follow the Justice Department rules."
Napolitano pointed out that when former President Bill Clinton pleaded guilty to lying under oath, "they waved in front of him an indictment, saying 'do you want us to bring this to a grand jury? He said, 'no, I'll plead to an information.'"
A bill of information is a written statement that accuses a person of a crime, and Napolitano said that differs from an indictment because it does not involve a grand jury.
Napolitano said both memos date to the late 90s, when Clinton was facing his legal issues. The second memo says a president can be indicted, but that he or she can't be prosecuted while still in office, the judge said.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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