{"id":44252,"date":"2017-08-16T08:52:47","date_gmt":"2017-08-16T12:52:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.justsecurity.org\/?p=44252"},"modified":"2025-04-29T03:47:16","modified_gmt":"2025-04-29T07:47:16","slug":"untold-option-mueller-grand-jury-presentment-alternative-indicting-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.justsecurity.org\/44252\/untold-option-mueller-grand-jury-presentment-alternative-indicting-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"An Untold Option for Mueller: Grand Jury &#8220;Presentment&#8221; as an Alternative to Indicting Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Legal experts debate whether special counsel Robert Mueller has the authority to indict or prosecute a sitting President. Missing from any public discussion is a middle-ground option that is not necessarily precluded by any Justice Department legal opinion, and that was strongly endorsed by the Watergate special prosecutor\u2019s legal team. What\u2019s the option? Presentment.<\/p>\n<p>Grand juries have historically had the power not only to indict but also to issue presentments, which were more like reports of wrongdoing without a criminal charge. The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution contemplates this practice in its opening words:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cNo person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Watergate special prosecutor, Leon Jaworski\u2019s legal team <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justsecurity.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/jaworski-legal-team-memo.pdf\">strongly recommended<\/a> that if he thought it was either unconstitutional or imprudent to indict or prosecute a sitting president, he could nevertheless seek a presentment by the grand jury. Jaworski\u2019s lawyers concluded that presentment was not just a constitutionally available option, but that Jaworski was compelled to pursue it if the other options were closed. They wrote:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If we conclude that indictment of the President is constitutionally barred or is inappropriate, then we and the Grand Jury can and must fulfill our responsibilities to the public and to the law by recommending a Grand Jury presentment setting out in detail the most important evidence and the Grand Jury&#8217;s conclusions <strong>that the President has violated certain criminal statutes and would have been indicted were he not President<\/strong>. There appears to be no question of the propriety or legality of such a course\u2026.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So, the question is, if Mueller has sufficient evidence of criminal wrongdoing by President Trump, should he ask a grand jury to declare \u201cthat the President has violated certain criminal statutes and would have been indicted were he not President.\u201d<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Our main goal here is to identify this option, to describe how it might perform different functions, and to suggest risks and costs to going down this path.<\/p>\n<p>Presentment has fallen into general disuse in federal proceedings <a href=\"https:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/797121?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents\">compared<\/a> to its greater prevalence in the mid-to-late twentieth century. Whether a presentment can be made public is also now tightly controlled by the discretion of the presiding judge.<\/p>\n<p>That said, congressional interest in impeachment could provide a special reason for presentment and for conveying the grand jury\u2019s decision to Congress. The Watergate special prosecutor legal team highlighted that the precedent for using grand jury presentment to inform potential impeachment proceedings dated back to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gpo.gov\/fdsys\/pkg\/GPO-HPREC-HINDS-V3\/pdf\/GPO-HPREC-HINDS-V3.pdf\">early 1800s<\/a>. In the case of Richard Nixon, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed <a href=\"https:\/\/mobile.nytimes.com\/1974\/03\/19\/archives\/text-of-sirica-order-and-opinion-in-decision-that-watergate-data-go.html\">Judge Sirica\u2019s order<\/a> transmitting a presentment report from the grand jury to the House Judiciary Committee. Ordinarily, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/rules\/frcrmp\/rule_6\">Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 6(e)<\/a> imposes secrecy on any \u201cmatter occurring before the grand jury\u201d with a few exceptions. Judge Sirica found that Rule 6(e) aimed to do no more than codify the \u201ctraditional practice of secrecy\u201d of the grand jury, a practice which the judge found to be narrow but not inconsistent with the disclosure to Congress for purposes of impeachment. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0ahUKEwjx8r754dvVAhVTfiYKHd5xDToQFggpMAA&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fcasetext.com%2Fcase%2Fhaldeman-v-sirica&amp;usg=AFQjCNEt74pJ1qMlU0hN3jwndh1i3N8PwA\">Haldeman v. Sirica<\/a>, 501 F.2d 714 (D.C. Cir. 1974). Other federal courts have also held that courts have the inherent authority to order disclosure of grand jury materials even outside of the constraints and exceptions of Rule 6(e). (For more on this topic, see our <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justsecurity.org\/44191\/mueller-grand-jury-report-public-hand-congress\/\">earlier analysis<\/a> at <em>Just Security<\/em>.)<\/p>\n<p>What about other options for making a grand jury\u2019s presentment public with no connection to an impeachment proceeding? The U.S. Attorney\u2019s Manual <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gov\/usam\/usam-9-11000-grand-jury#9-11.120\">notes<\/a> that the question whether a regular grand jury can issue a public report is \u201cdifficult and complex,\u201d and cites a Fifth Circuit decision in <a href=\"http:\/\/openjurist.org\/514\/f2d\/794\/united-states-v-k-briggs-c\"><em>United States v. Briggs<\/em><\/a>, 514 F.2d 794 (5th Cir. 1975). In <em>Briggs<\/em>, the court disallowed the naming of unindicted coconspirators in an indictment by a federal grand jury. The case, however, involved balancing a host of different factors in that specific context. The <em>Briggs<\/em> court emphasized that the situation involved private individuals rather than public officeholders, and said that the federal prosecutors \u201csuggest[ed] nothing that rises to the dignity of a substantial interest\u201d on their side. The Jaworski legal team\u2019s memo sets forth reasoning for why the government has a substantial if not imperative interest in seeking presentment for a president engaged in criminal wrongdoing, especially if it involves the obstruction of justice. Other courts have also distinguished <em>Briggs<\/em>, for example, in a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.leagle.com\/decision\/2000919218F3d701_1846\">case<\/a> where there was an \u201cimportant countervailing public interest,\u201d and in another <a href=\"http:\/\/www.leagle.com\/decision\/19781313445FSupp868_11200\/UNITED%20STATES%20v.%20DRISCOLL\">case<\/a> where the individual \u201csimply cannot be indicted and tried.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>An independent question is whether there would be value to Mueller in obtaining a presentment under seal (in secret). There may be a benefit in getting a grand jury at Time 1 (when Trump is in office) to agree that Trump has violated certain criminal statutes and would have been indicted were he not President and then pass that information to a subsequent grand jury (at Time 2) when Trump is no longer in office and is clearly not immune from indictment. The second grand jury may feel more comfortable or emboldened to support an indictment knowing what the prior grand jury did. What\u2019s more it might be the same grand jury seated at both times, and getting it on board for presentment may make the subsequent task easier.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, federal prosecutors are often cautious and like to maintain control of the case, and the downside risks here may outweigh rewards. Those risks include a leak of the grand jury\u2019s presentment (and the special counsel\u2019s office being blamed). Any reward is minimized by the fact that the second grand jury can get all the material from the first grand jury and would have to consider the issues afresh in any case. Mueller may also not want to run the risk of the first grand jury rejecting the presentment option, especially since he won\u2019t obtain a concrete or immediate benefit from presentment if it remains under seal. That said, if the grand jury has by then indicted several coconspirators, the likelihood increases that the grand jury will also accept presentment for Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, the federal criminal system is not the only arena in which presentment takes place. Presentment is widely available across different states where the options for making presentment reports public may be broader too. If state attorneys general pursue Trump for financial crimes, they may also face the similar question whether a sitting president is immune from indictment or prosecution. If they believe he is immune, presentment may be seen as a way forward.<\/p>\n<p>[<em>Editor&#8217;s Note<\/em>: For more on this topic, see Goodman and Whiting&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.justsecurity.org\/44191\/mueller-grand-jury-report-public-hand-congress\/\">&#8220;How Mueller Can Make the Grand Jury Report Public or Hand it to Congress&#8221;<\/a>]<\/p>\n<p>Photo:\u00a0<a id=\"photographer\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/search\/photographer?family=editorial&amp;photographer=Chip+Somodevilla\" data-close-and-redirect=\"true\" data-search-type=\"photographer\">Chip Somodevilla<\/a>\/Getty Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Legal experts debate whether special counsel Robert Mueller has the authority to indict or prosecute a sitting President. Missing from any public discussion is a middle-ground option that is not necessarily precluded by any Justice Department legal opinion, and that was strongly endorsed by the Watergate special prosecutor\u2019s legal team. What\u2019s the option? Presentment. Grand [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":41,"featured_media":49605,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43211,43212,32064],"tags":[2523,144,2489],"coauthors":[58,301],"class_list":["post-44252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-courts-litigation","category-democracy-rule-of-law","category-elections","tag-mueller-investigation","tag-russia","tag-russia-investigation"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.5 (Yoast SEO v27.5) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>An Untold Option for Mueller: Grand Jury &quot;Presentment&quot; as an Alternative to Indicting Trump<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.justsecurity.org\/44252\/untold-option-mueller-grand-jury-presentment-alternative-indicting-trump\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"An Untold Option for Mueller: Grand Jury &quot;Presentment&quot; as an Alternative to Indicting Trump\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Legal experts debate whether special counsel Robert Mueller has the authority to indict or prosecute a sitting President. Missing from any public discussion is a middle-ground option that is not necessarily precluded by any Justice Department legal opinion, and that was strongly endorsed by the Watergate special prosecutor\u2019s legal team. What\u2019s the option? Presentment. Grand [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.justsecurity.org\/44252\/untold-option-mueller-grand-jury-presentment-alternative-indicting-trump\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Just Security\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/JSBlog\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-08-16T12:52:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-04-29T07:47:16+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.justsecurity.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/GettyImages-82840532-e1513288791996.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"3000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1290\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ryan Goodman, Alex Whiting\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@just_security\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@just_security\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Ryan Goodman, Alex Whiting\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.justsecurity.org\\\/44252\\\/untold-option-mueller-grand-jury-presentment-alternative-indicting-trump\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.justsecurity.org\\\/44252\\\/untold-option-mueller-grand-jury-presentment-alternative-indicting-trump\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Ryan Goodman\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.justsecurity.org\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/e9b3dd6ec89a1e52fe24f214b65b42a1\"},\"headline\":\"An Untold Option for Mueller: Grand Jury &#8220;Presentment&#8221; 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The committee asked Mueller about the FBI's anthrax investigation, allegations of improper collection of information on reporters, the Bureau's approach to the mortgage fraud crisis, and the expanded investigative and intelligence gathering powers resulting from the proposed Attorney General Guidelines concerning the FBI's domestic operations. 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We publish rigorous, expert analysis and informational resources on the issues that matter most. Our goals are to inform and empower decision-makers with high-quality analysis, foster informed dialogue on challenging issues, and remain accessible to our global audience. Just Security is an essential resource for those shaping a just and secure world. Just Security is based at the Reiss Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law.\",\"email\":\"info@justsecurity.org\",\"legalName\":\"Just Security\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.justsecurity.org\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/e9b3dd6ec89a1e52fe24f214b65b42a1\",\"name\":\"Ryan Goodman\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/8c0398aa1216416d85db33bf1f07cdbc020f88f5c98425ee03ac9e97550f9f6c?s=96&d=mm&r=g7c00759c7bc2a3b199015ccf5eacfbb7\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/8c0398aa1216416d85db33bf1f07cdbc020f88f5c98425ee03ac9e97550f9f6c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/8c0398aa1216416d85db33bf1f07cdbc020f88f5c98425ee03ac9e97550f9f6c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Ryan Goodman\"},\"description\":\"Ryan Goodman (X -\u00a0Bluesky -\u00a0YouTube -\u00a0LinkedIn) is founding co-editor-in-chief of Just Security. He is\u00a0the Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Reiss Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law. He served as Special Counsel to the General Counsel of the Department of Defense (2015-16). Ryan is also a Professor of Politics and Professor of Sociology at NYU. He was the inaugural Rita E. Hauser Professor of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Harvard Law School. He received a J.D. from Yale Law School, a Ph.D. from Yale University, and a B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin. Other media and appearances: CNN's Out Front legal analyst, 60 Minutes, The New Yorker's Isaac Chotiner interview, New York Historical, TIME, Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, Axios, and others. Areas of Expertise: Democracy, Rule of Law, National Security Law,\u00a0International Law, Law of Armed Conflict, Use of Force, Human Rights Law. &nbsp;\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.justsecurity.org\\\/author\\\/goodmanryan\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"An Untold Option for Mueller: Grand Jury \"Presentment\" as an Alternative to Indicting Trump","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.justsecurity.org\/44252\/untold-option-mueller-grand-jury-presentment-alternative-indicting-trump\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"An Untold Option for Mueller: Grand Jury \"Presentment\" as an Alternative to Indicting Trump","og_description":"Legal experts debate whether special counsel Robert Mueller has the authority to indict or prosecute a sitting President. Missing from any public discussion is a middle-ground option that is not necessarily precluded by any Justice Department legal opinion, and that was strongly endorsed by the Watergate special prosecutor\u2019s legal team. What\u2019s the option? Presentment. 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Just Security is based at the Reiss Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law.","email":"info@justsecurity.org","legalName":"Just Security"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.justsecurity.org\/#\/schema\/person\/e9b3dd6ec89a1e52fe24f214b65b42a1","name":"Ryan Goodman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8c0398aa1216416d85db33bf1f07cdbc020f88f5c98425ee03ac9e97550f9f6c?s=96&d=mm&r=g7c00759c7bc2a3b199015ccf5eacfbb7","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8c0398aa1216416d85db33bf1f07cdbc020f88f5c98425ee03ac9e97550f9f6c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8c0398aa1216416d85db33bf1f07cdbc020f88f5c98425ee03ac9e97550f9f6c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Ryan Goodman"},"description":"Ryan Goodman (X -\u00a0Bluesky -\u00a0YouTube -\u00a0LinkedIn) is founding co-editor-in-chief of Just Security. 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