Predidency is an Institution which needs to be protected at all costs. The checks and balances wasn’t meant to setup a system where Presidents can be sent to prison but to prevent “crimes” (for the lack of a better word) to happen to begin with. Of course our current “party over Country” system has practically killed any semblance of checks and balances…
They did. Hamilton even argued that presidents should be subject to “forfeiture of life and estate” if crimes deemed it so. Federalist 77.
Article I, Section 3, Clause 7 of the constitution makes it clear that while impeachment is limited to removal, but that after they are fair game for criminal processes.
Wilson wrote 'far from being above the laws, he is amenable to them"
Anti-federalists went even farther - they believed that the Federalists' reliance on the impeachment process, for example, left far too wide of a gap to be exploited.
