20 years ago, a young lawyer penned a provocative article about a politically sensitive issue.

What should happen when special councils investigate sitting presidents for potential

criminal conduct?

The country had been through a number of these, the lawyer wrote, from Watergate to Iran

Contra to Whitewater, and there were always fraught with major tensions.

The special prosecutors or independent councils are inevitably publicly attacked by the presidents

they are investigating, with poisonous impacts on potential witnesses or even jurors.

Their subpoenas are resisted by the president's lawyers who throw up a barrage of privileged

claims, some of them spurious or even frivolous.

But most of all, the lawyer fredded about the impact on the country of a president who

was threatened with criminal prosecution.

Quote, the indictment of a president would be a disabling experience for the government

as a whole, and was, quote, fraught with peril, the lawyer wrote.

The president is not simply another individual, he is unique, he is the embodiment of the

federal government in the head of a political party.

If he is to be removed, the entire government would likely suffer.

The lawyer's suggestion, when he repeated eight years later in another law review article,

was for Congress to enact a statute declaring flatly, the president of the United States

is not subject to indictment or information under the laws of the United States while he

serves as president.

The lawyer who wrote that was Brett Kavanaugh, who had served as an associate independent

council under Ken Star investigating Bill Clinton.

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