Constitutional scholars differ on the legality of indicting a President prior to impeachment. Some scholars say that making a President liable to indictment while in office enhances respect for the office.

Mr. Troy is a lawyer in Washington, D.C., and an associate scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He served in the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel during the Reagan and Bush Administrations, and he clerked for Judge Robert H. Bork on the D.C. Circuit Court in 1983 - 84.

Ever since the Lewinsky scandal broke, reporters and legal scholars have uniformly declared that a sitting President may not constitutionally be indicted. National Public Radio's Nina ...