re: SCOTUS isn’t going to mess with immunity

quote:

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Go back and read the section you quoted:
"but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law."

Trump was not convicted by the Senate. If he had been, he would have been removed from office.

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You are making a 1L mistake reading the language. The language points out that an impeachment/conviction/removal from office are not the sole remedy. It does not, however, state or even imply that impeachment is required for a separate criminal prosecution to be undertaken.

In fact, the ability to have a separate criminal prosecution without an impeachment conviction seems completely logical. There was a vociferous argument by Trump that you can not be impeached once you leave office but the lack of conviction made the issue more or less moot. It is easy to see a situation where a president committed a crime during his tenure in office not covered as a public act which was not discovered until years after he/she left office. It makes little sense in most situations for congress to take up impeachment and trial in such a case.

The problem with either process is that they can be purely political in nature.