Precedents on Presidential impunity for crimes - bad precedents that need to be changed

Alexander Sammon addressed the issue of Presidential legal accountability in the context of the implications of the "Look Forward, Not Backward policy of impunity for crimes committed during the Bush-Cheney Administration that the Obama-Biden Administration decided to pursue in Biden Must Bring an End to the Bush Era The American Prospect 07/21/2020

Many Democrats, for some reason, have spent the past 12 years forgetting the actual impact of the Bush presidency. One of the least popular presidents in history at the time of his departure, mastermind of the war in Iraq, the financial crisis, Hurricane Katrina, and more, Bush’s approval rating among all Americans sunk as low as 25 percent, which still somehow seems high. Fast forward not even a decade, however, and a majority of Democrats now say they view him favorably.

Joe Biden was elected alongside Barack Obama with a powerful mandate to undo the abominable handiwork of the Bush administration. But Obama and Biden did nothing of the sort. They insisted on looking forward, and prosecuted no one involved in crimes of finance or war. They pledged to close Guantanamo Bay, but didn’t. Looking forward, it turned out, meant letting many of Bush’s great sores continue to fester. [my emphasis]

We either have now or we are close to having a de facto situation when Republican Presidents and their officials who break the law enjoy impunity for those crimes because they will prevent the Justice Department from prosecuting them, or have the Republican President pardon them or commute their sentences, which is what we've seen under Trump these last four years.

Meanwhile, the Republicans are willing to use the machinery of justice to pursue crassly political prosecutions against Democrats. And even blackmail foreign governments like that of Ukraine to manufacture evidence for that purpose. The latter is what got Trump impeached, making him only the third President to be impeached.

Sammon was very right when he wrote earlier this year, "So if Joe Biden is going to take Trump’s place, he’s not merely going to need to undo the pernicious impact of Trumpism, he’s also going to need to undo the legacy of George W. Bush." But doing that is not compatible with a sentimental and unrealistic pursuit of Bipartisanship:

Biden’s pitch to voters around the country is that he’ll undo the shameful acts of his Republican predecessor. But because he and Obama failed to accomplish exactly that during his first sojourn in the West Wing, a second trip will require him to do double duty. If Trumpism is going to be overhauled, Biden is going to have to be willing to tear down Bushism, too. That may not align nicely with Biden’s warm embrace of Republicans ready to abandon Trump, but it’s the job he was elected to do in 2008, and it will still be before him if he’s elected in 2020. [my emphasis]