A new era: The possible indictment of a former president

Whether the joint efforts of the Manhattan DA and the New York State AG will lead to indictments is unknowable at this point, but the matter is clearly ramping up. One question of late is whether either jurisdiction could force Trump to appear in New York in the event that he is criminally charged, given that he is lodged primarily in his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, though he recently moved to his country club in Bedminster, New Jersey. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is a staunch Trump ally, and Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg has publicly acknowledged that “informal conversations” have occurred regarding whether DeSantis could intervene “in case an indictment happens.” But as Aronberg noted, DeSantis “can try to delay it, he can send it to a committee and do research about it, but his role is really ministerial, and ultimately the state of New York can go to court and get an order to extradite the former president.” In fact, this is a rare circumstance in which the Constitution is quite explicit regarding a governor’s obligation to respect an extradition request from another state: Article IV, Section 2 provides that “a person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime … shall on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime.” A statute of troubling origins dating from 1793 and known as the Fugitive Slave Act sets forth procedures for extradition, which the Supreme Court has affirmed.