"In the end, Grant paid a $20 bond but didn't show up to court."
People are confused as to what "you can't indict a sitting president" means.
Of course you can indict or charge him. If the secret service allow, you can arrest him. Throw him in jail.
You can do that with anybody any time. I could be driving down the street and a cop could pull me over, arrest me for conspiracy to transport nuclear materials to North Korea as well as attempted theft of George HW Bush's body, and throw me in jail.
Who's going to stop somebody from filing a document with a court? That's all "charge" or "indict" means. Police could accidentally charge Tom C. Igel for destruction of property and file the paperwork. The "C" in Tom's name stands for "cat"--he's a 16 lb all black domestic shorthair.
When they say "you can't indict a sitting president" it really means "you can't file an indictment or charges that won't be thrown out as inadmissible." It's a question to be asked *before* filing the paperwork because time and resources are finite and because if you piss off the wrong people--sitting officials, the courts--it has fallout in other areas of your life. There's a fine line between "look at me, glorious me, a defender of principles and liberty for all people for all time" and "you're self-righteous attention-seeking dipshit". Of course, it's possible to be both, and there's no shortage of people double-dipping categories in law and politics.
So Grant was arrested. Perhaps he paid the bond because he thought it was the right thing to do. Perhaps the DTs were setting in and he needed to find a pint. The story was 35 years stale when published. Either way, it doesn't say what the court did, and that's the *real* question.
"He didn't show in court" presumes a default finding of "guilty". Then why not say so? Perhaps the judge said, "Hey, dipshits, whaddya think yar doin', arresting the president? Get your sorry asses out of my courtroom before I order you to arrest yourselves for gross stupidity." Maybe the judge launched into a tirade about how Grant betrayed his country by setting a bad role model, what with his drinking and speeding, for children across the country. Who knows?
Or maybe the story's largely fictional, embellished through constant recall and retelling for 35 years. Doesn't say if anybody looked at the court records to find out.
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