That is an interesting argument for temporary immunity. A few questions, though:
1. Would this argument also apply to civil prosecution? Wouldn't that also take the President's time away from his job? (In fact, wasn't 1997 about the time Clinton was being sued? 
)
The court considered that in connection with Clinton's suit, and you are certainly free to disagree with their conclusion. They confirmed that Clinton was immune to civil suits that arise while he's in office related to his duties, and concluded the trial demands of a civil suit related to prior conduct could easily adjust to his schedule.
It was definitely a purpose driven result. I honestly, don't recall if I thought he could sued at the time or if I was in favor of deferring. I think it's clear it did disrupt him in his duties, which is a bad result. I also think it's certain that multiple suits would provide for complete disruption.
It's interesting though, because, Trump has been involved in dozens of similar suits since he took office but you seem not to notice. At least six on emoluments, those related to his university and charity, multiple trying to force disclosure of his tax returns. And oh yeah, a two year secret investigation by a special prosecutor (you should re-read Mueller's self serving conclusions that he wasn't disrupting the President). I think that he has been disrupted, and that's certainly been part of the strategy.
2. What about the situation where (as you corrected me) 31 Senators decide that no crime, past or current, is worth removing the President from office. Would this not have the effect of putting the President above the law while he is in office?
I said 34, not 31, which is key as it takes 67 senators (or 2/3's a LR pointed out) to impeach and it's also the threshold number of expelling a Senator. If even one of that crazy 34 isn't present for a day, the other 66 could act to start expelling the remaining 34.
Other wise its hard to imagine the situation outside a civil war where a President could be openly criminal and not removed by the Senate. I mean, I guess you do it with a House majority that refused to impeach as well if we're getting all the crazy out at once.
Now we certainly have evidence that this rule does work for Executive abuse of authority. Look no further back than President Obama instituting DACA and DAPA with a stroke of his pen and a little over 40 Senators who had his back and refused to hold him to account for the excess.
3. What does this argument have to do with investigating a sitting President, which is what the court case is about?
That's Mueller's argument as to why he could investigate. I still think it breaks. The biggest problem with the Mueller approach is how one sided it is. Sure he investigated witnesses and preserved that record, but defense counsel didn't get their chance and it shows in the report. Effectively, the country has had half a year with a
prosecutor's charging document as the only thing in front of it. It's a garbage situation and unfair, and exactly what the House is replicating right now.
Doesn't it mean that a President could get away with a crime if the statute of limitations runs out before he leaves office?
That's a better question, and the answer is no. Civil litigants can file to preserve the statute, and the proceedings be delayed, and prosecutors could do similarly.
And wouldn't delaying any investigation also delay justice if he was guilty?
Sure. You might delay a felony election law fine for 2 or 6 years. That's a reasonable trade, with a specific solution that Congress can follow up on if they want to.
4. Does this apply, at all, to Congressional investigations? Or would the time the President had to take to respond to House inquiries also be an unreasonable burden on the Presidency?
The law review walked through this question, as have the courts. Congressional oversight is a specific function that the executive branch has to accomodate, in effect that's part of the job not a disruption from the job. Outside of the impeachment context, the executive branch is easily capable of managing unreasonable demands from Congress.
And yes it could be unreasonable, but if the House and the Senate - also elected officials - view that as the best use of the countries time, rather than what ever other pressing issue the President would otherwise be dealing with that's a legitimate decision for them to take.
5. What if the prosecutors promised to limit the amount of time the President personally had to take to respond to prosecution to, let's say, 10 hours a week? Wouldn't that cover any unreasonable burden on his time, and allow him to run the country?
Not even remotely would that work. The judge in the Clinton case was signaling that Clinton would need a few hours stretched across months, there's no way that case goes forward if it involved time every week.
Honestly, this is a literal theft from the entire country. The President is supposed to be doing our business, not spending more than a working day a week on his own business. And that's before you even consider that 10 courts hours is probably more than 50 outside court hours.
Perhaps we can't arrest and jail him until he leaves office, but the sentence could commence the day he does. 
I can't see any reason to prefer what you suggest. Completely discounting Congress is ridiculous, but if you were really that paranoid, the States themselves could change the Constitution.
Thinking about it some more, I think that Yale Review article is based on a questionable premise: that the President is unique and irreplaceable.
That's fundmental to the Constitutional model. It's not the Yale team that came up with it, it's more like 250 years of history.
So giving the Presidency to the Vice President would still be following the will of the people.
That's a crazy thing to even say. Nancy Pelosi was elected too, ergo we can remove Trump and Pence and its still just following the will of the people. Not remotely.
We have a Constitutional process for a reason. What you posit makes the entire Constitution irrelevant. Any state could pass a law to make something a felony and remove the President in its own discretion. I mean, a Southern State could have imprisoned Lincoln for property theft.
But it is not executed exclusively by him. He has a huge staff, the heads appointed by him, to run the day-to-day business and to make most of the decisions.
Who cares about who executes it? The Presidents role is to set the policy and that is not an interchangeable function. Every President has their own views and goals.
You're probably right, Fenring, but for the wrong reason.
No one but Trump has bent the rule so far as to require us to define when the President should be indicted or not. We have never elected an out-and-out crook to the White House in recent memory. One that would fight to keep his job in order to hide his crimes behind the office of the Presidency. Even Tricky Dicky resigned rather than fight to the end.
That's such an interesting example. Nixon directed spying on a campaign, that was less involved and in depth than the spying the Obama admin conducted on the Trump campaign. Yet, you see Trump and Nixon as the crooks?
What an exercise in narrative.
Consider the recent report of Trump using two different evaluations of his properties in the past--one for asking for loans, and a lower one for paying taxes. These were verified from public records. He committed either financial fraud or tax fraud.
Actually, all you did is demonstrate you don't know much about accounting or taxes. Loans require a mark to market valuation (or you're being fraudulent) as the lenders care about the value at which they can sell the asset on default. Tax records are virtually always as cost (which becomes much smaller than fair market value over time) and require depreciation, which reduces the costs on property even more over time. The values are not supposed to be the same.
That's he gets off scot free because he was elected and because the Senators in his party don't want to rock the boat?
Why do you repeat things you know are untrue? Deferral is not getting off, certainly not scot free. NOT to mention, that most of what you're talking about involves his companies, which are not immune to prosecution. Leave him out of it and you can prosecute all you want (or actually, if you ever actually identify a real crime).
That no one can even look into this now because he's President?
Objectively, thousands of prosecutors, lawyers, the media and Democratic partisans are looking into this now, many have even subpeona'd people in connection therewith. How is what you are asking not nonsense?
His job is important, but not so much that we have to tolerate a criminal in the job. Because if his job is so important and so powerful, what would stop him from using his position to prevent him from being punished?
Again, the answer is Congress would stop him, and we don't have to tolerate a criminal in the job. Of course, you have to actually have found a crime to make a charge of criminality stick, and you don't have one. That's why you want to change the rules, getting one judge in one area to push the limits is way easier than getting the House of representatives to take accountability for impeaching someone without any real basis.
Do you want someone who has no respect for the law to be in charge of the Department of Justice?
I don't, and I'm darn glad we're starting to clear those guys out.
Sorry, I don't have enough faith that no more than 32 Senators will always do the right thing and remove a criminal President, especially in this divided age when people will turn a blind eye to the imperfections of "their" candidate. I don't think our Founding Fathers had such faith, either. Trump is putting that to the test.
You don't have faith that 67 Senators will do the right thing, but you do have faith that not one of tens of thousands of prosecutors will do the wrong thing. It's a funny world that's presenting itself in your head.
