Seth Barrett Tillman:

Michael B. Mukasey, a former Attorney General of the United States (and former Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York), has stated that if former Secretary of State (and former Senator) Hillary Clinton is convicted under 18 U.S.C. § 2071, then she is disqualified from holding the presidency. See Transcript, MSNBC MORNING JOE (Aug. 24, 2015, 06:45:25 AM), http://goo.gl/na0GM4. Likewise, a Washington, DC think tank has just published a white paper taking the same position. See Legal Analysis of Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Use of a Private Server to Store Email Records, CAUSE OF ACTION: ADVOCATES FOR GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY (Aug. 24, 2015), available at http://causeofaction.org/assets/uploads/2015/08/Hillary-Clinton-Email-Memo-8.24.15.pdf. Mukasey’s and Cause of Action’s position is fundamentally misconceived; indeed, neither puts forward any authority for the position that Section 2071 or any other federal statute creates or could create a disqualification in regard to any elected federal position, including the presidency.