Can a felon run for president?

The Constitution sets exactly three requirements to be president: natural-born citizenship, age 35 or older, and 14 years of U.S. residency. Criminal conviction is not among them. No constitutional amendment has added conviction as a bar to the presidency.

Some offices - federal judgeships, for example - carry disqualification for certain offenses, but the presidency does not. Congress has debated proposals to add such a bar, but none have been enacted.

The 14th Amendment, Section 3 - the Disqualification Clause - bars from office persons who engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States after having sworn an oath to support the Constitution. Whether and how that clause applies to specific candidates is a matter of ongoing legal and political debate.

A sitting president who commits a crime can be impeached and removed by Congress; if the Senate also votes to disqualify the person from future office, that vote would bar them. But a conviction in the regular criminal courts alone does not trigger automatic removal or disqualification from the presidency.