Read Brett Kavanaugh's Opinion on Presidential Immunity

Justice Brett Kavanaugh may have already offered some clues as to where he'll side when the U.S. Supreme Court rules on former President Donald Trump's immunity argument.

A legal review penned by Kavanaugh more than a decade ago suggests that he has long believed sitting presidents should be protected from prosecution because of the difficulties of the job and because there are other avenues to hold a president accountable.

"If the President does something dastardly, the impeachment process is available," Kavanaugh wrote in a 2009 article for the Minnesota Law Review. "No single prosecutor, judge, or jury should be able to accomplish what the Constitution assigns to the Congress. Moreover, an impeached and removed President is still subject to criminal prosecution afterwards."

Kavanaugh's opinion has resurfaced amid the oral arguments that the Supreme Court heard in Trump v United States on Thursday. The case centers around Trump's claims that presidential immunity should protect him from criminal prosecution.

Read Kavanaugh's own words here:

There is already immense pressure on Kavanaugh, as well as Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, all of whom were appointed to the bench by Trump.

During Thursday's arguments, Kavanaugh, who was appointed in 2018, asked Trump's attorney whether or not the "source" of immunity is explicit in the Constitution and questioned the Justice Department about whether there were some aspects of presidential powers that cannot be criminalized.

In 2009, Kavanaugh argued that prosecutions, both criminal and civil, against sitting president should be deferred until they finish their term, writing: "The point is not to put the President above the law or to eliminate checks on the President, but simply to defer litigation and investigations until the President is out of office."

Alex Badas, a Supreme Court expert and professor at the University of Houston, told Newsweek that one main difference is that Kavanaugh's article is mostly focused about delaying prosecution, not avoiding it.

"Trump is currently out of office, so that might alter how he views Trump's claims of immunity," Badas said. "It is unclear whether Kavanaugh would expand that view to include former presidents who are running for office or not. If so, it could create a loophole where a president like Trump could simply declare that he is running for office every four years to avoid facing any form of consequence for his actions."

Badas also pointed out that a law review is different from a judicial decision because reviews are typically used to offer new ways to interpret the law more broadly, while decisions are focused on specific applications of these theories.

"While Kavanaugh may theoretically support broad forms of presidential immunity or at least deferred prosecution, there is nothing in the article that tells us how he would view this particular application of that theory," Badas said.

He added that Kavanaugh could also change his mind or choose a different legal standard since nothing is binding him to the article he wrote 15 years ago.