justsomeantifas:

Donald Trump has been asking about whether or not he can pardon aides in his administration, his own family members, and possibly himself. Some of those are very easy questions. One is decidedly more complicated.

The inquiries are the big takeaway from a blockbuster Washington Post story released Thursday night. The Post reports that Trump “has asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides, family members and even himself in connection with the probe,” according to someone “familiar with the effort.” “A second person said Trump’s lawyers have been discussing the president’s pardoning powers among themselves.”

As Vox’s Andrew Prokop explains, actually following through with this and pardoning White House aides and family members for involvement in a major ongoing political scandal would be completely unprecedented. President Gerald Ford’s pardon of his predecessor Richard Nixon after the latter resigned in disgrace doesn’t come close; nor does George H.W. Bush’s pardon of Reagan administration officials for involvement in the Iran-Contra affair.

So far, Trump’s lawyers are dismissing the possibility that he would try to pardon anyone: “Pardons are not being discussed and are not on the table,” Jay Sekulow, one of Trump’s personal attorneys, told CBS News. If they were, Trump would clearly be within his legal rights to issue pardons for any of his aides, including family.

When it comes to pardoning himself, though, Trump’s power gets murkier.

Presidents definitely can’t use the pardon power to impede impeachment proceedings, against themselves or any other officials. But there’s disagreement among legal experts about whether the president can use a pardon to defend himself against future prosecution upon leaving office. The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel ruled in 1974 that Nixon could not pardon himself, but most legal experts consulted by Vox’s Sean Illing concluded the opposite, that Trump probably could pardon himself. There’s also a question of whether courts would be willing to step in and disrupt a self-pardon, even if it’s not constitutionally permissible.

“It’s a ‘how many troops has the pope’ sort of thing,” Margaret Love, who served as US pardon attorney from 1990 to 1997, says.

One thing is clear, however: Trump absolutely, without a doubt, has the authority to pardon anyone but himself, whether or not they’ve been charged with a crime already. He could issue a blanket pardon for all federal offenses in a given period to Michael Flynn, Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, Donald Trump Jr. — anyone who he thinks might be in danger.

(read the rest in the full article) 

Friday, July 21st 2017

President Trump’s essentially unlimited pardon power, explained

justinspoliticalcorner:

Carol D. Leonnig, Ashley Parker, Rosalind S. Helderman, and Tom Hamburger at WaPo: 

Some of President Trump’s lawyers are exploring ways to limit or undercut special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation, building a case against what they allege are his conflicts of interest and discussing the president’s authority to grant pardons, according to people familiar with the effort.

Trump has asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides, family members and even himself in connection with the probe, according to one of those people. A second person said Trump’s lawyers have been discussing the president’s pardoning powers among themselves.

Trump’s legal team declined to comment on the issue. But one adviser said the president has simply expressed a curiosity in understanding the reach of his pardoning authority, as well as the limits of Mueller’s investigation.

“This is not in the context of, ‘I can’t wait to pardon myself,’ ” a close adviser said.

With the Russia investigation continuing to widen, Trump’s lawyers are working to corral the probe and question the propriety of the special counsel’s work. They are actively compiling a list of Mueller’s alleged potential conflicts of interest, which they say could serve as a way to stymie his work, according to several of Trump’s legal advisers.

A conflict of interest is one of the possible grounds that can be cited by an attorney general to remove a special counsel from office under Justice Department regulations that set rules for the job.

The president is also irritated by the notion that Mueller’s probe could reach into his and his family’s finances, advisers said.

Trump has been fuming about the probe in recent weeks as he has been informed about the legal questions that he and his family could face. His primary frustration centers on why allegations that his campaign coordinated with Russia should spread into scrutinizing many years of Trump dealmaking. He has told aides he was especially disturbed after learning Mueller would be able to access several years of his tax returns.

Trump has repeatedly refused to make his tax returns public after first claiming he could not do so because he was under audit or after promising to release them after an IRS audit was completed. All presidents since Jimmy Carter have released their tax returns.

[…]

Jay Sekulow, one of the president’s private lawyers, said in an interview Thursday that the president and his legal team are intent on making sure Mueller stays within the boundaries of his assignment as special counsel. He said they will complain directly to Mueller if necessary.  

[…]

Following Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director James B. Comey — in part because of his displeasure with the FBI’s Russia investigation — Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel in a written order. That order gave Mueller broad authority to investigate links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, as well as “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation” and any crimes committed in response to the investigation, such as perjury or obstruction of justice.

Mueller’s probe has already expanded to include an examination of whether Trump obstructed justice in his dealings with Comey, as well as the business activities of Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.

[…]

Traditionally, Justice Department leaders have sought to maintain a certain degree of autonomy from the White House as a means of ensuring prosecutorial independence.

But Sessions’s situation is more unusual, law enforcement officials said, because he has angered the president for apparently being too independent while also angering many at the FBI for his role in the president’s firing of Comey.

As a result, there is far less communication among those three key parts of the government than in years past, several officials said.

Currently, the discussions of pardoning authority by Trump’s legal team are purely theoretical, according to two people familiar with the ongoing conversations. But if Trump pardoned himself in the face of the ongoing Mueller investigation, it would set off a legal and political firestorm, first around the question of whether a president can use the constitutional pardon power in that way.

“This is a fiercely debated but unresolved legal question,” said Brian C. Kalt, a constitutional law expert at Michigan State University who has written extensively on the question.

The power to pardon is granted to the president in Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, which gives the commander in chief the power to “grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” That means pardon authority extends to federal criminal prosecution but not to state level or impeachment inquiries.

No president has sought to pardon himself, so no courts have reviewed it. Although Kalt says the weight of the law argues against a president pardoning himself, he says the question is open and predicts such an action would move through the courts all the way to the Supreme Court.

THIS IS THE SCENARIO THAT A LOT OF US FEARED: Trump and his lawyers plan to sabotage Mueller’s Russia investigation