Sorry: Trump probably can’t forgive himself. He can still try

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Until then, we can expect to see the last-minute forgiveness-fest hosted by most presidents – which any bettor would bet Trump is going to undertake in a very big way.

Trump has already commuted the sentence of his informal adviser Roger Stone. But its former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, is still being held at home and is serving a prison sentence. His former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, admitted to lying to the FBI but has not yet been convicted and has attempted to resume the plea.

There is a long list of other people Trump could also grant the favor of a presidential pardon. One question that will arise until he leaves office is whether he could grant himself this favor.

Trump has repeatedly asked his aides for pardons for himself and his family members and if he can grant them preemptively, according to a recent CNN report.

Why would Trump need a pardon?

This may very well be an academic question since Trump does not currently appear to be the subject of federal criminal investigations. Its attorney general, Bill Barr, has made it clear that he will follow existing Justice Department guidelines that prevent a sitting president from being charged with a felony.

Related: Six Lawsuits Trump Will Face When He Leaves Office

Yet former Trump attorney Michael Cohen served jail time for breaking federal campaign finance law in order to arrange silent payments in 2016 to women who said they had sex. with the future president. There is a sound of Trump discussing payments. It is perhaps conceivable that he could forgive himself for breaking the electoral law.

These payments are also at the center of an investigation into Trump by the Manhattan District Attorney, who searched for Trump’s financial records in a long-standing legal battle.

But presidential pardons are not good for state crimes. Regarding these state investigations into his financial affairs and his now defunct charity, a federal pardon will do him no good in state court in New York.

If he gets creative, he might also try to resort to self-pardon to deal with a possible federal tax judgment against him. The IRS, for example, says he falsely claimed a $ 72.9 million tax write-off, according to The New York Times reporting on his tax returns.

Trump clearly believes he has the power to forgive himself

He said so in 2018, after the conclusion of the Russia inquiry, Trump claimed power, but he also pointed out the political danger he would face using it.

“As many jurists have said, I have an absolute right to FORGIVE myself, but why would I do this when I haven’t done anything wrong?”

Yet, as CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams pointed out, self-forgiveness would actually mean a form of guilt.

“A pardon is actually an acknowledgment that a wrongdoing or an attributable crime has taken place. So he wouldn’t just be guilty, he would admit that he committed an offense,” Williams said in an appearance on November 12 on CNN.

To the extent that there is an open question about self-pardons, it is because no other US president has had the audacity to think he can do it. The Constitution does not expressly prohibit it in writing, although it does prohibit pardons in the event of dismissal. But that doesn’t mean Trump could do it.

The rules date back to Richard Nixon

There was a legal note drafted by the Justice Department’s legal counsel’s office just days before Nixon’s resignation in 1974 that claimed that a president could not forgive himself.

The position of the Department of Justice was quite simple: “Under the basic rule that no one can be a judge in his own case, it would appear that the question should be answered in the negative.”

It’s a legal opinion, not a law, but just like the opinion that a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime, these things take on the impression of precedent. Instead, Nixon’s successor and former vice president Gerald Ford granted his former boss an unconditional pardon a month later, likely nullifying Ford’s ambition to be elected president.

Ford made an expansive statement, wiping Nixon’s slate clean and delivering “a complete, free and absolute pardon to Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States that he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or to period from January 20, 1969 to August 9, 1974. “

What are Trump’s other options?

Trump has other moves at his disposal, according to the memo. He could, like Nixon, step down and hand power in his final days to Vice President Mike Pence, who could forgive him.

He could even temporarily hand over Pence’s power under the 25th Amendment and let Pence, as interim president, forgive him.

“The problem is, it’s politically perilous for Mike Pence, because at the end of the day he would get into a political time bomb,” said Williams, who made it very clear that Pence might want to run for the election on his own. presidency.

It could also open Pence to corruption allegations if he and Trump had a pardon agreement in place. Pence would receive something valuable – the presidency, even for a short time – in return for an official act.

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