[ad_1]
President Trump has suggested his aides want to forgive themselves in the final days of his presidency, according to two people familiar with the discussions, a move that would mark one of the most extraordinary and untested uses of presidential power in history. American.
In several conversations since election day, Mr. Trump told advisers he was considering forgiving himself and in other cases asked if he should and what the effect would be on him legally and politically, according to the two people. It was not clear if he had raised the subject since he prompted his supporters on Wednesday to march on the Capitol, where some stormed the building in a mob attack.
Mr Trump has shown signs that his interest in forgiving himself goes beyond idle thinking. He has long maintained that he has the power to forgive himself, and his poll of assistants’ opinions is usually a sign that he is preparing to pursue his goals. He is also increasingly convinced that his perceived enemies will use law enforcement levers to target him after he leaves.
No president has forgiven himself, so the legitimacy of potential self-leniency has never been tested in the court system, and legal scholars are divided over whether the courts would recognize it. But they agree that a presidential self-pardon could set a dangerous new precedent for presidents to unilaterally declare they are above the law and isolate themselves from being held accountable for the crimes they have committed. in power.
A White House spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Mr Trump considered a range of preventive family pardons, including his three eldest children – Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump – for Ms Trump’s husband, Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, and for close associates such as the personal lawyer of President Rudolph W. Giuliani. The president expressed concern to advisers that a Biden Justice Department might investigate all of them.
Mr Trump, who has told advisers how much he loves having the power to issue clemency, for weeks solicited aides and allies for suggestions on who to forgive. He also offered preventive pardons to councilors and administration officials. Many were surprised as they did not believe they were in legal danger and believed that accepting his offer would be considered an admission of guilt, according to the two people.
Presidential pardons apply only to federal law and offer no protection against state crimes. They would not apply to charges that might be laid by Manhattan prosecutors investigating the finances of the Trump organization.
Discussions between Mr Trump and his aides over a self-pardon came before his weekend pressure on Georgian officials to help him try to overturn election results or his incitement to riots on Capitol Hill. . Trump’s allies believe both episodes increased Mr. Trump’s criminal exposure.
As aides urged Mr. Trump to issue a strong condemnation on Wednesday and dismissed the advice, White House attorney Pat A. Cipollone warned Mr. Trump that he could be exposed to the justice for the riot given that he had urged his supporters to march to the Capitol and “fight” beforehand, people briefed on the discussion said. The president seemed to White House aides to enjoy watching the scenes unfold on television.
Beyond that, the extent of Mr. Trump’s criminal exposure is unclear. Special Advocate Robert S. Mueller III described 10 cases in which Mr. Trump may have obstructed justice, but declined to say whether he broke the law, citing legal and factual constraints related to the prosecution of a sitting president. Former Justice Ministry officials and legal experts said several of the acts should be prosecuted.
In 2018, federal prosecutors in New York City called Mr. Trump a conspirator in an illegal campaign finance scheme.
Graces can be broad or narrowly tailored. White-collar defense attorneys have said Mr. Trump would be better served by citing specific crimes if he forgave himself, but such details could be politically damaging by suggesting he admitted to committing those crimes.
A self-pardon would complicate the already thorny question for Biden’s Justice Department of whether to investigate and ultimately prosecute Mr. Trump. Democrats and former Justice Department officials say if the president forgives himself and the Justice Department refuses to prosecute Mr. Trump, it will send a troubling message to Americans about the rule of law and to future presidents on their ability to ignore the law.
“Biden’s Justice Department won’t be willing to acquiesce to a self-pardon from Trump, which implies the president is literally above federal law,” said Jack Goldsmith, Harvard law professor and former senior official in the Justice Department of the George W. Bush administration. .
The power of clemency ›
Presidential pardons, explained
President Trump has discussed possible pardons that could test the limits of his constitutional power to nullify criminal liability. Here is some clarification on his ability to forgive.
-
- Can a president issue potential pardons before any charge or conviction? Yes. In Ex parte Garland, an 1866 case involving a former Confederate Senator who had been pardoned by President Andrew Johnson, the Supreme Court said that the power of pardon “extends to all known offenses of the law and can be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are instituted, or during their hanging, or after conviction and trial. It is unusual for a president to issue a potential pardon before charges are laid, but there are examples, perhaps President Gerald R. Ford’s most famous 1974 pardon from Richard M. Nixon for the prevent prosecution after the Watergate scandal.
- Can a president forgive his relatives and close allies? Yes. The Constitution does not prohibit pardons that raise the appearance of personal interest or a conflict of interest, even if they may cause political backlash and public shame. In 2000, shortly before leaving office, President Bill Clinton issued a series of controversial pardons, most notably to his half-brother, Roger Clinton, for a cocaine conviction in 1985 for which he had served about a year of prison, and Susan H. McDougal, a former Clinton business partner who had been jailed in connection with the Whitewater Inquiry.
- Can a president grant a general pardon? This is not clear. Usually, pardons are worded in a way that specifically describes the crimes or sets of activities to which they apply. There is little precedent as to the extent to which a pardon can be used to instead exclude criminal liability for anything and everything.
- Can a president forgive himself? This is not clear. There is no definitive answer as no president has ever tried to forgive himself and has faced prosecution anyway. As a result, there has never been a case that gave the Supreme Court a chance to resolve the issue. In the absence of any precedent for scrutiny, legal thinkers are divided on the issue.
- Find more answers here.
Self-forgiveness would align with Mr. Trump’s unprecedented use of the power of grace. The drafters of the Constitution gave the president almost total power to grant clemency for federal crimes, positioning the head of the executive branch as a control of the judiciary and someone who could tap into the justice system to prove of grace and mercy towards the oppressed. .
But Mr. Trump has avoided the formal Justice Department process put in place to ensure pardons are distributed fairly. Instead, he used his power of grace unlike any other president to help his allies, undermine his rivals, and advance his own political agenda. Of the 94 pardons and commutations granted by Mr. Trump, 89% were granted to people who had a personal connection to Mr. Trump, helped him politically or whose case resonated with him, according to a table by Mr. Goldsmith.
The only president to be pardoned was Richard M. Nixon. A month after Nixon left, his former vice president, President Gerald R. Ford, pardoned him for all crimes he had committed in office. This decision was widely criticized at the time because it allowed the presidency to hover above the law. Ford supporters later blamed the pardon for its electoral loss two years later, though eventually the pardon came to be seen as a gesture that helped the country leave Watergate.
Mr. Trump has maintained throughout his presidency that he has the power to forgive himself and first discussed the possibility with assistants in his first year in office. Those talks began when his campaign’s ties to Russia were under scrutiny and investigators inquired about whether he had obstructed justice.
Legal scholars are less certain of Mr. Trump’s claim that he has an “absolute right” to forgive himself.
The Justice Department said in a brief August 1974 notice, just four days before Mr. Nixon resigned, that “it would appear” that presidents cannot forgive each other “under the fundamental rule that no one can be a judge in his own case ”.
But the president is not bound by these views, and nothing prevents Mr. Trump from signing a pardon for himself. The question would be whether the Justice Department under another president would honor the pardon and rule out any potential prosecution of Mr. Trump and, if prosecuted, whether the justice system would ultimately decide whether the pardon protects Mr. Trump to face charges.
“Only a court can strike down a self-pardon, and it can only do so if the Biden administration files a lawsuit against Trump,” Goldsmith said. “A self-pardon from Trump would therefore make it more likely that Biden’s team would prosecute Trump for crimes committed in power.”
Throughout Mr. Trump’s presidency, he and his allies have looked to pardons as a way to help the president protect himself in criminal investigations. During the investigation into Russia, Mr. Trump and his personal lawyer, John M. Dowd, granted pardons to former aides. One, its former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, ignored a plea deal to work with prosecutors.
[ad_2]
Source link