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Will Trump pardon himself?

Will Trump pardon himself?

  • Total voters
    58
  • Poll closed .
The Don said:
Does he think he has done anything that requires a pardon ?

I suppose he could pardon himself even though he's done nothing wrong to protect himself against malicious prosecution. :rolleyes:
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That would be my guess – He’ll maintain that he did nothing wrong but pardon himself anyway because the evil baby eating liberals are going to frame him.

Who exactly has the authority to decide if he gets away with it or not (and to enforce the determination)? Supreme court, Attorney general, other?
 
Finster said:
That would be my guess – He’ll maintain that he did nothing wrong but pardon himself anyway because the evil baby eating liberals are going to frame him.

Who exactly has the authority to decide if he gets away with it or not (and to enforce the determination)? Supreme court, Attorney general, other?
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Really only Scotus has the power to say "No the Constitutions means this when is says that" so it would fall on them if someone makes a legal challenge to it.
 
I figure a shot at self pardoning is a given, seriously what are the downsides to him of rolling the dice like this?
 
ponderingturtle said:
I figure a shot at self pardoning is a given, seriously what are the downsides to him of rolling the dice like this?
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Better yet, he should prepare a pardon that pardons every human for every crime Ever. And then say he will sign it if the house impeaches him.
 
It's long gone in the insurrection thread, but there was a tweet from a reporter (IIRC) saying that they'd been told that nobody would now touch the paperwork required for Trump to pardon anybody. There was definitely a tweet from a reporter citing a source inside the White House saying that the White House lawyer was advising all staff not to even talk to Trump for fear of becoming liable for charges of sedition and treason.

If either of those things is half true, then I'd imagine he'd find it difficult to even try.

But there have been reports from before Wednesday that he's been talking about it and getting advice about it, so I'd say that he definitely would have wanted to.
 
This would be amusing: President Biden, on Jan 21: "People are saying, they are saying, 'Sir, what if you offered to pardon anybody who beat the crap out of Donald Trump?' They're saying, I don't know that, it's just, if that's a thing, it's out there, they said are saying, 'Sir', they said. So I don't know, maybe."
 
JoeMorgue said:
If he does Biden should literally pardon himself for anything he does for the next 4 years the moment he takes office.
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Which is why my guess, in the case of Trump going hog-wild with the pardon power, is that the courts would end up finding that the pardon power must be defined within the Anglo-American legal tradition at the time of the framing and then cherry picking the historical record to cut the pardon power down to what they see as reasonable.

Some of the Federalist party unitary executive theorists might find that the power is basically boundless, but it is doubtful that ends up winning in the end when there is a Democrat in the White House.
 
JoeMorgue said:
I think he'll try.

And much of his inner circle. His family, and Giuliani especially.

I honestly don't see him trying to pull some sort of mass pardon on all of his followers though.
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Thanks much.

I was thinking about the exact same thing.
 
Squeegee Beckenheim said:
It's long gone in the insurrection thread, but there was a tweet from a reporter (IIRC) saying that they'd been told that nobody would now touch the paperwork required for Trump to pardon anybody. There was definitely a tweet from a reporter citing a source inside the White House saying that the White House lawyer was advising all staff not to even talk to Trump for fear of becoming liable for charges of sedition and treason.

If either of those things is half true, then I'd imagine he'd find it difficult to even try.

But there have been reports from before Wednesday that he's been talking about it and getting advice about it, so I'd say that he definitely would have wanted to.
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All he would have to do is call a press conference and say "I pardon myself for any crime that the treasonous democrats, who by the way were behind the storming of the Capitol, might seek to charge me with, although of course they know that they are the ones who are really guilty of rigging the election and many other things!" That might just stand up legally as an actual pardon in the Supreme Court.
 
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Squeegee Beckenheim said:
It's long gone in the insurrection thread, but there was a tweet from a reporter (IIRC) saying that they'd been told that nobody would now touch the paperwork required for Trump to pardon anybody. There was definitely a tweet from a reporter citing a source inside the White House saying that the White House lawyer was advising all staff not to even talk to Trump for fear of becoming liable for charges of sedition and treason.

If either of those things is half true, then I'd imagine he'd find it difficult to even try.
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Well, in that case the question is, does the paperwork for issuing a pardon have to come from an official white house lawyer?

Could Trump get someone like Rudy Guilianni to write up the pardon? Or could Trump just take a copy of Nixon's pardon, replace Nixon's name with his own, and sign it? (Well, changing a few things like the dates and whatnot).
 
ponderingturtle said:
I figure a shot at self pardoning is a given, seriously what are the downsides to him of rolling the dice like this?
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Well, other than how (in theory) it would look bad for him...

I wonder if it might impact any state-level charges that he might be subject to. e.g.. if he pardons himself for breaking federal tax laws, would it make a jury in New York more likely to convict him for breaking state laws?

"We were going to vote you not guilty, but since you pardoned yourself, we changed our mind".
 
Segnosaur said:
Well, in that case the question is, does the paperwork for issuing a pardon have to come from an official white house lawyer?
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No. Nothing in the Constitution or any SCOTUS ruling related to pardons says anything close to that.

Again, as I'm saying in the other pardon thread, we're mistaking habit and tradition for rules and regulations.

There, to the best of my knowledge, only 3 things that limit a President's power to pardon.

- The actual text of the Constitution, specifically Article Two of the United States Constitution (Section 2, Clause 1)

- An 1833 Supreme Court case where they stated that the person had to accept the pardon and that the President can't pardon someone against their will (United States v. Wilson) and reaffirmed in Burdick v. United States in 1915 that also set the precedent that accepting a pardon is admission of guilt of the original crime.

- What the voting and general public will put up with before rejecting it some way; either politically or more radically.
 
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Segnosaur said:
Well, in that case the question is, does the paperwork for issuing a pardon have to come from an official white house lawyer?

Could Trump get someone like Rudy Guilianni to write up the pardon? Or could Trump just take a copy of Nixon's pardon, replace Nixon's name with his own, and sign it? (Well, changing a few things like the dates and whatnot).
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Given the general level of competence of Trump Administration, I can see them changing the name but not the dates and the whatnots.
 
I also voted that he'll try.

The more interesting question is whether or not he'll try to give himself a blanket pardon and claim it also protects him from non-federal charges. It would fail, but I could see the idea appealing to him as a marriage of how great his power is as President and his belief that truth only requires on his insistence that it is true.
 
JoeMorgue said:
If he does Biden should literally pardon himself for anything he does for the next 4 years the moment he takes office.
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Okay, so here's a strategy.

Every single campaign out there has, at some point, committed an accidental breach of some sort of election law, usually with regards to raising or spending money. When you're spending hundred of millions, it's almost impossible to make sure absolutely all of it stays within the lines. We've seen several cases where campaigns have plead guilty to such things, and it's no big deal unless there's actual malice involved.

So, Biden takes office, and issues himself a pardon for a single such incidence, and then instructs the DoJ to go ahead and charge him for this single instance anyways, alleging that the self-pardon has no legal effect. Then they petition to take it directly to the supreme court, since the case cannot be decided on its merits until the key constitutional question of the pardon is resolved.

At which point Biden submits a brief agreeing with the DoJ, and asks the court to rule against him, establishing the precedent that the self-pardon is invalid. Biden pays a nominal fine for the technical violation of election law, and then Trump is left wide open for Federal charges.
 
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