Why is Trump Claiming He Can Pardon Himself?
June 2018 - The latest legal opinion from non-lawyer Donald Trump is that the President of the United States can pardon himself for having committed a crime. The argument should be an irrelevant one, one that is relegated to debate in an obscure Constitutional law journal, not only because virtually no one in our nation's history has believed it to be true, but because virtually no one has ever believed a President could get away with doing so, particularly from a political perspective.
Heck, even the Nixon White House rejected the argument during the Watergate scandal. Except for possibly Mr. Nixon himself and we doubt if even attorney Nixon really did believe it.
 (image from gettyimages.com)
Not so this time around, though. Echoing Mr. Trump's minority position are the usual suspects on Fox News and too many of the sycophants surrounding Mr. Trump in the White House, including his latest minion (who appears more and more to be someone willing to sell his honor and his reputation for one last taste of political power), former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Can you imagine what a dramatically different tune the Trump defenders would be singing if Barack Obama had ever suggested he could pardon himself? Those self-proclaimed conservatives, or strict constructionists, or Constitutionalists (call them what you will), would have had a field day tearing into Mr. Obama.
For those who are engaged in this debate today, however, what many of them are missing is the following: why is Mr. Trump bothering to take this position, and wasting his valuable time and energy on it, unless he is guilty of something?
As we have been saying throughout the Mueller investigation whenever Mr. Trump issues another apoplectic tweet about it, there must be something he is trying to hide either about his own activities or those of a family member he is trying to protect. Else, why get so angry about Mr. Mueller's inquiries?
 (Mueller image from businessinsider.com)
From his perspective, even though a number of non-Trumps have been indicted or pled guilty to various crimes, if there is nothing there for any of the Trumps to be charged with, then Mr. Trump should just let the investigation run its course and be vindicated at the end. Focus on the job at hand and stop behaving in a way that comes across to the public as trying to cover up some illegal behavior.
As to the merits of Mr. Trump's argument, we aren't Constitutional lawyers, but we doubt if even a single one of our Founding Fathers would agree with him. Those gentlemen had just declared their independence after having lived under the thumb of an all-powerful king, and one of their overriding worries when writing our Constitution was that of concentrating too much power in the hands of any one individual. Consequently, what idea would be more dangerous to them than that of giving the President the ability to break any law he wishes and then pardon himself?
Fortunately, both political parties have come out strongly against Mr. Trump on this one. Let's just hope we don't ever have to see this issue come before the United States Supreme Court. Because, if it does, it would only come about if a President did try to pardon himself.
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