No pardon plan
Rudy Giuliani, President Donald Trump’s attorney, says the president would not pardon himself should he ever be in a position to — but suggested that he could.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani publicly pressed Trump’s expansive view of executive power this weekend, arguing on two Sunday TV shows that the president probably has the sweeping constitutional authority to pardon even himself.
“He probably does,” Giuliani said, when asked on ABC’s “This Week” if Trump has the ability to pardon himself. “He has no intention of pardoning himself, but he probably — not to say he can’t.”
Giuliani’s comments came less than 24 hours after the revelation Saturday that the president’s legal team argued in a secret January memo to Special Counsel Robert Mueller that Trump could not have obstructed an FBI probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election because, as president, he has total control over all federal investigations.
The 20-page letter, written by two of the president’s lawyers at the time and first reported by the New York Times, was hand delivered to Mueller’s office, and also argues that the president cannot be compelled to testify.
But while arguing that the president has the theoretical ability to pardon himself, Giuliani and other Trump allies on Sunday nonetheless rejected the reality of such a brash move — in part because of the political backlash they said could lead to Trump’s impeachment.
On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” for instance, Giuliani framed the pardon question as hypothetical and politically implausible. “It’s not going to happen. It’s a hypothetical point,” he told host Chuck Todd.
He went on to describe such a move as “unthinkable,” and said it would probably lead immediately to impeachment.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is in regular touch with the president, was even more blunt, appearing on the ABC news program after Trump’s attorney.
“Listen, there’s no way that’ll happen, and the reason it won’t is because then it becomes a political problem,” Christie said when asked about the notion that Trump might pardon himself. “If the president were to pardon himself, he’ll get impeached.”
The reality, however, is more nebulous. The Republican Party, which controls Congress, has so far failed to assert any clear red line over which Trump could walk that would prompt them to take action against him. And GOP lawmakers have remained largely silent as Trump has gone to war with his Justice Department and the FBI, intentionally and routinely degrading public trust in the institutions tasked with holding him accountable for misbehavior.