Trump asserts right to pardon himself
President cites scholars in maintaining “absolute right,” while legal experts challenge statement.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Monday asserted two new and widely disputed claims in his continued assault on the Russia investigation: that he has “the absolute right” to pardon himself and that the appointment of the special counsel for that inquiry was unconstitutional.
The president, who insisted on his innocence in each of his morning tweets, wrote in the initial one, “As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong?”
Just over an hour later, Trump posted, “The appointment of the Special Councel (sic) is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL! Despite that, we play the game because I, unlike the Democrats, have done nothing wrong!” He later re-sent the tweet with “counsel” spelled correctly.
The president laid down his latest lines of attack against the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller even as the White House was trying to mark Trump’s 500th day in office by focusing on what it sees as his substantive achievements to date. As has often been the case, the president distracted from the message, given his own focus on the investigation into whether his 2016 campaign complied with Russia’s election interference and whether he has sought to obstruct the inquiry.
Also Monday, prosecutors said former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort made several attempts to tamper with witnesses in his ongoing criminal cases. Prosecutors asked a federal judge to consider revoking his house arrest.
In a court filing, prosecutors working for Mueller wrote that Manafort and one of his associates “repeatedly” contacted two witnesses in an effort to influence their testimony. The contacts occurred earlier this year, shortly after a grand jury returned a new indictment against Manafort and while he was confined to his home.
Court documents do not name Manafort’s associate, but they refer to him as “Person A” and note the pseudonym is consistent with previous filings in the case. In earlier filings, Person A has referred to Konstantin Kilimnik, a longtime Manafort associate who prosecutors have said has ties to Russian intelligence.
The two witnesses are also not named in court filings. But prosecutors say they worked with Manafort in organizing a group of former European officials, known as the Hapsburg Group, who promoted Ukrainian interests in Europe as well as the U.S.
A Manafort spokesman declined to comment.
Meanwhile, the president’s claim that he has unfettered power to pardon himself was a response to the controversy stirred up by a weekend report in The New York Times. It said that two of Trump’s lawyers in January wrote a letter to Mueller arguing that the president’s powers are so broad as to make it impossible for him to have obstructed justice.
Many legal experts challenged that assertion, as well as the idea that Trump can pardon himself — contrary to the president’s subsequent tweet that “numerous legal scholars” attest to his absolute power.
On television interview shows Sunday, Trump’s own lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was less emphatic on the subject of the president’s pardoning power, suggesting that Trump might have the authority to pardon himself but would be unwise to do so.
On Monday, one powerful Republican in Congress disputed the president’s contention. “If I were president of the United States, and I had a lawyer that told me I could pardon myself, I think I would hire a new lawyer,” Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told CNN.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement: “President Trump is wrong. No president has ever attempted to pardon himself.”
Nadler’s statement also asserted that the nation’s founders believed “the notion of a self-pardon was inherently corrupt, and argued that the Congress would surely act to remove such a president.”
Legal experts pointed to a Justice Department legal brief in 1974 — at a time when the Watergate investigation threatened President Richard Nixon — as a decisive statement on the subject. The memo states: “Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the president cannot pardon himself.” Nixon, after he resigned, was pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford.