Inside: Trump says he has the “absolute right” to pardon himself.
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 probe was unconstitutional.
The president, who nonetheless 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 the word “counsel” spelled correctly.
The president laid down his latest lines of attack against the investigation of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III 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 of his 2016 campaign’s possible complicity with Russia’s election interference and whether he has sought to obstruct the probe.
Trump’s new attack on the constitutionality of the special counsel was particularly puzzling, coming more than a year after Mueller, a former FBI director, was named to the job and chosen by Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, a Trump appointee.
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 subsequently 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 on 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 actually do so.
“He probably does” have the power to pardon himself, Giuliani said on ABC’s “This Week,” though he dismissed the idea that Trump would invoke that power. On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Giuliani said, “Pardoning himself would be unthinkable and probably lead to immediate impeachment.”