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Amid relentless scrutiny over possible ties between his presidential campaign and Russia, an extraordinary suggestion has emerged - that Donald Trump could pardon himself or his family.
Source: BBC News
US President Donald Trump has insisted he has the "complete power" to pardon people, amid reports he is considering presidential pardons for family members, aides and even himself.
A Democratic Party spokesman has called the reports "extremely disturbing".
The US authorities are probing possible collusion between the Trump team and Russia. Intelligence agencies think Russia tried to help Mr Trump to power.
Russia denies this, and the president says there was no collusion.
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Mr Trump and his team were looking at ways to pardon people close to him.
Source: BBC News
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday July 24 2017, @12:14PM (23 children)
An argument against self-pardon authority is that the Constitution also creates a process for impeachment, which self-pardon would render meaningless:
From a list of the canons of statutory construction (which also apply to the Constitution): https://isb.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/canons_w_commentary.pdf [idaho.gov]
I think Trump would argue that impeachment is still possible even if he self-pardons because there is a distinction between being impeached and being convicted of a crime -- impeachment just removes you from office.
I think the counter argument to this is that to impeach someone, they must have committed a criminal act and self-pardon takes that out of the equation at least potentially: does the pardon merely remove punishment for an acknowledged crime or does it remove all taint as if the crime never happened? If the latter, that fundamentally undermines the concept of separation of powers and a tripartite governmental system by making the Executive untouchable (see first point -- that would erase a large swathe of the Constitution).
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday July 24 2017, @12:51PM (14 children)
"to impeach someone, they must have committed a criminal act"
High crimes and misdemeanors
The charge of high crimes and misdemeanors covers allegations of misconduct peculiar to officials, such as perjury of oath, abuse of authority, bribery, intimidation, misuse of assets, failure to supervise, dereliction of duty, unbecoming conduct, and refusal to obey a lawful order. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_crimes_and_misdemeanors [wikipedia.org]
There need not be any criminal act committed to impeach an office holder.
And, this is where politics really enters into the picture. The president, or any other office holder, may be convicted of offenses that truly are not illegal. The senate gets to decide what "misdemeanors" are. If your party controls the senate, then your actions are probably not a misdemeanor. If the opposition controls the senate, your offense will almost certainly be found to be a misdemeanor, unless of course, they can prove a crime took place.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Monday July 24 2017, @01:12PM (8 children)
Either way, the bit I find more interesting about this is that while there's certainly a lot of smoke being blown by MSM, etc., so far at least there's no real sign of a smoking gun. Trump insists it's all fake news, a witch hunt (and since it is Trump. it's "the greatest witch hunt in history", no less) and they are all totally innocent of any wrong doing, yet seems staunchly opposed to any attempt to discover the truth that would presumably end the matter. Whether that's because he actually has something to hide, because he has no faith in the judicial process or the checks and balances of the country he's leading, or all of the above, it's an ugly situation for any country to be in, and I suspect it's going to get a lot worse before it's over.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Monday July 24 2017, @01:41PM (6 children)
That's a valid fear. We have so many Federal Crimes they can't even be counted, and "If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him." http://quotationsbook.com/quote/19331/ [quotationsbook.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @02:59PM
Six lines? For some people, half a tweet is enough :)
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Monday July 24 2017, @04:08PM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @07:02PM
If that really is a valid fear (for him) then why did he swear an oath at his inauguration to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." After all, what exactly is he swearing to defend? Or do you (and he) have some sort of weird notion that the judiciary is not a legitimate part of the federal government? Please note that I am not advocating for blanket approval for everything that the judiciary does; on the other hand, there is a legitimate process for countering judicial abuse, imperfect though it may be.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 25 2017, @03:07AM
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 25 2017, @08:15AM (1 child)
===
There's your six lines. Good luck.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday July 25 2017, @05:29PM
I've found something to hang you. It's a rope. :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 26 2017, @03:04AM
In all fairness, it sure did take Obama quite awhile to finally release his birth certificate when Trump was the one banging on the door making accusations of wrongdoing. Now, you could say that this is because the accusations were so outrageous that Obama didn't feel they were worth giving credence to, but then, Trump might make the same claim. And while those on the left would roll their eyes at such a claim, I'm not sure it's that much different than those on the right who rolled their eyes at Obama's claim, believing him actually not to have been native born.
I'm mostly just playing devil's advocate here (I can't say I care much for either of them, even if both have some limited beneficial aspects to tout), but it certainly serves to illustrate the vast divide in the more radical wings of either party. Without some event to tone down the sabre rattling and bring us back to a more diplomatic arena of compromises, I'd almost be surprised if we're not headed to a second civil war.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @01:15PM (2 children)
I guess self-pardon would count as abuse of authority and/or unbecoming conduct and therefore would by itself be sufficient for impeachment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @01:41PM (1 child)
Um, no. The framers of the Constitution were smart enough to preclude circular firing squads.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Monday July 24 2017, @03:46PM
Where, exactly?
Seems to me impeachment rests pretty much entirely on the whims of congress.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday July 24 2017, @06:15PM (1 child)
This is on par with your confusion between laws and bills to become a law, brought about by your reliance on alt-wrong right-wing nut-job alleged journalism, Runaway! Indictment is not the same as conviction. Commission is not the same as being found guilty. But, being pardoned does necessarily entail that a crime was committed, and guilt of the same is acknowledged by the acceptance of the pardon. And yes, the Senate does get to decide.
Now imagine, if it was possible for a President to pardon himself for crimes not specified, or even for unspecified crimes not yet committed! We are back to Tricky Dick! If the president does it, it is not illegal! You Nixonian supporter, Runaway!
On the other hand, if the president does pardon himself, there's your crime right there.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @07:09PM
Indeed. The real danger of pardoning himself (or members of his family) is that we would be in danger that he really could shoot somebody in the middle of Fifth Ave and not be held accountable for it. Just pause to consider how that kind of unbridled power could be abused not just by Trump but by any future President sworn into office.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 24 2017, @01:01PM (3 children)
So, I think he can pardon himself of the criminal act, but impeachment can still find him guilty of the act sufficient to remove him from office.
The interesting angle to me is: if he pardons himself for something, is that a tacit admission of guilt leaving him open to impeachment?
Actually, the whole thing is rather boring - I'm much more interested in how federal funding patterns are (and are not) changing behind all the stage lights, cameras and noise.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @02:49PM
BINGO!
Everyone keeps on watching the
KardashianTrump family shit show. Great ratings, believe me!(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @06:29PM (1 child)
Impeachment of the president is something more for clickbait than reality. Clinton was impeached under two counts - lying under oath and impeding an investigation. He undeniably and with 100% certainty was guilty of lying under oath - multiple times. Even he admitted as much in later testimony. Regardless of this literally not a single democrat senator voted guilty on the charge of lying under oath. And conviction in the senate doesn't require just a majority, but a supermajority.
You need to get every single democrat, every single independent, and then a good chunk of all republicans to vote guilty in order to have an impeachment that does not result in immediate acquittal in the senate. That's simply not happening. That'd not only blow a large amount of 'political capital' for no real gain for the individual politicians who'd have to turn coat, but it'd also arguably destroy the party in question. For instance today among like voters, 27% [rasmussenreports.com] of people strongly approve of the job Trump is doing and a total of 46% approve overall. That's extremely close to a party line roll call. Turn-coating to impeach somebody who a huge chunk of your electorate supports is basically the same as signing your own death warrant. Clinton lost in large part due to losing the support of many Bernie supporters. In spite of a ~15 [wikipedia.org] million man increase in voting age population from 2012 to 2016 (presumably an increase heavily weighted towards democrat friendly demographics), Clinton actually managed to get fewer votes in total than Obama did in 2012 (as well as 2008). This collapse would be dwarfed by the fallout of impeaching Trump. It won't happen in a million years. For that matter, I think it's unlikely any US president will ever be impeached (so long as we have a two party system) for similar reasons.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 25 2017, @11:52AM
>I think it's unlikely any US president will ever be impeached (so long as we have a two party system) for similar reasons.
Or, for the paranoid, perhaps we have a two party system, in part, for this very reason.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @01:50PM
It was talked about and settled during the tail end of the Bush administration when there was speculation that he might pardon himself for all those crimes against humanity that he was committed that the President can pardon himself for anything he likes.
The only real limitation on it is that it only applies to US laws, not to anything that would involve criminal proceedings at the Hague.
Impeachment only applies to high crimes and misdemeanors and can at most result in the President being removed from office following votes for impeachment and removal from office. Nobody has ever been removed from office. Nixon was really the closest and the only reason he wasn't was that he resigned prior to the proceedings.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday July 24 2017, @02:45PM (2 children)
What counts as an impeachable offense is whatever Congress says is an impeachable offense. The two times we've actually had a president impeached and put on trial in the Senate, the pretexts were extremely flimsy legally (Andrew Johnson was impeached for firing his Secretary of War breaking a law the Supreme Court said later was unconstitutional, Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about sex). Impeachment is fundamentally a political process, not a legal one. If enough people, especially enough congresscritters, want a president's scalp, he'll be impeached, if not, he won't.
Right now, Trump is putting a lot of effort into trying to secure the personal loyalty of Republicans in Congress. That is right now his primary defense against being ousted. For another comparison, Richard Nixon resigned after it became clear the Republicans in Congress were no longer willing to protect him.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 24 2017, @03:40PM (1 child)
Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath to Congress. As an example, imagine he had sworn under oath, "I have not broken an embargo to sell guns to Iran, in order to fund a rebellion in Africa" when he in fact had. That the thing he was lying about was professionally minor doesn't change the fact that he had lied while under oath: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman..."
It is like a prosecutor throwing the book at somebody and seeking a 90-day prison sentence for somebody jaywalking. From a legal perspective it is absolutely sound.
This I'll agree with.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday July 24 2017, @03:44PM
No, he was impeached for lying under oath in a lawsuit deposition. I agree that's perjury, although as far as presidential lies go (including those made under oath) it's far from the biggest or most consequential whopper. I have to assume that most of the tailors in Washington DC line suit trousers with asbestos as a standard precaution.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.