# Can a sitting President pardon himself?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-sitting-president-pardon-himself/177360>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [May 25, 2003, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-sitting-president-pardon-himself/177360 "2003-05-25T04:33:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\
**Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-sitting-president-pardon-himself/177360/1 "2003-05-25T04:33:20Z")

</div>

> [@](#):
>
> Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution says:
> 
> and he [the president] shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

If President Clinton got indicted for perjury while he was in office, could he simply have pardoned himself, avoiding any criminal penalty for this offense?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\
**Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-sitting-president-pardon-himself/177360/2 "2003-05-25T04:37:01Z")

</div>

[Possibly,](http://slate.msn.com/id/1002012/) but it has yet to be constitutionally tested, of course.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\
**Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-sitting-president-pardon-himself/177360/3 "2003-05-25T04:41:58Z")

</div>

[A bit more info here.](http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20001208.html)

> [@](#):
>
> While no president has ever pardoned himself, the law supports the president’s authority to do so. Scholarly inquiry into the subject was provoked first by fear that Richard Nixon would pardon himself to escape Watergate; later by thought that George H. W. Bush would do so because of the Iran-Contra grand jury; and most recently by concern about Bill Clinton’s problem of a possible post-Presidency indictment and trial. And while a few scholars have concluded that the president cannot pardon himself, many more believe that he can.

A matter of pulling out a piece of blank letterhead paper, and getting a couple of witnesses, apparently …

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\
**Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-sitting-president-pardon-himself/177360/4 "2003-05-25T04:46:02Z")

</div>

Considering nobody’s ever done it to my knowledge, suggests that someone else has to pardon you, or that you actually have to be convicted of a crime, of which no president has been.

Being Indicted doesn’t mean much. You can be Indicted for anything. Only a conviction leaves any permenant legal marks, IIRC.