This may be better off in GQ. Mods, move at your pleasure.
I’ve been seeing a lot of articles about how Mueller appears to be maneuvering to protect his case even in the event that Trump issues blanket pardons and/or fires him.
However, I also about Joe Arpaio’s motion to have his conviction erased from his record. The judge who rejected the motion said the pardon nulls the punishment but does not erase the historical record.
So let’s say Trump pardons Manafort, Flynn, and Papadopoulos. If the pardon does not erase the historical record, can Mueller continue investigating these three in the pursuit of that record, or does the pardon make them completely off limits?
IANAL but my understanding is if they are pardoned Manafort, et al would be in a situation where they could be called to testify about these events and no longer be able to plead the 5th and refuse to answer. I would also think if new crimes were uncovered that weren’t covered by the pardon then they could be prosecuted for those crimes.
I’m not a lawyer and don’t know the answer to your question, but one big Trump card that Mueller holds is that the attorney general in New York state is conducting a parallel investigation (Eric schneiderman) into Trump and the people around him. Since Trump property and many questionable financial transactions occurred in New York state, that means lots of the crimes being looked into are both state and federal.
Trump can only pardon federal crimes, not state crimes (only the state governor can pardon state crimes). New York Governor Cuomo isn’t going to pardon anyone associated with Trump.
I’ve also read that Mueller isn’t pushing for nearly as many charges as he can for the reason above. I believe new york state has a double jeopardy law, so if Mueller charges manafort for a particular crime and Trump pardons him, new York state can’t charge him for the exact same crime.
So supposedly Mueller is leaving a lot of potential charges on the table for schneiderman to follow up on in New York state if Trump offers a federal pardon. No idea if he is also leaving charges on the table for potential federal prosecution. Even if he did, what is to stop Trump from pardoning those charges too.
What’s the situation involving being the subject of both a state and federal investigation? If somebody is pardoned on the federal level can they still invoke fifth amendment rights during questioning at the federal investigation due to the state investigation?
Bricker would be more qualified to comment on this, but my understanding is that federal and state law operate separately. They’re the same crime but they’re two completely different jurisdictions. So even if the state statute is copied from the USC, it could be considered a separate offense.
I may be off on this as well but it really seems that the entire purpose of involving the NY state AG isn’t so much to get Trump’s cronies but Trump himself, as that’s where he’s spent the bulk of his time prior to 2017.
I would think that they can protect themselves against state-level prosecution. It’s a fundamental constitutional right that applies to state and federal court. It raises a fundamental question, irrespective of the 5th: can a person be compelled to testify against himself if there is potential that such testimony can be used in criminal proceedings against him/her?
