Sure, you could consider it a case of impeachment, but there isn’t any clock. Trump would not be able to affect the case by pardoning himself. No more could he by saying on Inauguration Day “I hereby pardon myself for everything I have ever done, so neener neener.”
Regards,
Shodan
Er, why not? How, except for less dignified phrasing, an open-ended start date, and the (unsettled by any precedent) question of self-pardon, does this differ from the Nixon pardon?
Caveat – I didn’t sleep that well last night and my brain seems to be working even less well than usual. So perhaps this is a stupid question.
Are there no limits on what a sitting president can issue a pardon for? Assuming he can pardon himself, let’s take a hypothetical – POTUS sells state secrets to another country. Then he pardons himself. (Or he pardons himself first, then sells the state secrets.) Even the most partisan House has to vote for impeachment once this comes out. Then the Senate convicts.
So the Pres is now out of office. That’s it? He can take the bazillion bucks he got and buy a nice tropical island and live his days out in luxury?
Is a pardon issued before a charge is levied really binding?
Yes, I know it’s been done, in the case of Nixon. But is it binding?
A pardon can cover only past crimes.
“Binding,” as in “effective?”
Yes. In Supreme Court hath spoken thusly:
Ex Parte Garland, 71 U.S. 333 (1866), predating Nixon by over a hundred years.
The President’s pardon extends only to federal crimes, and affect crimes that occur after the pardon is issued. But other than that, “It extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken, or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment.”
“Before”, not “after,” yes?
You might be picturing some sort of “Double Jeopardy,” issue in play.
But the impeachment process and the criminal process do not relate to each other in that way, and an impeachment for acts that constitute obstruction of justice would not be affected in any way by a pardon. The pardon would halt the criminal process wherever it was at the time the pardon is accepted.
Errrr. Yes. There was supposed to be a ‘cannot’ in there:
The President’s pardon extends only to federal crimes, and cannot affect crimes that occur after the pardon is issued.
Or as you say, it can only affect crimes that occur before it’s issued.
I don’t think impeachment does happen, no matter what evidence Mueller finds. The Trump supporters are going to support him no matter what. The only way Trump gets impeached is if the Democrats make huge gains in the 2018 midterms. Given that most of the senate seats up for election in 2018 are currently held by Democrats, I don’t think that conviction is possible.
My bet is that Mueller gives Rosenstein his findings, who immediately gives them to select House and Senate members in a closed meeting. Ryan throws in the towel and allows for impeachment to proceed and it passes overwhelmingly. McConnell walks in the Oval Office and tells Donald he can either resign or be convicted. Donald signs a pardon for himself, says fuck this shit I’m out of here, and tweets his resignation while blaming Obama for everything. Mueller convenes a grand jury and presents the case to them, Donald is indicted and presents his pardon to a federal judge. The judge dismisses the case, Mueller appeals and the case goes to the Supreme Court. In a precedent-setting vote, they declare that presidents may not pardon themselves and the case goes to trial. Donald is convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Jared Kushner is found guilty of corruption under New York law and is sentenced to life. Ivanka divorces him and marries a gangster rapper.
Mueller could find that members of the campaign violated the law without Trump’s direct knowledge, and Trump could pardon them. Congress could, however, find that those pardons, though valid, were an abuse of his office and impeach and convict as a result of them.
Okay. Now in what universe do you see Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell ever acting like that?
I think it’s entirely plausible that if they get compelling evidence from Mueller that Don the Con committed serious crimes and/or covered them up AND IF HIS POLL NUMBERS CONTINUE TO DROP, they will decide they can take the backlash from the faithful and rid themselves of this meddlesome priest.
I don’t think impeachment will happen. If there is ever going to be an impeachment, I think the GOP will make a backdoor deal will be made with Trump that he resigns for health reasons.
This misses the key thing: if they face “backlash” from the faithful, they will lose their jobs. There’s no incentive here. Either they lose because Trump becomes an anchor they have to abandon, or they lose because they abandoned Trump and Trump supporters decide to fuck them over. The latter won’t come until the former, therefore there’s absolutely no reason to abandon Trump.
I agree that the GOP wants to avoid any open impeachment move. But however the GOP moves against Trump, Democrats should try to rally around Great Orange Leader. A Trump working with the Democrats out of spite will be better for the country than a Pence-Ryan Administration relieved of its burden, the short-fingered ape kicking own goals.
No, impeachment is purely political and has nothing to do with criminal pardons at the federal level. Impeachment is the constitutionally-sanctioned means by which other levers of government are used to remove the Executive for abuses of power or other perceived offenses. In theory, Congress doesn’t even really need a valid legal or political reason to remove the president. He could be criminally stupid in the eyes of congress and that would be sufficient. The Chief Justice of the SCOTUS doesn’t render an opinion; he simply presides over the process.
There’s no guarantee that it would work any better for the democrats than for the republicans. What the democrats would have post-impeachment is an orangutan man who feels invincible. He’d probably spend his remaining days in the Oval Office binge-watching TV and stuffing sacks with everything that isn’t nailed down in the White House and any other piece of government property they have access to.