As he prepares to end a tumultuous four years as U.S. president facing potential legal jeopardy, Donald Trump has discussed the possibility of pardoning…
By Jan Wolfe (Reuters) - As he prepares to end a tumultuous four years as U.S. president facing potential legal jeopardy, Donald Trump has discussed the possibility of pardoning himself, according to a source familiar with the matter. But there are questions about whether a president s broad executive clemency powers under the U.S. Constitution would permit such action. The Justice Department has previously taken the view that the Constitution does not allow a sitting president to be indicted, but a former president enjoys no such protections. Here is an explanation of the potential constitutional problems with a self-pardon and why such action would not end Trump s legal jeopardy after his term ends on Wednesday. Is a self-pardon constitutional? There is no definitive answer to this question, and the Constitution does not explicitly address this possibility. No president has tried it before, so the courts have not weighed in. Trump wrote on Twitter in 2018 that he had the absolute rig
Once confined to scholarly circles, the debate over whether a president can pardon himself has gained urgency in the wake of last week's violent storming of the U.S. Capitol by President Donald Trump's supporters.
The riots led to Trump's historic second impeachment this week and sparked Democratic calls for a federal investigation into Trump's role in inciting the violence.