Can Trump Pardon Himself?

What you quoted was about the fact that the President cannot pardon state offenses.



That is incorrect. The President has the power to pardon federal offenses.

If there are people conducting a witch hunt, they'd first have to provide evidence of guilt...

...but having said that - these are powerful, smart people. If they really wanted to conduct a witch hunt for the purpose of jail time...and if they had the evidence...they'd just wait until he was no longer president (so that he couldn't pardon himself).

...but political witchhunts are rarely about trying to put someone in jail.

All of this is not to say he has or hasn't committed offenses (given his personality, I'd be extremely surprised if he hasn't, but that is of course, just opinion)

Since when have witch hunts ever cared about facts or evidence?



They will have to wait even longer than that if he pardons himself while he is still president.

Yeh, sorta like Trumps search for a fraudelent "rigged" election. His guys talk tough in the internet but avoid words like "Fraud" in courts . (Perjury can hurt a career).

SDNY has enough "pardon-free" indictments to keep ole Plumpity's crack "legal team" busy for a while.

after hes out of office we will see about your assertions wont we??
Youre arguing from ignorance because its never been done and its never considered non-fed crimes and misdemeanors. I can wait , Im not listening to baseless opinions .

Weve gon ovr that so often that any reasonably intelligent person would have "gotten the point" by now. Apparently youve got a crotch in yer clutch.

didn't he say he's a registered democrat?

if that's the case, he wants to outlaw his own party.

self-loathing or unstable... you make the call...

And he always insists on the Constitution, but he seems to forget that political beliefs and ideas are a form of group activity protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

He makes up things that he feels should actually be in the Constitution but are nowhere to be found therein(I called one to his attention this AM and he denied that the Constitution was correct).

Either that or hes a Russian interloper whose paid by the post, so it doesnt matter that hes ignorant of our laws.


Yeh , he said he was a Sem (prolly a left over son of a blue dog so he thinks it cool when he spouts his racist ****)

A) self-loathing
B) unstable
C) batshit
D) all of the above

Summarising Burdick v. United States, 236 U.S. 79 (1915):
• A pardoned person must introduce the pardon into court proceedings, otherwise the pardon must be disregarded by the court.
• To do this, the pardoned person must accept the pardon. If a pardon is rejected, it cannot be forced upon its subject.
• A pardon carries an "imputation of guilt", and accepting a pardon is "an admission of guilt".
(Library of Congres: Burdick v. United States [pdf])

So any pardon carries an implicit imputation of guilt.
In Trump’s case, this could only be for criminal acts committed in office and would hamper his plans to run again for president in 2024.

"Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the president cannot pardon himself, the Office of Legal Counsel wrote in August 1974. (Full text [pdf])

Trump has reportedly asked aides about the issue of pardons for members of his own family, although it is not clear what for.

It should be remembered, however, that previous presidents have pardoned relatives (Bill Clinton pardoned his brother Roger), aides, businessmen, and Gerald Ford famously pardoned his predecessor Richard Nixon.

My quoted response wasn't pointing to President Trump.