Pence believes he is God’s chosen hand, maybe God is getting ready to smite Trump by giving Pence the courage to pull that off?
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Why wouldn’t he want to testify? The ratings would be great!
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Counter, maaaaybe. But, avoid? Perhaps you are not familiar with the Republican party.
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damned straight!
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Then Pence resigns so the fly can pardon him?
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I keep seeing this, and it continues to be a baffling claim because resigning would be completely unnecessary for Trump to receive a pardon from Pence. For all the discussion around the 25th amendment, people have completely ignored Section 3:
Whenever the President transmits to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives his written declaration that he is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.
Basically, he can make Pence acting president for the five minutes it takes to pardon Trump, then reassume the presidency. There’s no real legal argument that the Acting President doesn’t have the same pardon powers as the president, and the president’s power to pardon is damn near absolute.
In regards to the loss of fifth amendment protections, this seems like it would be a bigger issue when it relates to his businesses and non-governmental activity because executive privilege would (likely) be unaffected. (If he is pardoned for a specific offense, he might lose executive privilege by accepting the pardon because that would amount to accepting guilt, and executive privilege does not protect against the exposure of criminal behavior, unless the damage to national security outweighs the severity of the crime). To the best of my knowledge, only natural persons can receive pardons, so it would make sense for investigators to focus on the Trumps’ businesses.
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Doesn’t the chief justice have to swear in a new president? What if he don’ wanna? Wiki says: While the Constitution does not mandate that anyone in particular should administer the presidential oath of office, it has been administered by the Chief beginning with John Adams, except following the death of a sitting president.
If Trump takes the pardon, he could I believe still take the Fifth against New York State charges, but could state prosecutors use the pardon to show a pattern of guilt? Or are they not allowed to mention the pardon (and whatever guilt Trump admitted / acknowledged by accepting it) because it was a Federal matter?
Biden may not be interested in investigating and prosecuting Trump (who likely will be under plenty of scrutiny from New York) but could he insulate himself from that by letting whoever he selects as AG take the lead?
I assume you mean on the news? Around here, it’s mentioned every 15th post…
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There’s a lot of political capital spent by going after things in the past, and it also sets up a future where they go after you just as hard. Remember, the way they dogged Clinton was payback by a mostly Nixon friendly team. These people were Nixon afficianados mad that Hillary was only slightly related to the Nixon takedown, and they went after Clinton, and then years later continued going after Hillary. A president starts with a limited amount of “capital” to deal with. I can’t imagine Biden wanting to spend his on going after the last guy.
For the same reason, I think Court packing is out.
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That’s the intriguing possibility for me.
Pence is done already at the state level (unless he moves out of IN). He is done at the Presidential level.
In this scenario where Trump steps down based on the understanding that Pence pardons him, Pence could just play dumb and do… Nothing.
If Trump waits until the 11th hour, the night before Biden’s inauguration the window for which there could be take-backsies or exerting pressure on Pence would be almost nil.
Super unlikely, but I could see a path to a 0 pardon resignation scenario.
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This kind of gaming the system tends not to hold up in court, thank goodness. The system is not a clever series of mechanics to be exploited. Such things are ultimately decided on by mostly reasonable people who see through the intent in dumb stunts like that.
That said though, I don’t believe the OP statement that “most legal scholars agree Trump can’t pardon himself” is true. Everything I’ve read says the opposite. The Con Law community consensus seems to be that he absolutely can do it, though it would definitely land in SCOTUS. Then it’s down to how biblically literal the cranky old white men in robes feel like being that day.
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Not exactly. He said that he would not direct the DoJ to prosecute him. Which is as it should be. However, if the DoJ is truly independent, it could and should pursue an investigation of the myriad federal crimes Il Douche has committed.
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I am of two minds about Trump either trying to pardon himself, or working out a deal with Pence to resign and then get a pardon.
The first is he would in effect be admitting he committed a (or multiple) crime while President. I find it hard to believe he would admit that. The second is just resigning in general, which would be an admission that he lost the election.
Weird times.
Again, that’s not necessarily the case. Pardons have been granted to many people specifically because they were recognized as being innocent of the crimes they were persecuted for. For example:
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Trump would claim (both while he signs the document, and afterwards) that the pardon does not (as most see it) forgive the crimes committed and waive the punishment, but he will instead claim that the pardon makes him not guility of the crimes, and thus they cannot be mentioned in any unrelated cases (as proof-of-character), or investigated in any way, and that it also absolves him of any potentially related state crimes. (since, he would have declared himself not-guilty, that means he didn’t do it, even if there was proof he did)
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True, but that happens/ed after a conviction and sentence was handed down. A preemptive pardon implies that there was a crime for which a conviction and sentence is likely. Of course, Cheetolini and his cult would spin any such pardon as a preemptive strike to prevent the persecution and legal harassment of their god emporer worm, but the logic* still remains that an innocent person needs not fear the criminal justice system, and their innocence will be proven during their day in court.
*applies only to wealthy, white, heteronormative males. YMMV
So what if he had to testify. He’d lie.
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pardon me?
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The President probably can pardon himself; the power is essentially plenary. Nixon didn’t do it because, deeply flawed as he was, he was a committed institutionalist. He refused to argue about JFK’s election – and there were some actual shenanigans there (way more than in this election) – because he thought it would be bad for the country.
Pence would like to be President – I don’t see a path to the nomination as he’s neither Trumpy enough nor not-Trumpy enough to get there – and I don’t think if you want to be President, you take on the burden of being saddled with the post-Presidency legacy of a guy like Trump. Pence is not stupid.
And, yah, Trump is too self-centered to give up a moment of power.
