Sean Hannity thinks so. Hannity stated on his radio show yesterday to conspiracy theorist lawyer Sidney Powell that Trump should pardon himself and his family.
Sean Hannity urged President Donald Trump to issue blanket pardons for both himself and all of his family members before he leaves office in January, to protect them over any possible crimes that they committed during his four years in the Oval Office.
On the Monday edition of his radio show, Hannity complained to pro-Trump lawyer and election fraud conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell that the incoming Biden administration was being publicly encouraged to investigate and prosecute Trump for any criminal misconduct while he was president.
Six months ago, notably, Hannity offered his own vocal endorsement of Trump investigating his White House predecessor during an interview with Mediaite. In that discussion, he affirmed that he wanted the Trump Justice Department to probe both Obama and Biden about the so-called unmasking scandal — which turned out to be a huge nothingburger — and intimated that it was tantamount to a “criminal conspiracy.”
Sure. Why not. This way we can ensure that any future President drains the treasury into their personal accounts, and then give themselves a pat on the back on the way out.
- Doc
Hugh Nibley claimed he bumped into Adolf Hitler, Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, Gertrude Stein, and the Grand Duke Vladimir Romanoff. Dishonesty is baked into Mormonism.
Trump pardoning himself would likely be unconstitutional. But Hannity doesn't mind Trump doing unconstitutional stuff.
No president has ever tried to pardon himself, and many legal scholars are skeptical that such a move would be constitutional. When President Nixon was considering pardoning himself at the end of his administration, the Department of Justice issued a memo in 1974 saying it would not be legal.
Will Trump pardon Himself?? He has recently been considering it.
(Bloomberg) -- Any move by President Donald Trump to pardon himself in his final days in office could backfire, legal experts say, inviting the incoming administration to challenge the unprecedented action by filing criminal charges against him.
Trump has raised the possibility of a self-pardon in recent days as calls grow for him to face prosecution for inciting the U.S. Capitol siege that resulted in five deaths and sent members of Congress scrambling for safety. But though the president has vast authority to grant clemency to others, a self-pardon would be a novel assertion of executive power that both Democrats and Republicans might want the Supreme Court to strike down.
“It would almost set himself up as a sitting duck to be prosecuted,” said Nick Akerman, a former Watergate prosecutor. “It takes the edge off the idea that you’re going after somebody just because they were a political opponent in the prior administration.”
Trump faced legal threats even before Wednesday’s riot. The administration of President-elect Joe Biden could decide to revive Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into obstruction of justice by Trump or launch a new probe into his taxes. But such prosecutions were likely to face stiff Republican opposition, and Biden has signaled he might prefer to move on.
The Capitol siege has now scrambled political calculations, with many of the president’s allies abandoning him. The New York Times reported on Thursday that White House Counsel Pat Cipollone warned Trump he could potentially face charges for encouraging the riot. At a press conference on Thursday, the acting U.S. attorney in Washington said he would not rule out investigating the president’s role.
Under such circumstances, a self-pardon may prove tempting for Trump. But many experts say the idea has weak legal foundations.
To start with, Trump has been shielded from federal criminal prosecution while in office not by the Constitution or binding Supreme Court precedent but by internal Justice Department policy. A self-pardon would challenge the constitutionality of another such policy encapsulated in a 1974 memo citing the “fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case” and concluding that “the president cannot pardon himself.”
The Justice Department policy dates from the Watergate scandal, in which President Richard Nixon resigned and was pardoned by his former vice president, Gerald Ford. If Trump were to follow that path and accept a pardon from a President Mike Pence, the act would be on solid legal ground. But a self-pardon has no historical precedent.
The Constitution says that a president “shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.” Some experts have said they believe this means the power is absolute. Former George W. Bush Justice Department official John Yoo wrote in an October 2017 New York Times op-ed that the president “can clearly pardon anyone -- even himself.”
But other experts say that would go against the framer’s intent. “If the president can pardon himself, there’s no recourse for federal crimes that he has committed,” said Jessica Levinson, a constitutional law professor at Loyola Marymount University, “and that’s not really how our system is set up.”
Akerman points to the verb “grant” as evidence that a pardon is something the president can only bestow on others.
“It’s a transitive verb, the object of which is somebody other than the person doing the granting,” he said. “Linguistically, it doesn’t make sense that you can pardon yourself.”
Sure. Why not. This way we can ensure that any future President drains the treasury into their personal accounts, and then give themselves a pat on the back on the way out.
- Doc
I think that would be a likely result if we establish the precedent that a President can pardon himself.
No precept or claim is more suspect or more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
I guess Hannity either doesn't know or doesn't care that accepting a pardon is effectively an admission of guilt. Perhaps both are true. I don't think Hannity really does care what, if anything, Trump is actually guilty of.
No precept or claim is more suspect or more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
I heard one legal expert saying that he hopes Trump does try to pardon himself so the idea can actually be legally tested to see if it holds up in court.
Religion is for people whose existential fear is greater than their common sense.
I heard one legal expert saying that he hopes Trump does try to pardon himself so the idea can actually be legally tested to see if it holds up in court.
It would be a tragedy if it did hold up in court when tested. That would be a dangerous precedent indeed. I don't think it likely that it would, but how sure of that can we be with considering Trump and McConnel's success in packing the courts with hard right conservative judges? But, then, these same judges ruled against the dozens of frivolous election fraud lawsuits filed by Trump and his legal team, so I guess we can take some hope from that.
Last edited by Gunnar on Wed Jan 13, 2021 8:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
No precept or claim is more suspect or more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
I heard one legal expert saying that he hopes Trump does try to pardon himself so the idea can actually be legally tested to see if it holds up in court.
It would be a tragedy if it did hold up in court when tested. That would be a dangerous precedent indeed.
Yeah, I'm not so sure I like the risk/reward ratio there either, but I did think his comments were interesting from a legal perspective.
Religion is for people whose existential fear is greater than their common sense.
