Of Course Trump Is Talking About Pardoning Himself on the Way Out the Door

Something you’ve probably picked up on over the last four years is that Donald Trump believes the presidency is about him first and the country last, hence unleashing a violent gang of domestic terrorists on the Capitol to burn democracy to the ground in his honor. Knowing that, in addition to his lifelong work as one of the nation’s preeminent con men, learning that he’s been talking about granting himself legal immunity during his last days in office ranks somewhere around the news that the ex-White House doctor had to hide vegetables in his food or that Trump thought bleach might cure COVID-19.

The New York Times reports that in several conversations since Election Day, Trump has told advisers he wants to pardon himself, which follows reports that he’s been interested in the concept of self-pardons since shortly after moving into the White House in 2017. Of course, at this point, his fascination goes beyond the theoretical, given, among other things, that his behavior on Wednesday bordered on treason and that lawmakers are discussing forcibly removing him from office.

He has long maintained he has the power to pardon himself, and his polling of aides’ views is typically a sign that he is preparing to follow through on his aims. He has also become increasingly convinced that his perceived enemies will use the levers of law enforcement to target him after he leaves office.

As aides urged Mr. Trump to issue a strong condemnation on Wednesday and he rejected that advice, the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, warned Mr. Trump that he could face legal exposure for the riot given that he had urged his supporters to march to the Capitol and “fight” beforehand, according to people briefed on the discussion. The president had appeared to White House aides to be enjoying watching the scenes play out on television. Beyond that, the extent of Mr. Trump’s criminal exposure is unclear. The special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, outlined 10 instances in which Mr. Trump may have obstructed justice but declined to say whether he broke the law, citing legal and factual constraints of prosecuting a sitting president. Former Justice Department officials and legal experts said that several of the acts should be prosecuted. In 2018, federal prosecutors in New York named Mr. Trump as a conspirator in an illegal campaign finance scheme.

As the Times notes, no president has ever pardoned himself, so it’s unclear how the justice system would respond should charges be brought against Trump, and, in fact, it might actually leave the Biden Justice Department in a situation wherein it felt it had no choice but to prosecute him, in order to avoid sending a message to the American people that presidents are above the law. “The Biden Justice Department will not want to acquiesce in a Trump self-pardon, which implies that the president is literally above federal law,” Jack Goldsmith, a former top Justice Department official in the George W. Bush administration, told the Times. Of course, given that pardons typically go to people who’ve already been convicted of a crime, white-collar defense lawyers say that Trump‘s best shot of having one stick would be to cite specific crimes he committed, which would make it somewhat awkward when he goes to run for president again, as he has threatened to do.