Page 10 The Skanner June 6, 2018
News
Trump Says He Has ‘Absolute Right’ to Pardon Himself
By Jonathan Lemire and Catherine
Lucey, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — President
Donald Trump asserted his presiden-
tial power and escalated his efforts to
discredit the special counsel Russia
probe Monday, declaring he has the
“absolute right” to pardon himself and
attacking the investigation as “totally
UNCONSTITUTIONAL!”
Trump’s comments on Twitter came a
day after attorney Rudy Giuliani played
down the possibility that the president
could pardon himself, suggesting he
might have that authority but would be
unwise to use it.
“Pardoning himself would be un-
thinkable and probably lead to immedi-
ate impeachment,” Giuliani, a member
of Trump’s legal team, told NBC’s “Meet
the Press” on Sunday. “And he has no
need to do it, he’s done nothing wrong.”
On Twitter Monday, Trump said:
“As has been stated by numerous legal
scholars, I have the absolute right to
PARDON myself, but why would I do
that when I have done nothing wrong?”
He then again decried special coun-
sel Robert Mueller’s probe as a “never
ending Witch Hunt.”
Trump later added that the “appoint-
ment of the Special Councel is totally
UNCONSTITUTIONAL! Despite that,
we play the game because I, unlike the
Democrats, have done nothing wrong!”
Trump’s legal team is making clear
that it will combat any effort to force
the president to testify in front of a
grand jury. Giuliani on Sunday under-
scored one of the main arguments in a
newly unveiled letter sent by Trump’s
lawyers to Mueller back in January: A
president can’t be given a grand jury
subpoena as part of the investigation
into foreign meddling in the 2016 elec-
tion.
But Giuliani, in a series of television
interviews, broke with one of their
bolder arguments in the letter that a
president could not have committed
obstruction of justice because he has
ultimate authority over any federal in-
vestigation.
Yet the former New York City mayor,
who was not on the legal team when the
letter was written, added that Trump
“probably does” have the power to par-
don himself, an assertion challenged by
legal scholars. He says the president’s
“
Pardoning other
people is one thing,
pardoning yourself
is tough
legal team hasn’t discussed that option,
which many observers believe could
plunge the nation into a constitutional
crisis.
“I think the political ramifications
would be tough,” Giuliani told ABC’s
“This Week.” ‘’Pardoning other peo-
ple is one thing, pardoning yourself is
tough.”
Trump has issued two unrelated par-
dons in recent days and discussed oth-
ers, a move that has been interpreted
as a possible signal to allies ensnared
in the Russia probe.
The letter is dated Jan. 29 and ad-
dressed to Mueller from John Dowd, a
Trump lawyer who has since resigned
from the legal team. Mueller has re-
quested an interview with the pres-
ident to determine whether he had
criminal intent to obstruct the inves-
tigation into his associates’ possible
links to Russia’s election interference.
AP PHOTO/ANDREW HARNIK, FILE
Tweet comes on the heels of Giuliani telling ‘Meet
the Press’ that it would be ‘unthinkable’ for Trump
to pardon himself
In this May 5, 2018, file photo, Rudy Giuliani, an attorney for President Donald Trump, speaks at the
Iran Freedom Convention for Human Rights and democracy in Washington. Sharpening their legal
and political defenses against the special counsel’s Russia probe, President Donald Trump’s attorneys
stressed Sunday, June 3, that they would contest any effort to force the president to testify in front of a
grand jury but downplayed the idea that Trump could pardon himself.
Giuliani said Sunday that a decision
about an interview would not be made
until after Trump’s summit with North
Korean leader Kim Jong Un on June 12
in Singapore, and he cast doubt that it
would occur at all.
“I mean, we’re leaning toward not,”
Giuliani told ABC. “But look, if they
can convince us that it will be brief, it
would be to the point, there were five or
six points they have to clarify, and with
that, we can get this — this long night-
mare for the — for the American public
over.”
In addition to the legal battles,
Trump’s team and allies have waged
a public relations campaign against
Mueller and the Justice Department to
discredit the investigation and soften
the impact of the special counsel’s po-
tential findings. Giuliani said last week
that the special counsel probe may be
an “entirely illegitimate investigation”
and need to be curtailed because, in his
estimation, it was based on inappropri-
ately obtained information from an in-
formant and Comey’s memos.
In reality, the FBI began a counterin-
telligence investigation in July 2016 to
determine if Trump campaign associ-
ates were coordinating with Russia to
tip the election. The investigation was
opened after the hacking of Democrat-
ic emails that intelligence officials later
formally attributed to Russia.
Trump’s team has requested a brief-
ing about the informant, but Giuliani
said Sunday that the president would
not order the Justice Department to
comply because it would negatively af-
fect public opinion. But he continued to
cast doubt on the special counsel’s even-
tual findings, suggesting that Trump
has already offered explanations for
the matters being investigated and that
the special counsel was biased against
the president.
“For every one of these things he did,
we can write out five reasons why he
did it,” Giuliani said. “If four of them are
completely innocent and one of them is
your assumption that it’s a guilty mo-
tive, which (Trump) would deny, you
can’t possibly prosecute him.”
Trump’s legal team has long pushed
the special counsel to narrow the scope
of its interview. Giuliani also suggest-
ed that Trump’s lawyers had been
incorrect when they denied that the
president was involved with the letter
that offered an explanation for Donald
Trump Jr.’s 2016 Trump Tower meeting
with Russians who offered damaging
information on Democrat Hillary Clin-
ton.
“This is the reason you don’t let the
president testify,” Giuliani told ABC.
“Our recollection keeps changing, or
we’re not even asked a question and
somebody makes an assumption.”