Trump claims right to pardon himself
Calls Russia probe unconstitutional; ex-aide Manafort accused of witness tampering
WASHINGTON — U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday asserted two new and widely disputed claims in his continued assault on the Russia investigation: that he has “the absolute right” to pardon himself, and that the appointment of the special counsel for that probe was unconstitutional.
The president, who nonetheless insisted on his innocence in each of his morning tweets, wrote in the initial one: “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?”
Just over an hour later, Trump posted, “The appointment of the Special Councel [sic] is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL! Despite that, we play the game because I, unlike the Democrats, have done nothing wrong!” He later re-sent the tweet with the word “counsel” spelled correctly.
The president laid down his latest lines of attack against the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller even as the White House was trying to mark Trump’s 500th day in office by focusing on what it sees as his substantive achievements to date. As has often been the case, the president distracted from the message, given his own focus on the investigation of his 2016 campaign’s possible complicity with Russia’s election interference and whether he has sought to obstruct the probe.
Trump’s new attack on the constitutionality of the special counsel was particularly puzzling to some observers, coming more than a year after Mueller, a former FBI director, was named to the job and chosen by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, a Trump appointee.
The president’s claim that he has unfettered power to pardon himself was a response to the controversy stirred up by a weekend report in the New York Times. It said that two of Trump’s lawyers in January wrote a letter to Mueller arguing that the president’s powers are so broad as to make it impossible for him to have obstructed justice.
Many legal experts subsequently challenged that assertion, as well as the idea that Trump can pardon himself — contrary to the president’s subsequent tweet that “numerous legal scholars” attest to his absolute power.
On television interview shows on Sunday, Trump’s own lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was less emphatic on the subject of the president’s pardoning power, suggesting that Trump might have the authority to pardon himself but would be unwise to actually do so.
“He probably does” have the power to pardon himself, Giuliani said on ABC’s This Week, though he dismissed the idea that Trump would invoke that power. On NBC’s Meet the Press, Giuliani said: “Pardoning himself would be unthinkable and probably lead to immediate impeachment.”
Some congressional Republicans have said that firing the special counsel or pardoning himself would be red lines that the president should not cross. Yet most have also been noticeably blasé about Trump’s increasingly explicit public musings that he continues to consider both options.
On Monday, however, one powerful Republican in Congress disputed the president’s contention. “If I were president of the United States, and I had a lawyer that told me I could pardon myself, I think I would hire a new lawyer,” Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told CNN.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, said in a statement: “President Trump is wrong. No President has ever attempted to pardon himself.”
Several legal experts pointed to a Justice Department legal brief in 1974 — at a time when the Watergate investigation threatened president Richard Nixon — as a decisive statement on the subject. The memo states: “Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the President cannot pardon himself.”
Nixon, after he resigned, was ultimately pardoned by his vicepresident and successor, Gerald Ford.
Yet Trump’s legal team has been asserting its broad view on presidential powers since at least December. Trump’s former attorney John Dowd, who has since quit, said then in an interview that Trump “cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under [Article II of the Constitution] and has every right to express his view of any case.”
A month later, Dowd and another Trump lawyer, Jay Sekulow, made that argument in their just-disclosed letter to Mueller.
Meanwhile, prosecutors working for Mueller accused former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort on Monday of trying to tamper with witnesses in his ongoing criminal cases.
Mueller’s team said in a new court filing that Manafort and one of his associates “repeatedly” contacted two witnesses in an effort to influence their testimony. The contacts occurred while Manafort was under house arrest.
The two witnesses are not named in court filings. But prosecutors say they worked with Manafort in organizing a group of former European officials who lobbied within the U.S. without registering.
Mueller’s team is asking a federal judge to hold a hearing to decide whether to revoke Manafort’s release. Manafort faces several felony charges in two federal cases. He has pleaded not guilty.