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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (1072233)	6/5/2018 12:02:39 PM
From: Thomas A Watson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574097

As they say, you are not an apprentice like some many other infected with TRD, so President Trump cannot fire you so he does the next best thing, He keeps you ass on fire.

To: Brumar89 who wrote (1072233)

6/5/2018 12:04:33 PM

From: Brumar89

Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 1574097

The President Pardoning Himself Would Be Impeachable and Unconstitutional

by Erick Erickson

An idea from the fever swamp of the right would not work?, but would end the President's tenure in office.

I don't know which of President Trump's friends thinks it would be a great idea for him to pardon himself, but even Richard Nixon's administration determined it would be impossible.

It would be impossible for a couple of reasons. President Nixon's Department of Justice determined the ancient principle of nemo iudex in causa sua would apply. That's a fancy way of saying that no man should be the judge of his own case. Three days after the Department of Justice made that determination, President Nixon resigned. In fact, his Justice Department determined that the only way for the President to get a pardon in a process he controlled was for him to step aside temporarily under the 25th amendment, let the Vice President become President to pardon him, then return to power.

Another basic principle in our American republic is that the power of the President, as Chief Executive, flows outwardly from his office, not towards him. The President cannot be prosecuted while in office because the prosecutorial power is an executive power. It flows from the President. It does not flow towards the President. Likewise, the pardon power flows from the President. It cannot flow towards the President. He is the performer exercising his duties. Like an actor in a play, his is the performance for the audience. He is not the audience. His performance of duties is for them, not himself.

But even if, for the sake of argument, the President were to try it and even if you thought it was constitutional, American constitutional law is no longer grounded in the text of the founding document. It is grounded in five black robed oligarchs. Even if President Trump could get Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch to go along for the ride, I have a hard time believing Kennedy and Roberts would. I have a hard time believing Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch would too.

Now, set all that aside for just a minute.

It is well settled law in this country that a pardon is only valid based on the existence of a crime. Indeed, to accept a pardon is to tacitly admit you are guilty of a crime. If the President pardons himself, he is admitting that he is guilty of a crime because, again, a pardon in this country is only valid based on an acknowledgment of an underlying crime.

So if the President pardons himself, he sets himself up to be impeached for a high crime or misdemeanor, unless you really want to thread the needle on him being guilty of a crime, but neither a high crime nor a misdemeanor. And while the GOP may control the House right now, the odds are historically in favor of the Democrats to take the House, if only by a slim majority. The House only needs a majority vote to force impeachment proceedings.

The Senate will probably stay with the GOP. But their margin will be small and there is no love between most Republican senators and the President. He cannot be sure that he can escape two-thirds of the Senate impeaching him. To try a self-pardon would be a fool's errand and whoever is giving the President this advice needs to be removed from his presence.

themaven.net