Can Trump Pardon Himself? The Answer Is NO!

There's been a lot of talk about Trump's issuing of pardons lately. That's valid. He has already used the pardon for Michael Flynn, and aides say he is preparing to issue a lot of pardons before leaving office -- including pardons for his family.

But the craziest talk has been about Trump issuing a pardon for himself. Some of the cable news talking heads seem to think that is a possibility, and may be legal. They point to a previous assertion by Trump that he does have that right.

Well, Trump is wrong, and so are those individuals who think he might be able to get away with doing that.

Here's what former federal appeals court judge J. Michael Luttig had to say about that possibility in The Washington Post: 

The pardon clause’s language is broad indeed, unambiguously allowing the president to pardon seemingly any other person convicted for any federal criminal offense. But its language does not unambiguously include the president himself. Had the Framers intended to give the president such broad power, we would expect them to have clearly said so. After all, the new nation was in the process of rejecting a monarchical government in favor of a democratic republic.

Instead, the words they chose to confer the pardon power on the president contemplate his granting of reprieves and pardons only to persons other than himself. The word ‘grant’ connotes a gift, bestowal, conferral or transfer by one person to another — not to himself. That would have been the understanding of this word at the time of the Constitution’s drafting, and it is how the term ‘grant’ was understood and is used elsewhere in the Constitution.