Pardons

I know everyone must be burnt out reading and talking about Donald Trump’s assertion that he has the absolute right to pardon himself, but I always think about these things a little bit deeper, because that is the way my brain works.

I understand what Trump is doing. This isn’t only about presidential pardons. Trump takes the position that he has the power to do anything he wants to do unless someone—the courts, the Congress—pushes back and tells him he doesn’t. He claims absolute power until outside forces take back that power.

If Trump really has the power to pardon himself and his, uh, henchmen (it’s the word that comes to mind) then let’s speculate on how far this power extends.

If Trump sent a squad of henchmen to murder the justices on the Supreme Court and then immediately pardoned them, would that be legal? By “legal” I mean could he execute that crime without being prosecuted?

If Trump sent a squad of henchmen to nail shut the doors of Congress and arrest our senators and representatives and send them to Gitmo, could he pardon everyone involved for that crime?

Can Trump pardon himself for any and all future crimes he may commit as well as any and all past crimes (which he vehemently denies having committed). That would seem to cover all the bases. When Trump is no longer president and someone offends him, he could pull out a pistol and kill them on the spot. When the police arrive he could tell them, “You can’t arrest me, I’ve already been pardoned—by me.”

The point of this speculation is not that Trump is likely to do any of these things because I really don’t think he would (though it wouldn’t shock me if he did); rather, it is to explore a legal concept by applying reductio ad adsurdum to see how far the concept can be extended before we all see the absurdity. For if Trump has absolute power to pardon, then why can’t he send someone on a mission to commit a crime and then pardon that person and himself for participating in the crime? “Absolute” means without limits.

Trump could violate every legal and moral principle embodied in the Constitution and simply pardon himself. If Trump has absolute power to pardon himself as he asserts, then he could do all these things without consequences. Is this what the framers of the Constitution intended?

The obvious answer to all these suppositions is to recognize that the president’s power to pardon is not “absolute” as he contends. There must be limits on it.

There is a fundamental legal principle that asserts you can’t be the judge in your own court case. By claiming absolute power to pardon himself, Trump contends that principle doesn’t apply to him. It appears Trump wants to be king more than he wants to be president. It is the responsibility of We the People to ensure that doesn’t happen.