Some law experts say President Donald Trump probably could pardon himself from the Russia probe if he wanted to, as lawyer Rudy Giuliani touted Sunday morning on various political shows, while other scholars called it doubtful.
"I actually think he's probably right," Samuel Morison, a lawyer who formerly worked in the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney, told the New York Post.
"That's part of the structure of the Constitution. I'm not saying that it would be a good thing, I think it would be kind of crazy," he added. "He might well get impeached if he did it."
Giuliani on Sunday stressed that Trump's legal team would fight back if special counsel Robert Mueller tried to force the president to testify in front of a grand jury, and added that the president "probably does" have the power to pardon himself but that the legal team has not discussed the option.
"Pardoning himself would be unthinkable and probably lead to immediate impeachment," Giuliani told NBC's "Meet the Press." ''And he has no need to do it, he's done nothing wrong."
"I think the political ramifications would be tough," Giuliani added. ''Pardoning other people is one thing, pardoning yourself is tough."
Former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara doubts Giuliani.
"I think (if) the president decided he was going to pardon himself, I think that's almost self-executing impeachment," Bharara told CNN Sunday. "Whether or not there is a minor legal argument that some law professor somewhere in a legal journal can make that the President can pardon, that's not what the framers could have intended. That's not what the American people, I think, would be able to stand for."
Lawyer Elura Nanos, writing for Law & Crime, said a pardon would be "too much for" Trump's presidency to bear.
"Most likely, a Trump self-pardon would spark a battle between those who believe it's legal, simply because it's not specifically forbidden in the Constitution – and those who believe it's illegal, because it offends traditional legal sensibilities," she writes.
Michigan State Professor of Law Brian Kalt said for years "nobody cared about the legal arguments I presented because they thought the whole question was absurd."
Now, the only way to find out is with a real case.
"The bottom line is that there is no valid answer to the question, 'Can Trump pardon himself?' other than, 'He could try,"' Kalt told The Post.
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