I hope that both Garland and Roberts are looking at the constitutionality

[question everything]

Of his pardoning himself

[2naSalit]

1. It would be challenged almost immediately...

By a literal line-up of prosecutors.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

2. It won't be considered or decided unless Trump is prosecuted.

If he just pardons himself and he isn't prosecuted, the pardon is meaningless; in fact, he probably doesn't even have to make his self-pardon public. If he is prosecuted for a federal crime, that's when the issue will be decided. The likely scenario is that a grand jury issues an indictment, and Trump presents the pardon in a motion to quash the indictment. A federal district court judge will decide the question in the first instance; it will be appealed to a circuit court of appeals and then by certiorari to the Supreme Court, which is almost certain to accept the appeal. But if he's never prosecuted in the federal system it won't matter, and it won't help him at all in a state prosecution.

[beachbumbob]

3. I hoping to god he does, as it would be invalidated by the SC, based on common law

philosophy that prevents judges from being over their own trials

I WANT TRUMP TO SELF PARDON, in the enddhe will face the wrath of the DOJ

[wiggs]

4. Plus all pardons granted for corrupt purposes. Real question there, too. nt

[mackdaddy]

5. If Trump pardons himself, Biden should RESCIND the pardon.

I know this has never been done before, but if this is going to the supreme court to review presidential pardon power, I would like to know what the limits really are.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

6. He can't. Better that a prosecution proceeds so the dirt comes out,

and the Supreme Court decides once and for all whether a self-pardon is valid.

[question everything]

7. There was a letter in the WSJ, yes, the WSJ: We Need Oversight of Presidential Pardons

The presidential pardons and commutations are an outrage to anyone who believes that massive cheating, stealing, witness tampering, tax fraud, murder and ripping off the public is OK for well-connected Trump supporters and partisans. “Trump Pardons 15, Including Campaign, Blackwater Figures” (Page One, Dec. 23) and “Trump Pardons Manafort, Stone, 24 Others” (Page One, Dec. 24). Pardoning corrupt congressmen, a Florida crook who swindled billions in the largest Medicare fraud on record, Blackwater contractors who killed more than a dozen Iraqi civilians and those who wilfully lied to the FBI to cover up for individual No. 1 in the Mueller probe (whose full content is still redacted) is a disgrace. Law and order and ethical and moral governance mean nothing to the president and there are no consequences for corruption at the highest level.

Kathy Krucker

Tucson, Ariz.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/we-need-oversight-of-presidential-pardons-11609974590 (subscription)

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I don't know how this can happen without a Constitutional Amendment