Eugene Robinson: Trump's claim he can pardon himself is telling

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Trump is a bald-faced liar who covered up collusion between his campaign and the Russians, tried to derail a federal investigation and claims to be above the law like some tin-pot dictator. This is not my assessment. It is what Trump and his attorneys proudly proclaim.

Don’t be distracted by Trump’s showmanship and buffoonery. Look instead at the essence of what he is trying to do: Save himself from possible impeachment by subverting the rule of law and enhancing tribalism at the expense of citizenship. In place of “E Pluribus Unum” he attempts to substitute a very different idea of the nation and what it stands for: “Just Win, Baby.”

A confidential Jan. 29 letter from Trump’s legal team to special counsel Robert Mueller, first published Saturday by The New York Times, gives copious new evidence — as if more were needed — of the president’s utter shamelessness and his smirking contempt for the people he is sworn to represent.

Begin with a particularly egregious example of Trump’s lying. You will recall the now-famous June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower — organized by Donald Trump Jr. and attended by Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner — for the purpose of obtaining damaging information about Hillary Clinton from a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, who has close ties to the Kremlin. This meeting was a clear act of “collusion” (which is not a legal term), but whether any laws were broken is up to Mueller.

https://www.heraldnet.com/opinion/robinson-trumps-claim-he-can-pardon-himself-is-telling/?utm_source=DAILY+HERALD&utm_campaign=05dbc5e1eb-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_d81d073bb4-05dbc5e1eb-228635337

[dawg day]

1. I know his minions support anything Trump does---

But surely even some of them will pause at the notion that a president can commit any crime and get away with it. (Of course, they don't mean for there ever to be another president, do they?)

[elias7]

3. The notion that he could literally shoot someone dead, then pardon self defeats any argument

for self pardon.

[BlueMTexpat]

2. It is also

ridiculous in any system that calls itself a democracy.