PITTSBURGH (KDKA) – Late Tuesday, President Trump granted pardon and pardon to 20 people convicted of a variety of crimes from theft to murder.
The President’s use of pardon to help his supporters, including former members of Congress, who have been convicted of misconduct has raised many questions.
The US Constitution gives the President the power to “grant reprieve and pardon for crimes against the United States.” It’s usually an act of presidential mercy or healing national wounds like the post-Vietnam War amnesty, but President Trump has taken pardons to a whole new level.
“There is no comparison between the pardons given to President Trump and other past presidents,” Ken Gormley, a constitutional scholar and president of Duquesne University, told KDKA political editor Jon Delano on Wednesday.
Gormley, who has researched and written on pardons, says this about Trump: “It feels like he has a magic card in his pocket that he can just play whenever he wants, and some of them were really unprecedented, ”says Gormley.
Trump, Gormley says, has ditched all normal Justice Department security and reviews in order to grant a pardon.
“President Trump only distributes them as he sees fit, so it’s definitely a break with modern practice,” says the law professor.
Of course, other presidents have granted pardons to family and friends convicted of crimes.
“It can be a family member – Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother Roger. It can be a close friend or a political ally – George HW Bush pardoned Caspar Weinberger after the Iran-Contra affair, ”he says.
But can a president excuse someone for federal crimes that have not yet been charged?
That’s what President Ford did for President Nixon after the Watergate scandal, but there has been no Supreme Court decision as to whether this pardon is constitutional.
Some have speculated that President Trump will grant such pardons to his children and son-in-law.
And here is the big question –
Delano: “Does President Trump have the power to forgive himself?”
Gormley: “I don’t think he will.”
The result of such power, says Gormley, could really undermine the constitution and security of the nation.
“When you think of the consequences, Jon, a president could be bribed by a foreign opponent and paid a billion dollars for the nuclear codes, leave the White House, and then pardon himself on the way to the door and never be prosecuted for bribery,” he says.
Will President Trump try to forgive himself?
The Supreme Court says accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt, which this president is very unlikely to do.
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