'Very serious problem': Former WH atty urges Congress to stop presidents from self-pardoning

08 August 2024

In the event that former President Donald Trump wins the November election, he would be able to either have his appointed attorney general dismiss all federal cases against him, or even issue a presidential pardon — to himself.

Now, one former White House counsel who worked for both former President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden is warning that Congress has to act fast in order to prevent a president from being able to pardon their own crimes. According to Newsweek, attorney Bill Bauer said if Congress doesn't "set up roadblocks" to prevent a president from pardoning themselves, Trump could have a "full-time enabler" as White House counsel which could create a "very, very serious problem."

Bauer added that the duties of a White House counsel are very different than that of a criminal defense lawyer, like the ones who represented him in his New York hush money cover-up trial. And he noted that it would be "catastrophic" if Congress chose to side with a president's personal wishes over the Constitution.

"A criminal lawyer would probably be pushing very hard for the recognition of the right of a president to self-pardon," Bauer said.

The 45th president of the United States has not yet been convicted in either of the two ongoing federal cases against him. Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith has brought two cases against Trump: One for allegedly mishandling classified documents after his presidency, and one for allegedly disrupting Congress' certification of the Electoral College vote count on January 6, 2021. And thanks to both his hand-picked Supreme Court justices and one of his lower court appointees, whether or not he even stands trial is still up in the air.

In early July, the Supreme Court overturned both U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in granting Trump absolute broad immunity from criminal prosecution for any "official acts" carried out as president. However, the Court left the matter of what constitutes an "official act" up to the lower courts. And Judge Chutkan has signaled that Trump's D.C. election interference trial could still continue as the immunity question has made it back to the District of Columbia's judicial district.

In the Southern District of Florida, Trump's 37-count felony indictment — considered Smith's most damning given the wealth of evidence the DOJ accumulated – was recently thrown out by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who Trump appointed to the bench just months before he was voted out of office. Cannon cited Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' argument in the Trump v. United States decision that the circumstances in which Smith was appointed special counsel were unconstitutional to justify her decision. Smith has appealed that decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has already previously overturned Cannon's decisions in the Trump case.

Even if Trump wins this fall, he would still not be able to pardon himself in either of the two state-level cases against him, as state pardons are at the discretion of governors. The former president is due to be sentenced for his 34 felony convictions in New York on September 18, and Judge Juan Merchan could sentence Trump to as many as 20 years behind bars.

A trial in Trump's Georgia election interference won't happen until at least 2025, after the Georgia Court of Appeals agreed to consider the ex-president's attempt to force Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis off the case. If he wins the election, that trial may not happen until 2029, as one of his defense attorneys argued in court that the duties of the presidency necessitate a four-year delay in trial proceedings.

Click here to read Newsweek's article in full.

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