As a tool to obstruct justice, the presidential pardon power is highly overrated. The main advantage a president (or anyone else) has when he’s been involved in a criminal conspiracy is that the best witnesses against him are his coconspirators, and they can’t tell what they know without implicating themselves. Because of this, it’s important that witnesses can rely on their Fifth Amendment protections against self-incrimination: “No person…shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.” The way that right is legally interpreted, anyone who has been pardoned for a crime can no longer incriminate themselves and therefore can no longer refuse to answer questions with impunity.
If President Trump were to preemptively pardon Michael Cohen for every possible crime he may have committed (in much the same way that President Gerald Ford retroactively pardoned Nixon for unspecified crimes), then Cohen would be compelled to answer all the special counsel’s questions or face fresh charges if he did not. Trump would have to issue pardon after pardon after pardon to keep witnesses quiet, and that would be such a blatant obstruction of justice that even the Republicans in Congress could not ignore it.
It might be more effective to dangle the promise of a pardon. Paul Manafort, for example, might be willing to go through two humiliating, expensive and doomed trials rather than cooperate with federal investigators just so long as he believes his convictions will be wiped away by presidential fiat at the end of the process. But that’s a big gamble and it’s doubtful that this hope alone explains Manafort’s behavior. It’s probably more important that he owes nearly twenty million dollars to a Russian oligarch who is believed to have connections to the Russian mafia. He’d probably testify against Trump in a heartbeat if it didn’t require him to also testify against Kremlin allies and murderous gangsters.
And, what good would it really do for the president if he pardoned Manafort after his trials? Manafort would immediately lose his right against self-incrimination and would have to sing or face new charges. Trump is better off if people like Cohen, Manafort and Roger Stone are fighting charges than if they are free from them, but that assumes that they won’t cooperate.
As far as we know, none of those three are presently cooperating, although Cohen at least seems eager to take that step. Once any one of them goes over to Mueller’s team, the jig is effectively up, and that’s why we see desperation like this today:
..This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further. Bob Mueller is totally conflicted, and his 17 Angry Democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to USA!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1, 2018
The only way pardons can work is in tandem with the clock on the investigation running out. If there in no investigation left after Manafort’s trials conclude, then no one will call a pardoned Manafort in and force him to testify.
Trump needs the investigation to end and he needs it to end very soon.
It’s not clear why he would ask Jeff Sessions to take that step since Sessions has recused himself from all matters related to the Russia investigation. Trump should have addressed this request to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein who actually has the power to fulfill it.
Either way, though, it’s an effort to obstruct justice. Telling a subordinate that they should end an investigation into your possible crimes is the most obvious and indisputable effort to obstruct justice that can be conceived. That’s why FBI Director James Comey refused Trump’s request that he stop the investigation of Michael Flynn and then made sure to memorialize the conversation.
In any case, Trump cannot pardon himself out of this jam. Even without taking into account of the fact that the presidential pardon power does not extend to state-filed charges, it’s simply not possible to keep the truth from coming out by pardoning all your coconspirators.
His only chance is to somehow force the end of the investigation. Obviously he realizes this now, but he hasn’t found a way to do it that doesn’t just bolster the case against him.
Of course they could ignore it. Trump could gun down reporters at his next press conference–or Democratic politicians during the next State of the Union–and Ryan/McConnell/et alii would just sigh and look troubled and carry on cutting taxes and regulations.
I had just copied the exact same text. I wish I could believe that was the case, but I also wish I could grow wings and fly to Neptune. Both are as likely.
I don’t think you would enjoy Neptune very much. Dark and extremely cold, also no air.
Yes, but diamonds fall from the sky!
.
“rigged witch hunt…continues to stain our country…Angry Democrats are a disgrace to USA!”
Excellently fascist rhetoric from Der Trumper: time-tested resort to images of national shame/honor and impure “staining”–both of which require a ritual cleansing, no doubt.
Of course, the language works wonderfully well as quasi-projection, as many more world citizens likely consider the National Trumpalists themselves the “continuing stain” on the country, rather than “Bob” Mueller’s investigation. (Der Trumper is on a first name basis with everyone of consequence, of course.) Has any world leader (other than Russian Nationalist Putin) intimated that they consider the Mueller investigation a “continuing stain” (of all things) on the USA?
Methinks the symbol of “staining” more appropriately conjures up Lady MacBeth, somnambulantly wandering the castle wailing “Out, dam-ned spot!” All to no avail. Pitiable, had she not been the moving force behind the appalling atrocity. Just as the “damned spot” of the (democratically illegitimate) election of Der Trumper can never be removed from our history. Now THAT’S a stain, Herr Trumper!
Of course, The 46% (our Lady Macbeths) have yet to start their lamentations. They want still more blood, more carnage, mayhem and violence, as a cursory examination of any National Trumpalist rally immediately demonstrates. And for this reason it remains quite curious why Der Trumper spends so much mental energy on the demonic witch “Bob”—The 46% simply do not see or hear such things. They are exclusively tuned to harassment of non-whites, immigrants most especially. That’s the impure “stain” they can no longer bear, not whatever “Bob” Mueller may report to the captured National Trumpalist Congress….
Suborn perjury, and pardon the perjurer.
Encourage criminal contempt of court, and pardon the person in contempt.
Encourage civil contempt.The courts don’t have an independent arm to compel testimony. Writs of body attachment aren’t self-executing. The Marshal Service is an executive branch agency.
No one who doesn’t want to, can be forced to testify against the President.
The judiciary has long been thought the weakest branch of the three, as you know.
Of course, it always helps the executive to have the Supreme Court in their back pocket, as Der Trumper now has. Our phony “conservatives” thus can rely on the enormous respect for the Rule of Law that Liberalism painstakingly built up, as our 5 results-oriented “conservative” hacks issue one bad faith ruling after another.
The Supreme Court will now likely have to be destroyed for any prospect of societal progress to occur. But the “conservative” movement destroyed the idea/ideal of the Court as a non-partisan institution a long time ago.
If Manafort is found guilty of financial crimes, would a pardon keep him from paying any financial penalties? I read once that the government wants to get their hands on his assets. Does a pardon prevent that?
Guilty of bank fraud or he gets the pardon or he just goes to jail. The bank has got to sue him for their money. If they do not, then the bank is not a bank. The FDIC should sever their insurance and the banks customers flee. Customers not make whole by the bank then are free to sue Manafort.
In spite of the consistent statements in the media and the blogosphere that there is some stark line which Trump could cross, which no Republican in Congress could abide, I have yet to see any persuadable evidence that this is the case. I think that as long as they don’t feel there is any immediate political jeopardy, and that the consequences of going along with Trump are not sufficiently negative to their hold on power or their ability to move along radical right wing policies, they are just fine with the state of things.
Congressional Republicans are in full blown pillage mode right now. And they are going to take full advantage of the opportunity, right up until the time the castle walls are breached, and they are forced to run for their lives. There will be no feigned regret or remorse, until after they have completed as much of their ideological mission as possible.
. . . the point, nor required. RE:
The required line isn’t one no Banana Republican could abide Trump crossing. Only one enough of them couldn’t abide for them to combine with Dems for 50%+1 in the House and 2/3 of the Senate. (I think that means majority or 2/3 of those present and voting, e.g., 66, not 67 in the Senate if, say, McCain were absent. And who knows? I could be right. It could happen! Stranger things have.)
I’d be hard pressed to acknowledge that somebody else is more cynical than I re: the current state of the treasonous party-before-country-and-my-personal-enrichment-before-all-else BRP*.
(BTW, I don’t know why people pretend “trickle-down” doesn’t work! It’s been proven again and again. BRP congresscritters do the bidding of their plutocrat owners, and a tiny fraction of the resulting benefits to those overlords trickles reliably back down into the sponge-lined pockets of those BRP lackeys — and no further. Works beautifully!)
A short while back, booman posted [my paraphrase] that any such Banana Republicans (he implied some such exist) who would join that coalition to perform their patriotic and Constitutional duty of removing Trump need Mueller’s report as cover before they can make any move in that direction. That makes sense to me, including as explanation why only the dying/retiring have dared cross him so far, even if others exist who might have the morals and cojones to do so in the right circumstances. Evidence grows daily that the volume and stench of the shit poised to pass through Mueller’s (and the parallel investigations’) fans is going to be astonishing, especially considering we only know what’s already come out through indictments and such, and there’s certain to be much, much more to come. And it’s yet to all be tied together into a coherent narrative with all dots connected, “i”s dotted, and “t”s crossed.
So I’m trying to remain — no, not optimistic, that would be too strong — call it “cautiously hopeful” that booman proves right and all us justified cynics wrong on this. But boy howdy is my cautious hope a fervent one. We’re in a Constitutional crisis forming an existential threat. The future depends on it. [hackneyed cliché alert!]
Time will tell!
*Banana Republican Party
The combination of round the clock, gut-wrenching anxiety, coupled with the daily deluge of ceaseless insanity from every corner of the GOP, not to mention having to be surrounded every single fucking day by irrational and delusional Trumpian cultists, is working non-stop to erode my diligent efforts to be “cautiously hopeful”. Honestly, if it wasn’t for a regular dose of the sane and reasoned perspectives from this place, I’m not sure that I wouldn’t have already stepped in front of a bus.
These next few months are only going to serve to pile on more and more of these feelings. I, too, want to believe that there will be a reckoning, with all those t’s crossed and i’s dotted, which will finally tip the scale in a way that saves us from the direction in which we are now careening. All of us knew that a Trump administration would be a fetid swamp, full of corruption and evil people. And we also knew that the reality of it would be much, much worse than we had even imagined. There is no joy in being correct in that. Just sadness and disgust that it is proving so painstakingly difficult to extract ourselves from this catastrophic shit-hole we are in.
And when the entire scandal(s) is exposed, any Republican that has escaped indictment will be stronger and more able to also escape the morass that the party has been mired down in for so long. If they choose to do so. And any unindicted Democrat will be strengthened as well.
The money explosion that Citizens United caused in our politics may turn out to have been the main thing that has brought us to this crisis and to, finally, a more reasonable way of choosing who governs and how – if the investigations are allowed to play out to the end.
Have you a short list of who the indicted Democrats are likely to be?
Not any specific names, but SC Mueller has referred Dems Tony Podesta and Greg Craig to NY fed prosecutors for failing to register as lobbyists along with Vin Weber(R).
And there were nine Democrats who received money in 2016 from the NRA who, as far as I know, haven’t returned any of it, though they may not yet be aware of Russia’s involvement…. (do I have to indicate snark like at KOS?).
Ms. Butina has been spreading her “influence” across the spectrum, so it’s hard to know how many people will have to be interviewed. The amount of money sloshing around in DC and elsewhere is enormous and it wouldn’t be surprising to find that some Democrats got wet in the process.
When you mention people like Tony Podesta or Greg Craig you should at least mention their districts (D-ME02, eg.) or where they used to represent….
Podesta and Craig have no district, they just lobby and raise money (Podesta has been raising money since 1968)- which could place them closer to the source than a congressman after all. The 9 congressional Democrats can be found on any website that lists NRA contributions, of course. If anyone is interested.
I suppose you would have to go to their website to know if they returned any of it. Most of the NRA spending is not in direct contributions, anyway.
. . . that the Banana Republicans’ near-universal complicity in the cover-up also reflects complicity in the “collusion” by many of them who eagerly solicited, accepted, and used the stolen goods in their 2016 campaigns. The evidence for that continues piling up as well.
I don’t think this is true. My money is on commutation. This his how Dick Cheney was protected by Scooter Libby.
By not pardoning, Trump is allowing Manafort to got to trial. If Manafort is found not guilty, he’s free. If convicted, Trump will pardon Manafort. Either way Manafort gets to keep his 5th amendment rights.
. . .
. . . instead of “Trump will pardon Manafort”?
Cuz with that revision, your comment makes coherent sense. As written, your last two sentences seem to contradict each other, as well as booman’s assertion that pardon eliminates 5th amendment plea.
Whoops. Sorry about that. Yes, I believe that if Manafort is convicted Trump will commute his sentence in order to prevent Manafort from being compelled to testify.
Trump is steadily tweeting himself into a conviction. It reeks of desperation and shows he’s as guilty as sin. I think we’re starting to see the beginning of the end, and it won’t be good for Orange Julius. Even he senses the end game is in sight, and he’s a loser.
Many are looking at the tweet storm today and thinking it’s telling us there is something big afoot that we don’t know.
So many things that could be swirling around but the realization that he not only won’t be able to get himself through his escape hatch but that his kids and his empire are also on the line and even though he sees himself as the most powerful guy on the planet he must be face to face with his own omnipotence.
I get it that Manafort is probably frightened about getting whacked by the Russian Mafia in America but that’s why the feds have the witness protection program. Mueller, you would think, would’ve told Manafort about this so his apparent willingness to go to prison for the rest of his life is a bit mysterious. Also the Russian Mafia would no doubt be able to “reach” him even in prison.
He must not think he’s getting convicted. Manafort & team may be relying on white-hot white tribalism to make a conviction impossible. National Trumpalists made up 46% of voters in 2016 and are a huge percentage of adult whites. There will be no way to keep one or more of them off a Manafort jury, and all it will take is one (per jury) to get the continuing mistrials.
Jurors can simply refuse to follow the judge’s instructions.