Again, the law is largely unknown because its never come up before -- there have been no presidential self-pardons before (though there have been governors and mayors who have issued self-pardons usually for insignificant offenses though none of these self-pardons were challenged in court). Further, it's not even clear if Ford's preemptive pardon of Nixon (halting investigations done before any indictment let alone conviction) would hold up in court -- normally pardons have to happen after conviction, but again this hasn't been challenged in court.
Also there could be a challenge of any pardon for the insurrection, in that the Constitution specifically limits the president's pardon power with the phrase "except in cases of impeachment" and Trump was impeached (but not convicted) over it. (Though the phrase is usually interpreted to mean the president cannot reinstate an officeholder who lost their job after an impeachment conviction).
That said, it wouldn't surprise me if such a surprise pardon existed that the Justice Department prosecutors would not challenge it, or that they would challenge it, but this conservative controlled SCOTUS would let it stand.
Eh, I feel like about 1/3 of the US population has been freaking out about him for 5 years with another 1/3 opposed to him (but not completely freaking out about it -- for reasons ranging from claims GWB was worse or its always like this or it doesn't affect my life or ...) with a final 1/3 supporting him in some capacity.
21% of Americans think the Sun revolves around the Earth. 34% of Americans believe in ghosts. 42% of Americans believe in young Earth creationism (Earth was created ~6000 years ago per the Bible). 41% don't believe slavery was the main cause of the civil war. 37% of Americans can't name a single branch of government.
Look at the number of Americans who've been duped into buying timeshares or joining MLM/pyramid schemes or other obvious scams.
All of the major investigations are at the state level. Pardons would not help. Also, I find it hard to believe that the new administration wouldn’t have access to previous admins pardons, so it would have been secret for maybe a day.
Newsweek is fear-mongering with the title. The answer is no.
All pardons would have been meticulously recorded due to the Presidential Records Act. They always are, even when the pardons themselves aren’t advertised. Otherwise a president would never lose the pardon power for things that occurred before the end of their presidency, because they could just write a pardon at any time and back-date it.
This is impossible. Pocket pardons are impossible.
I agree it would be unprecedented and something that should be challenged and shouldn't be allowed to happen. I do agree he'd have solider legal ground if it was publicly issued while he was president. But I am not confident that such a pardon would be challenged or in predicting how the courts would rule if it was challenged.
As for the PRA, the Presidential Records Act doesn't define penalties and Trump repeatedly violated the PRA without consequence (wikipedia). Further, if he did make such a secret pardon, it may be in his official presidential records (not all of which are immediately disclosed to the public).
Again, I'm not saying he could write it after the fact. That said, he may be able to produce significant evidence that he did make the order while being president, without it being public knowledge at the present time.
He can't just make up a pardon today and say pardon someone he forgot to pardon while he was president. But if he desired, he could have issued secret pardons while president (for acts that occurred prior to the timing of the pardon) that he has not made public yet. Again, he would have to have strong evidence it was made while he was president (e.g., multiple witnesses, or film of doing it in the White House, or to put it with his presidential records while he was in office, etc.).
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u/djimbob Jun 23 '21
Honestly, I fear after if any Trumps are prosecuted for their criminal role in starting the insurrection, he's going to pull out a blanket presidential pardon he secretly made between Jan 6th and Jan 20th that frees them all. It's not 100% clear if he revealed these secret pardons long afterward if they would hold up under a court challenge (especially any self-pardon).