Trump did not pardon himself before leaving office

Former President Donald Trump did not pardon himself before leaving office on Wednesday.

This development covers months of speculation as to whether Trump, with increasing legal and political exposure, would take the unprecedented step of giving himself a pardon on his way out of the White House.

The president also did not forgive any of his three adult children, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric, who help oversee the Trump Organization.

CNN reported Tuesday that attorneys, including White House attorney Pat Cipollone, had spoken out with Trump about the idea of ​​trying to forgive himself or his children, saying the move could make him look guilty and open him up to further legal danger.

The message said that despite Trump’s strained relationship with Cipollone, his message “resonated” and “haunted” Trump to support the idea of ​​forgiveness.

As president, Trump had the power to issue pardons, even if the recipient was not charged or convicted of a crime. The Supreme Court ruled in 1866 that the power “extends to every offense known to the law, and it may be exercised at any time after its order, whether before lawsuits or during their presidency, or after conviction and verdict.”

Read more: Trump’s incitement to death in the US Capitol riots contributes to an already massive tsunami of legal danger he faces as he leaves the White House. Here’s what’s waiting for him.

JIM WATSON / AFP via Getty Images

It was unclear whether an apology would hold legal water.

Whether he could forgive himself, however, was less clear. The question has never been tested, and the Supreme Court has not weighed on it.

Several associates, including Cipollone and former attorney general William Barr, have warned Trump to forgive himself, reports The New York Times. They warned that the president would forfeit his fifth amendment against self-incrimination if he did so, and it could also have a negative effect on Republican senators’ views on Trump before his trial against the Senate.

The House has accused Trump of one article of inciting the January 6 uprising by supporters of the former president. Ten Republicans have joined House Democrats to accuse Trump for the second time in his presidency, a first in U.S. history.

Trump’s Senate hearing, in an evenly divided chamber with 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans, will take place after he has already left office. The Senate can vote to withhold Trump from holding the federal office if they find him guilty. Assuming all 50 Democrats vote guilty, 17 Republicans will have to join them to reach the required two-thirds majority.

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Trump also faces possible criminal exposure related to the coup attempt that resulted in five deaths. FBI and Justice Department officials said they were conducting an “unprecedented” criminal investigation into the coup attempt, and the acting U.S. attorney in Washington, DC, did not rule out the president being charged.

Carolyn Kaster / AP

Trump may now be exposed to legal exposure through several state and federal investigations

Meanwhile, Trump and his businesses are being scrutinized at federal and state level. The president is said to be particularly concerned about two New York fraud investigations into the Trump organization’s financial activities. One is a civil investigation conducted by the New York Attorney – General’s Office, and the other is a criminal investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

Potential charges arising from one of the investigations would not be covered under the pardon, which only applies to federal crimes.

The Attorney General of Maryland and Washington, DC, has also filed a federal lawsuit accusing the president of violating the constitutional clause by personally favoring foreign officials and diplomats who resided at Trump properties while he was president .

Trump could also be investigated for actions set out in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s final report on the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election. The 448-page report contains at least 11 cases in which prosecutors said Trump tried to impede justice, and Mueller testified to Congress in 2019 that the president could be charged with the crime after leaving office.

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The Federal Electoral Commission is also investigating a complaint accusing the Trump campaign of spending $ 170 million in disguise.

The president was also named an insignificant co-defendant, ‘Individual-1’, in the Southern District of New York against former personal lawyer Michael Cohen.

In August 2018, Cohen pleaded guilty to five counts of tax evasion, one count of bank fraud, one count of unlawful contribution by a corporation and one unlawful contribution on 27 October 2016.

The last two charges relate to the stagnant payments made to film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal before the 2016 election. Both women threatened to go public with details about extramarital affairs they had in the 2000s, according to Trump.

Cohen said he facilitated a $ 130,000 payment to Daniels “under the leadership of the candidate” and with the “goal of influencing the election,” which violates the campaign funding law by the maximum contribution of $ 2,800 a person can give to a candidate for federal transgression. office.

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Cohen also admitted that he had orchestrated an illegal payment of $ 150,000 from the Trump campaign to American Media Inc., the publisher of the National Inquirer, to buy the rights to McDougal’s story, but never to publish it. , a practice known as ‘catch-and-kill’.

Under the Biden administration, the Internal Revenue Service could hand over Trump’s long-awaited federal tax returns to congressional investigators, the contents of which could legally endanger Trump. The Attorney General’s Office in New York and the District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan are also both investigating whether tax write-offs that Ivanka Trump favored violated the law.

And while Trump himself is leaving office and seeing his successor inaugurated, there is still a legitimate cloud hanging over the finances behind his own inauguration.

In addition to an active SDNY investigation into the Trump Inauguration Committee’s spending and whether the group traded donations for political access, Washington, DC Attorney General Karl Racine filed a lawsuit in July in which he accused Trump that he used the inaugural committee as a vehicle to enrich his family and business interests by accepting rates above the market of the Trump International Hotel in DC.