June 4, 2018

Trump Asserts “Absolute” Right to Pardon Himself in Russia Probe

And he further undermined special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.

Olivier Douliery/Zumapress

Facts matter: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter. Support our nonprofit reporting. Subscribe to our print magazine.

President Donald Trump asserted in a tweet Monday that he has “the absolute right to PARDON myself,” doubling down on claims by his lawyers that he has complete authority over the investigation into his 2016 campaign’s possible collusion with Russia.

The New York Times published a confidential memo over the weekend sent by Trump’s lawyers to special counsel Robert Mueller in January explaining why the president need not sit for an interview with Mueller. Their main argument was that Trump couldn’t possibly obstruct justice in the Mueller probe because the Constitution grants the president power to, “if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon.”

The letter provided an unprecedented look into the White House’s legal reasoning as it deals with the special counsel investigation, and it has raised a series of legal questions that remain unsettled—namely, whether the president can, in fact, pardon himself.

In several Monday morning tweets, Trump reasserted his lawyer’s claims and continued to take aim at the investigation, calling it a “witch hunt” and “unconstitutional.”

We've never been very good at being conservative.

And usually, that serves us well in doing the ambitious, hard-hitting journalism that you turn to Mother Jones for. But it also means we can't afford to come up short when it comes to scratching together the funds it takes to keep our team firing on all cylinders, and the truth is, we finished our budgeting cycle on June 30 about $100,000 short of our online goal.

This is no time to come up short. It's time to fight like hell, as our namesake would tell us to do, for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme agenda, where facts matter, and where accountability has a chance at the polls and in the press. If you value our reporting and you can right now, please help us dig out of the $100,000 hole we're starting our new budgeting cycle in with an always-needed and always-appreciated donation today.

payment methods

We've never been very good at being conservative.

And usually, that serves us well in doing the ambitious, hard-hitting journalism that you turn to Mother Jones for. But it also means we can't afford to come up short when it comes to scratching together the funds it takes to keep our team firing on all cylinders, and the truth is, we finished our budgeting cycle on June 30 about $100,000 short of our online goal.

This is no time to come up short. It's time to fight like hell, as our namesake would tell us to do, for a democracy where minority rule cannot impose an extreme agenda, where facts matter, and where accountability has a chance at the polls and in the press. If you value our reporting and you can right now, please help us dig out of the $100,000 hole we're starting our new budgeting cycle in with an always-needed and always-appreciated donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate