In The Atlantic, Professor Eric Muller pulls apart the question of whether or not President Trump can preemptively pardon himself:
Article II of the Constitution says that the president “shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” Did you catch that? The president has the power not to pardon people, but “to grant … Pardons” (emphasis added). So the question is not whether Trump can pardon himself. It’s whether he can grant himself a pardon.
That might seem like an odd way of putting the question, but it’s linguistically important. On the one hand, some actions can’t be reflexive—you can’t do them to yourself. Think of surrendering, relinquishing, or handing over something. These verbs entail a transfer to someone else; the actor can’t also be the recipient.
On the other hand, countless verbs do leave open the possibility of reflexive meaning. If, for example, the Constitution had empowered the president not to grant a pardon but to announce a pardon, one would be hard-pressed to insist that the president could not announce himself as a recipient.
And word choice is what the law operates on.
Assuming his lawyers find Muller convincing, I’m guessing there’s a good chance that Mike Pence, assuming he’s agreeable to a quid pro quo, will become President #46 and the shortest tenured President ever, and will be granting a preemptive pardon to his predecessor.
This will put Pence in a commanding position to run for any position available to him, as the Trump cultists will owe him big-time. He has, after all, been a supportive vice president all along, echoing lies and propaganda as required, and this will be a ticket to continued prominence, particularly if he were to be interested in a Senate seat from his home state of Indiana.
That still doesn’t protect Trump from State-level criminal investigations, but it reduces exposure to the point where Trump may feel safe enough to stay in the United States, and not light out for, say, the Seychelle Islands.
And that might work out well for state prosecutors.
