Philosoraptor: Giuliani: Trump Can Pardon Himself, But Won't

Tuesday, June 05, 2018

I do not understand what's going on.

cb said...: Trump's team is gaming out ways to avoid him going down for some combination of obstruction/corruption/collusion/money laundering/etc. As long as Congress won't impeach, it's unclear how he'll be removed (and will probably involve some sort of Constitutional/legal crisis which could take who-knows-how long and end with who-knows-what result).

So the messaging is:
1) Trump's never resigning and will never admit to wrongdoing (hence "if the president does it, it's not illegal, so he won't pardon himself")
2) If #1 fails, it'll be a mess to remove him (hence "if it is illegal, he has the power to just pardon himself anyway")

These are strong signals that he will not leave without being impeached+convicted and that it's going to be a fight, likely with the intent of cowing Reps who want the votes of Trump voters. Also probably aimed at Dems whose instincts are to try to return to "normalcy" as soon as possible and would rather just let Trump stay in office than take on a potentially risky impeachment struggle.; 10:08 AM