The president shouldn’t be able to issue a self-pardon for crimes they may have committed, and the Constitution needs to be amended to clarify that before a rogue president tries it and puts the constitutionality of a self-pardon in the hands of the courts.
This is a partisan bill aimed at the president that’s unlikely to be ratified by enough states to amend the Constitution. A president that has to issue a self-pardon would be so politically toxic they’d either have to resign or face a hostile Congress for the remainder of their term.
This resolution would propose an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that denies the president the ability to pardon himself for any offense committed against the U.S.
Because it proposes a constitutional amendment, after this resolution’s passage by two-thirds of both chambers of Congress it would have to be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures (38 states) to amend the U.S. Constitution.
In-Depth: Sponsoring Rep. Al Green (D-TX) said that he introduced this proposed constitutional amendment to prevent the president from issuing a self-pardon:
“I rise today to defend the Constitution and avert a constitutional crisis… that would be created should any rogue president attempt to pardon himself… I do not believe that the president has the ability to self-pardon… I do not believe that the Constitution allows a president to forgive himself for the most egregious crimes barred by our laws."
This legislation currently has the support of three Democratic cosponsors in the House.
Of Note: It isn’t clear whether the president has the power to issue a self-pardon because no president has ever tried to pardon himself and been prosecuted, thus creating an opportunity for the Supreme Court to rule on the question. The Constitution’s only explicit limitation on pardon power is that it can’t be used by a president to absolve himself of an impeachment, while it’s implied that the president doesn’t have the authority to pardon offenses committed under state law.
A 1974 opinion written by the acting head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel four days before President Richard Nixon resigned suggested that the president couldn’t pardon himself “under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case.” On the other hand, in a 1998 House Judiciary Committee hearing Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) — who now chairs the committee — said the “prevailing opinion is that the president can pardon himself.”
Media:
Summary by Eric Revell
(Photo Credit: JTSorrell / iStock)
Crime & Police