PRESIDENTIAL PARDONS

There’s much talk about Presidential pardons being issued wholesale over the next three weeks.

This is a power available to sitting Presidents and we can expect Trump will use and abuse it wholesale.

But of most interest is the debate whether he can pardon himself. He can’t although I don’t doubt he will try.

The reason he cannot is that by definition a pardon can only be delivered by ‘A’ to ‘B’.

It is an act of forgiveness thus requiring a pardoner and a pardonee.

In one sense it’s a reminiscent of something that happened eight years ago. I was lying on the floor playing a game of patiences, my then four year old daughter crouched beside me watching. I got it out and declared loudly, “I won”. The daughter looked puzzled. “Who lose Daddy?” she asked.

I suppose I could argue I beat the odds but that would not apply to a pardon situation.

This is now a matter of huge concern for Trump. According to the Financial Times a Democrat controlled committee has opened an enquiry into the shenanigans two years ago surrounding an office building owned by Trump’s son-in-law at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York.

On face value it involves a massive and unprecedented abuse of the Presidential office.

I’ll spill the details out mid January on this site as it’s an extraordinary story.