Can Trump pardon himself?

“Well, I think that the only folks contemplating the president pardoning himself are in the media, not in the White House, not in the Congress”, Gaetz said.

In his tweet, Trump again called the investigation a “never ending Witch Hunt” and said it is being led by “13 very Angry and Conflicted Democrats”.

“Any attempt by a president to pardon himself for crimes would create a constitutional crisis, and any such attempt would amount to an admission of guilt”, Pfiffner said.

The meeting – and Trump’s role in the statement – has become a central focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.

For many months after Mueller’s appointment a year ago, Trump avoided directly challenging the special counsel.

“Jay [Sekulow] and I want to keep an open mind, and I have to just be honest … we’re leaning toward not”, Giuliani replied after host George Stephanopoulos asked if the president’s lawyers were “still recommending he does not sit down for the interview”.

‘In no case can he be subpoenaed or indicted, ‘ Guiliani told HuffPost.

Trump recently brought in former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani as his lawyer defending him in the case, but Giuliani has been linked to a string of weird gaffes across multiple news channels.

“It’s an abuse of the pardon power for the president to self-pardon”.

The letter did not explicitly describe the possibility of Mr Trump pardoning himself.

Giuliani is quick to maintain that the President’s constitutional powers protect him from all kinds of criminal prosecution or indictment by the intelligence community, but he is, of course, wrong.

Trump critics have griped that if the president pardons associates like Paul Manafort or Michael Flynn he’s doing it for his own self-interest.

The matter about pardoning one’s self comes in the wake of a 20-page letter dated January 29 from Trump’s attorneys to Mueller, outlining the legal strategy of the president concerning the Russian Federation investigation.

Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor who runs a commutations clinic at the University of St. Thomas, said the most controversial legal question is not the pardon itself, but what comes after. “I think think it’d be highly unlikely, and in this case certainly unnecessary”. “It’s like sneezing and then saying bless you to yourself”, he added. “That’s not what the American people, I think, would be able to stand for”. While the president has the power to do so, questions have lingered about his intent, and Comey has said Trump demanded a personal pledge of loyalty from him, which Comey declined to give.

Conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza on President Trump’s decision to pardon him, Trump considering a pardon of Martha Stewart and Rod Blagojevich and speculation Howard Schultz is leaving Starbucks for a 2020 presidential bid.