The top Democrat on a House panel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election said President Trump’s power to pardon is limited and he can’t use the action to try to obstruct justice.
“I don’t think the president’s power is all as, that absolute, as people have been suggesting,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told ABC’s “This Week.”
“The president cannot pardon people if it’s an effort to obstruct justice, if it’s an effort to prevent Bob Mueller, others, from learning about the president’s own conduct,” said Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, referring to the special counsel who is probing Russian meddling in the presidential election.
But a law professor said there are few “clear limits” on the president’s pardon power.
“Congress cannot overturn a pardon, nor can the courts, barring some procedural irregularity,” Adam Winkler of the University of California, Los Angeles, told The Post on Sunday.
“If the president issues a pardon in the Mueller probe, then that person will be safe from federal prosecution. However, state prosecutors could conceivably step in.”
The question of Trump’s ability to pardon came up after CNN reported on Friday that Mueller’s investigation is expected to announce its first indictment as early as Monday.
He said if Trump had unlimited power to pardon, it would “nullify vast portions of the Constitution.”
“The president could tell Justice Department officials, and other law enforcement, to violate the law and that if they did and it was ever brought up – they were brought up on charges – he would pardon them,”Schiff said. “And one principle of constitutional interpretation, is you don’t interpret one power as nullifying all the others,” he said.
The president wielded the power in August when he pardoned controversial former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio.
The 85-year-old Arpaio had been convicted of criminal contempt after defying court orders against his harsh treatment of undocumented immigrants and was facing sentencing in October.