The fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case

There may be a snag.

Trump took to Twitter on Monday to claim his “absolute right” to grant himself a presidential pardon, though he said it would be unnecessary as he has “done nothing wrong.” He cited “numerous legal scholars” to back his claim.

However, as Bloomberg reporter Steven Dennis pointed out, that wasn’t the case at the end of former President Richard Nixon’s time in office. “Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the president cannot pardon himself,” the Department of Justice declared in 1974. The DOJ spelled it out just four days before Nixon resigned, explaining that the president’s pardoning power “does not extend to the president himself.”

Of course Trump would just come back with the claim that he IS the Department of Justice, so he can just overwrite whatever some Bureaucrat Swamp Creature Deep Stater wrote back in 1974 when Trump was using his own hair.

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