Trump And Pardons: Not So Fast

University of California Hastings College of Law professor Aaron Rappaport looks at the pardon powers available to demagogue and career con man Donald "Mango Mussolini" Trump and concludes that there is a potential trap for him in issuing blanket pardons to himself and his family crime crew. From his analysis in today's Washington Post:

"Most observers assume that the president is free to issue blanket pardons, believing the president’s power in this area is effectively unlimited beyond the few constraints explicitly mentioned in the Constitution (no pardons in cases of impeachment, or for state crimes). My scholarship suggests that interpretation is incorrect.

In fact, based on the Framers’ original understanding of the pardon authority, the better reading is that, while the pardon power grants the president expansive authority, that power is not unlimited. Most importantly, the Framers would have understood that pardons must be issued for specific crimes. They were not intended to be broad grants of immunity, get-out-of-jail-free cards bestowed by presidential grace." [snip]

The Supreme Court has never ruled on the specificity requirement, and the question of the validity of any blanket pardon by Trump would come up only if a federal prosecutor seeks to indict a pardon recipient who raises the pardon as a barrier to prosecution.

But if the issue were to arise, there is a significant possibility that a court, dominated by self-identified originalists, would invalidate the use of blanket pardons."(our emphasis)

Of course, the lawless Trump will frame a pardon in the way he wants, and dare the courts to test them. The right-wing Justices that he's installed on the Supreme Court may yet rule in favor of his preemptive blanket pardons, even if he pardons himself. But we'd like to imagine Trump issuing vague blanket pardons to his crime family and consigliere Giuliani before leaving office, only to have these self-proclaimed "originalists" overturn them after he exits, leaving him and his co-fraudsters vulnerable to prosecution in Federal court.