Trump Asserts he Can Pardon Himself, but Doesn't Need to

and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. This morning, President Trump tweeted that he has the absolute right to pardon himself, but quote, why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong, echoing the statements that his attorney Rudy Giuliani made on Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press, The President of the United States, um partnering himself would just be unthinkable, and it would. It would It would lead to probably an immediate impeachment. You know, you get your

house sent up. Beyond the tremendous, tremendous pressure. Uh. President Trump has no need to do that. I didn't do anything wrong. My guest is Stephen bin Hack, former federal prosecutor and associate Independent Council in the White Wall Outer investigation. Steve The question of whether a president has the absolute right to pardon himself has never been litigated because no president has ever asserted so brashly that laws and traditions don't apply to him. Does Trump have the absolute right

to pardon himself? Well, first of all, thanks for having me on, and I think the answer is yes. And I think the way to resolve that question is to go to the Constitution itself, which says that the president. This is an article to section two, which deals with the power of the President, says that he, meaning the President, shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses

against the United States, except in cases of impeachment. What that means is there's no limitation except in cases of impeachment. And the Constitution is set up to have a separation of powers. So for those who think, oh my gosh, the president is going to pardon himself, the world is going to fall apart because no one has any recourse, that's not true. The president cannot change a case of impeachment.

And in section four of the same article, Article two, it says the president, vice president of all civil officers in the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment foreign conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crescentimnist demeanors. So the fact of the matter is, although it has

not been tacted. I think that the president could pardon himself, but immediately he could not, or immediately impeachment and proceedings would be uh would start and the Congress can impeach and remove him, and he could do nothing to stop that. So I think the Constitution has thought about the or the Framers thought about this, and they wrote into the Constitution what would happen. Do you see a pattern in the pardons that Trump has issued already and bypassing the

pardon vetting procedures usually done by the Department of Justice. Yes, I do see a pattern. First, remember, the Constitution is different than the norms that we have in our government. We have certain norms between the president and the and his departments. One of those departments is the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice has a pardon attorney who normally takes care of pardons. There's rules about when you can start the pardon process, typically five years after the sentence

is complete. There's a recommendation in the White House agrees that is not a constitutional requirement. And the President appears to be playing this particular situation as a political situation, and that means that he will if he wants to over ignore the norms and the regulations that are out there no constitutional requirement that he that he followed them, and he will have to live with the political consequences

of his um pardons. I think these pardons are set up to gradually step us up to the point where the President could um could pardon himself. That is you, he's starting with a PIO and going, you know to Mr Susa. You have a pattern of parts where the President is saying these people were unfairly convicted. It was unrighteous prosecutions, unfair prosecutors. And if he lays the groundwork there, it's only a short step for him to say I'm

in the same boat. And we saw the tweet today where the President says, I can absolutely pardon myself, but I don't need to because I didn't do anything wrong. Again, laying the groundwork to make the political play of making a pardon for himself, which would force the Congress to act. Let's turn to a private letter from Trump's legal team to Muller that was written in January but printed in

The New York Times Friday. It's remarkably broad in asserting an unlimited right to stop federal investigations and issue pardons, and concludes that a president can't obstruct justice. What's your reaction to the legal claims in that letter. Well, there's a few different legal claims, and I have a different reactions either to several of them. I think that the president could try to stop this investigation by firing Mr Maller.

If he did that, uh and um, and he was successful, I think then the Congress would have the right to impeach and remove him. That is no, not really different than the Saturday Night massacre that we saw under the Nixon administration. With regard to obstruction of justice, I think the president can obstruct justice in certain ways, but uh, it is not obstruction of justice. And I mean by

obstruct justice, I'm talking about a criminal issue. The president can make the crime of obstructing justice by destroying documents, tampering with witnesses, bribing people. But I don't think that firing an inferior officer in his administration would make constant, would make the crime of of of obstruction of justice because the power the president has the power to do that. But for all the criminal obstruction of justice the president might do, there's the remedy of an indictment, and for

any political obstruction of justice you have impeachment. So if the president were to bribe a witness to not say the truth, that would be a criminal act, subject to criminal prosecution and of course impeachment. But if the president just fired an inferior officer, then that would be subject, in my opinion, only to uh an impeachment proceeding. All right, and you have to rely on the Congress for that, on the House of Representatives. Thanks so much for joining us. Steve.

That's Steve bin Hacky is a Miami attorney and a former federal prosecutor and associate Independent Council in the Whitewater investigation. In one of the most closely watched cases of the term, the Supreme Court throughout of finding that a Colorado baker illegally discriminated when he refused to make a cake for the wedding of the same sex couple. The seven to two decision was on narrow grounds and was written by Justice Anthony Kennedy. Joining us is Bloomberg New Supreme Court

reporter Greg's store. Greg, it's the first really full scale fight over gay rights since the Court legalized same sex marriage. To what it bluntly did the justices in the majority punt. They did punt to a large degree. June UH they decided the case of Jack Phillips, and it's not clear they decided any more than that. And it actually it turns out there's even some disagreement as to exactly what

it means for Jack Phillips. Essentially, they said that when considering his case, members of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission held an animous towards religion and because of that, the finding against him couldn't stand. And it seems that both sides can claim victory or are claiming victory. The a c l U, which argued for the gay couple, has released a couple of press releases and they said the court rejected the argument that businesses have a constitutional right

to discriminate against LGBTQ people. Is that did the court actually do that? Well, they certainly didn't. Didn't hold that there is a constitutional right to discriminate. There is some language in here that is favorable to to advocates of gay rights. The court does talk about how in role UH anti discrimination laws can be enforced and businesses have

to comply with them. Now, the court did leave open what's going to happen the next time some other business has a similar claim claiming I have a speech right or religious right not to take part in the same sex marriage ceremony or to to lend any support to it. Um. So that question is still on the table. But the general principle that um that uh, most businesses at least do have to comply with antidiscrimination laws, including protections on

the basis of sexual orientation. That is in fact the case. So grig I remember that the oral arguments in this case were very dynamic. They went extra time on them. So do you think that what happened here is that they couldn't get a five member majority on any of the other big issues, or they just didn't want to

tackle the big issues. It's probably more the latter. These were questions, these issues, the statements by the members of the Civil Rights Commission suggesting that religion has been used for some bad purposes over over history, those were issues that Justice Kennedy raised during the arguments. He was clearly very concerned about that. He clearly UH thought that there was some bias against religion lurking among members of the

Colorado Civil Rights Commission. So Um, it's not. It doesn't have the feel of something that um, you know that this was their third choice is to decide this case. That seemed like the way Justice Kennedy felt like the case ought to be decided. So tell us what the two justices in the descent. That was Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the descent, and she was joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Tell us what the descent said. So, so

it was a somewhat muted descent. Um. But what essentially what you said it said was, um, look, these were a couple of comments by members of a commission um, at least one of which maybe both of which are

no longer on the commission. Uh. This is a case that went through a lot of process and through an administrative law judge, um, through uh the courts um, and so uh she essentially said, it's hard to see how that you know, any animus that might have existed among you know, as demonstrated by a couple of comments, how that should be allowed to override in this particular case of this general principle that uh that that uh, gay couples are entitled to be protected from discrimination under under

Colorado Civil rights laws. Could this have any significance or point toward what may happen with the Trump travel ban, where the allegation is that it was based on animus. I don't want to read too much into this. I think what you can definitely see in this case that so there are seven justices in the majority, Justices Briar and Kagan, who uh you tended me with the liberal wing joined the majority a little bit of a consensus ruling. Um. One can imagine that that sort of model may happen

again with the travel band very different issues. Remains to be seen. Um. It's you know, hard to sort of project too much from one case to the other, but it's certainly at least a sign that, uh, in one case, in this case, some members of the court were able to bridge whatever differences they had. Well, the case have any impact at all on states that have laws that bar discrimination based on sexual orientation by establishments that do business with the public. Or is it just that it

won't have any effect on anything at all? Well, it will certainly be cited an awful lot because there is language, as we were discussing before that that says that in general, laws like that are enforceable against against private businesses, whether it's despositive, whether it tells you what the answer is when you get a case like this that remains to

be seen. There is another case I should say that the Court could agree to take up in the next couple of weeks and involves a florist in Washington State, very similar things. She didn't want to provide flowers for the same sex wedding, and so it's possible the Court will will decide we're going to take up that case and actually decide these big questions. So, Greg, did you see you know, the language that Justice Kennedy has used in the cases involving gay rights. Did you see that

in the opinion there was some of that. Uh, no question, Um, let me, I'll find it here. But he talked about the you know, the general right of gay people to be put it, uh, not treated as social outcasts or inferior in dignity and worth. Um. So he certainly reaffirmed that notion that was part of his gay marriage ruling

from fifteen. At the same time, however, he said that quotes of the religious and philosophical objections to gay marriage are protective views and in some instances protected forms of expression. So he was trying to say that both sides in this debate, both gay people who are entitled to equality in people who have a religious opposition, both are entitled to respect. Well, we have a lot of other cases, high profile coming up, and we'll see if we get

any blockbuster rulings with those. Thanks so much, Greg, That's Bloomberg News, Supreme Court reporter of Gregg's Store. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple podcast, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg