Notwithstanding Trump’s assertion that “all agree” on the matter, legal experts say it is unclear if the president can self-pardon. Two: how to apply the legal principle that no one should be a judge in his or her own case? Kalt pointed out that the word “pardon” shares a Latin root with the word “donate”. Significantly, the presidential power to pardon as laid out by the constitution applies only to federal crimes, meaning that states may keep up the prosecution of a defendant even after a presidential pardon. Self-pardon by Trump, in other words – to wade once more onto surely hypothetical terrain – would not fully remove a hazard of prosecution.

Source: The Guardian July 22, 2017 15:22 UTC