The list of things President Donald Trump has focused his anger on is huge, but now there’s one more item to throw on this heap: Pardons. He’s so angry that his staff is warning him against pardoning himself that now, he’s not giving out any pardons. At all.
And this comes just in time for him to not pardon the mob of his own supporters who pilloried the Capitol building last week, The Week [1] reports. This, in fact, was the topic of a discussion between ABC World News Tonight host David Muir and ABC News’ Jonathan Karl.
“The president has been warned, David, by some of his lawyers, that if he goes ahead and pardons himself, he could be more vulnerable to civil lawsuits, including from some of those injured in the Capitol riot, because a self-pardon would be seen as an admission that he did something wrong that he would need to be pardoned for,” Karl said. “The president is angry, he has not taken that well, and I am told that he is now saying that he doesn’t want to see pardons for anybody. So the attitude seems to be: If I can’t get a pardon, then nobody else should get one either.”
It’s really not clear at this point if Trump even has the power to pardon himself. It’s not something any other president has done before. But if Trump tries to go forward with this, White House Counsel Pat Cipollone and other officials have told him that even if there were some way for Trump to be able to shield himself against federal criminal charges, there would still be every possibility he could be sued, ABC News [2] reports.
“Think O.J.” one adviser reportedly told him, in reference to O.J. Simpson, who paid steep civil damages after being acquitted of murder. ABC News reports the pardon process has been put on hold.
So Trump has holed himself up, stewing in the White House, as more of his advisers pack their bags and the House moves to impeach him for a second time. He can no longer vent his rage in social media posts now that he’s been booted off of pretty much everywhere. The PGA has dropped [3] his Bedminster golf course for its 2022 PGA championship and a number of large corporations are vowing [4] to never do business with him again.
Donald Trump is in the sunset of his presidency, and it’s a lonely one at that.
Here’s the interview between Karl and Muir below.
FINAL DAYS: With his administration days from over, Pres. Trump has remained out of sight and stripped of his social media accounts amid a second impeachment move. @jonkarl [5] has details and the potential repercussions if Trump were to self-pardon. https://t.co/bizOOUsoy3 [6] pic.twitter.com/Yhkntugwui [7]
— World News Tonight (@ABCWorldNews) January 12, 2021 [8]