On the Diane Rehm Show on NPR (on Monday, Dec 19 2016) Newt Gingrich said that after his inauguration Donald Trump can use the power of the presidential pardon to ignore any laws that inconvenience him.
I think in the case of the president, he has a broad ability to organize the White House the way he wants to. He also has, frankly, the power of the pardon. I mean, it is a totally open power, and he could simply say look, I want them to be my advisors, I pardon them if anybody finds them to have behaved against the rules, period. And technically under the Constitution he has that level of authority.
. . . .
Well the -- I mean, the founding fathers deliberately granted the president unequivocal ability to pardon, and they did so in reaction to the British use of going back after people legally and persecuting them by changing the law after they had done something. So there was a very deep sense that you had to fear government and that government could be the enemy, and the founding fathers were walking this tightrope.
thedianerehmshow.org/...
Mr. Gingrich is correct about the broad powers of pardon enjoyed by a President of the United States.
Article II, Section 2, Clause 1 of the Constitution grants the President of the United States the “Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”3 The Framers’ vesting of this broad authority, coupled with Supreme Court decisions affirming the near-limitless nature of this power,4 has imbued the Office of the President with tremendous discretion to grant federal offenders pardons, conditional pardons, commutations of sentence, remissions of fines, reprieves, and amnesties.5 While clemency power is by no means unique tothe American system of government,6 the seemingly unchecked nature of this power establishes executive clemency as somewhat of a constitutional anomaly outside the system of checks and balances.
harvardlpr.com/...
As a well-known graduate of Harvard law school put it:
First, I want to make some general comments about pardons and commutations of sentences. Article II of the Constitution gives the president broad and unreviewable power to grant ''Reprieves and Pardons'' for all offenses against the United States. The Supreme Court has ruled that the pardon power is granted ''[t]o the [president] . . ., and it is granted without limit'' (United States v. Klein) . . . .
Some of the uses of the power have been extremely controversial, such as President Washington's pardons of leaders of the Whiskey Rebellion, President Harding's commutation of the sentence of Eugene Debs, President Nixon's commutation of the sentence of James Hoffa, President Ford's pardon of former President Nixon, President Carter's pardon of Vietnam War draft resisters, and President Bush's 1992 pardon of six Iran-contra defendants, including former Defense Secretary Weinberger, which assured the end of that investigation.
www.nytimes.com/...
This statement was written by William Jefferson Clinton.
Pre-emptive pardons can be used to prevent prosecution of people who have already committed crimes or are suspected of committing them. This has been used by past lame-duck Presidents to avoid embarrassing facts from coming out at trials of people who were involved in political wrongdoing. Shortly before he left office George HW Bush pardoned several people who were involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. There has not been any serious legal or Congressional challenge to the use (and sometimes misuse) of Presidential pardons.
The Constitution provides the president virtually unlimited power “to grant reprieves and pardons” for federal crimes; only impeachment is excluded. A president need not give reasons for pardons and Congress has no power to reject or otherwise block them.
. . . .
But the president can also grant a pardon before charges are even filed for a crime, not just after a conviction. This has occurred most frequently after insurrections or wars fought to, in Hamilton’s words, “restore the tranquility of the commonwealth.” Andrew Johnson pardoned the soldiers of the Confederacy and Jimmy Carter issued a broad amnesty for Vietnam War-era draft dodgers. These amnesties permitted large numbers to return to the national fold.
Such “preemptive pardons” have less justification in individual cases. The criminal justice system is deprived of its responsibility to investigate criminal wrongdoing. The victims are denied the sense of closure that only criminal prosecutions can bring. And the general public loses the opportunity to examine the evidence
before it.
www.salon.com/...
After he is sworn into office Trump will have the power of presidential pardon available. This will allow him to pardon anyone who is guilty of a Federal crime. A blanket pardon, such as the one Gerald Ford gave to Richard Nixon, does not have to specify what crime was committed or even exactly when it was committed. The preemptive pardon prevents any prosecution of the alleged criminal.
Presidents are most likely to make preemptive pardons with political motives right before they leave office. At that point there is neither the time or the motivation to impeach a President who will be leaving office in a few days or a few hours.
A president who abuses his power to pardon early in his term would be likely to face impeachment. If Trump deliberately encourages other people to break laws with a promise of a Presidential pardon, he could be impeached. There is considerable dispute over whether a president can pardon himself. Misuse of presidential pardoning power would give the House of Representatives grounds to impeach Trump if they have the political will. Trump could then be removed from office if 2/3 of the Senate voted to throw him out.
Any time Presidents or other high officials engage in serious misconduct they can face impeachment and, if convicted by the Senate, removal from office. The Constitution states the grounds for impeachment:
The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Using the Presidential pardon with the intention of deliberately break laws would unquestionably be a high crime and/or misdemeanor.
Later in the Diane Rehm Show where Newt Gingrich pointed out the possible uses and misuses of the presidential pardon Richard W. Painter, professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and former chief White House ethics lawyer for George W. Bush, commented:
And once again, I want to emphasize this notion that he could pardon himself or pardon other people in his administration out of unconstitutional illegal conduct, if there's even a whiff of Speaker Gingrich's advice being taken by this administration I would recommend that impeachment proceedings begin immediately. That is unacceptable, what the Speaker said a few moments ago.
thedianerehmshow.org/...
The following diaries describe how impeachment could follow an improper use of Presidential pardons.
www.dailykos.com/...
www.dailykos.com/...
Post-dated pardons pardons are not permitted. This would be a license to commit crimes in the future. Using Presidential pardons with the intention of violation laws in the future is definitely an impeachable offense.
Sorry, Newt.