Can Trump counter Mueller by handing out pardons?
President Trump was furious.
After FBI agents raided the home and office of one of his personal lawyers in New York City – seizing client files, recordings, and computers – the president lashed out, suggesting federal prosecutors and investigators had gone too far. “An attack on our country,” he called it.
That’s not all he did.
A few days later, Mr. Trump granted a full pardon to a former top aide in the Bush administration, Scooter Libby, who had been convicted in 2007 of perjury and obstruction of justice in a classified information leak case.
The White House says the pardon was an act of clemency to correct a lingering injustice done to Mr. Libby by an overzealous special prosecutor.
Trump critics accused the president of acting with a darker motive.
“This is the President’s way of sending a message to those implicated in the Russia investigation: You have my back and I’ll have yours,” wrote Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California on Twitter.
The Constitution assigns exclusive authority to the president to grant pardons – but the full scope of that power has never been tested. That may soon change.
Iran-Contra and WatergateSending a messageDemocrats moving preemptively