Whether a president can pardon himself is an open question of constitutional law, but Donald Trump seems to think that it is settled. Trump is not the first president to consider a self-pardon. The Constitution tells us so. No, Trump can’t pardon himself. It’s unclear whether a president could legally pardon himself. President Donald Trump has the power to pardon his family and staff, but perhaps not the power to pardon himself. The question of whether a president can pardon himself arose during the 2016 presidential campaign when critics of Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton suggested she could face criminal prosecution or impeachment over her use of a private email server as secretary of the Department of State if … Even legal experts who argue that a president can’t pardon himself tend to agree that no one really knows for sure. Published Mon, Jun 4 2018 1:29 PM EDT Updated Tue, Jun 5 2018 4:03 PM EDT. I found myself pretty convinced by something Ryan said after class, but now I've gone back to being unsure. Here it is useful to recall James Wilson’s reminder at the Constitutional Convention: “if [the President] be himself a party to the guilt he can be impeached and prosecuted.” He is, after all, the executive, part of whose constitutional duty under Article 2 is to bring prosecutions and punish the guilty. "President Trump can clearly pardon anyone — even himself — subject to the Mueller investigation," Professor Yoo writes. Trump asserted his power to pardon himself after The New York Times published a letter Saturday from Trump’s lawyers to Special Counsel Robert Mueller that said the president “could, if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon if he so desired.”. Here's a Slate Explainer from a few years back when this issue was much in the news. But to permit a sitting president to pardon himself—to extinguish a prosecution after he has left office—when he can abort this or future investigations through his executive powers removes the possibility of establishing the very innocence on which President Trump insists. You can't jail the head jailer, and you can't prosecute the head prosecutor's boss, unless he allows it. Similarly, if a president could grant a pardon to himself, he might unlawfully refuse to leave office if convicted by the Senate. President Trump can clearly pardon anyone — even himself — subject to the Mueller investigation. It is obvious that the Framers understood they were permitting the president to pardon himself. Dan Mangan @_DanMangan. The issue of the U.S. president could pardon himself (1) for crimes in general and (2) for impeachment came up in class. Of course the President can pardon himself. As… Here's what 12 experts say about whether President Trump can pardon himself.