Acts of mercy

President Donald Trump is on a roll pardoning high profile individuals recently, including conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza, former vice presidential aide Scooter Libby, former sheriff Joe Arpaio, and Alice Marie Johnson, a woman for whom reality TV star Kim Kardashian West advocated. Boxer Jack Johnson also received a rare posthumous pardon for what Trump called an unfair, racially motivated conviction.

Then, earlier this week, Trump started talking about an even more personal pardon—one for himself.

The New York Times on Saturday reported on a letter from the president’s legal team dated Jan. 29 to special counsel Robert Mueller, the man investigating Russian interference with the 2016 election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. The letter declared the lawyers’ belief that if Trump wanted to, he could shut down the entire investigation and even pardon himself. On Sunday, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani walked back those statements on Meet the Press, calling a self-pardon “unthinkable” and stating it would likely lead to an immediate impeachment.

Then Monday morning Trump tweeted: “As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong?”

Brad Jacob, constitutional law professor at Regent University, told me the ability to pardon is a function left over from the English monarchy. It also has limits: The president may not pardon state offenses, only federal ones, and he may not pardon an impeachment.

Otherwise, there’s no way to know for certain whether a president could pardon himself because no one has ever tried it.

“Nothing in the Constitution bars it,” said Jacob. “But pardoning himself seems like … we’ve just left the rule of law behind.”

Last month, Trump told reporters he might also pardon the “unfairly treated” Martha Stewart because she “used to be my biggest fan in the world.” Democrat Rod Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor serving jail time for trying to sell former President Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat, also hopes for a pardon. His wife, Patti Blagojevich, appealed to Trump in a television interview last week.

“[Prosecutors] create crimes where there are no crimes,” she said. “It takes a strong leader like President Trump to right these wrongs.”

Presidential pardons often elicit criticism from the opposition: President Gerald Ford and other historians agree his pardoning of former President Richard Nixon likely cost him re-election. But the founders included the power to pardon in the Constitution for good reason, which Alexander Hamilton explained in The Federalist Papers: “The criminal code of every country partakes so much of necessary severity, that without an easy access to exceptions in favor of unfortunate guilt, justice would wear a countenance too sanguinary and cruel. … On these accounts, one man appears to be a more eligible dispenser of the mercy of government than a body of men.”

Sen. Ben Sasse Associated Press/Photo by Andrew Harnik (file)

Tariff tension

President Donald Trump’s tariffs on the EU, Mexico, and Canada stirred dissension within the GOP last week.

“This is dumb. … We’ve been down this road before—blanket protectionism is a big part of why America had a Great Depression,” Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., said. “‘Make America Great Again’ shouldn’t mean ‘Make America 1929 Again.’”

Trump in March instituted global tariffs on steel and aluminum but exempted some United States’ allies. The new rules placed a 25 percent tax on imported steel and a 10 percent tax on imported aluminum. Last week, Trump said he would allow exemptions for the EU, Mexico, and Canada to expire in May.

The White House released a statement saying that excessive steel and aluminum imports “threaten to impair national security. … Excessive imports are driven in large part by the worldwide glut from overproduction by other countries.”

The move drew criticism not only from the affected countries, but also from Republican leaders.

“I disagree with this decision,” House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said. “Instead of addressing the real problems in the international trade of these products, today’s action targets America’s allies when we should be working with them to address the unfair trading practices of countries like China.”

Mark Perry of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) said the tariffs don’t just hurt other countries; they hurt American consumers as well. He argues tariffs raise prices on products in the United States, harming the economy instead of helping it.

“Artificially raising taxes and prices for American firms and households is a form of self-inflicted, self-imposed economic poison,” Perry said. —Kyle Ziemnick

Sen. Ben Sasse Associated Press/Photo by Andrew Harnik (file)

Taking the field

Nearly a year after he almost died from a gunshot wound, Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., returned to the baseball field with his Republican teammates Thursday. A gunman opened fire last June on GOP members of Congress during a practice for the annual charity baseball game between Republicans and Democrats. Scalise was shot in the hip and spent much of the last year in and out of the hospital recovering. Three other people were wounded but survived. Police shot and killed the gunman, James Hodgkinson. This year’s Congressional Baseball Game is scheduled for next Thursday. Scalise told USA Today last fall he wanted to regain his starting position at second base, but time would tell. —Lynde Langdon