A PARDON FOR HIMSELF?

Fox News host Sean Hannity suggests Trump should pardon himself and his family

 

By Azmi Haroun

 

Business Insider 

December 1, 2020

Fox News opinion host Sean Hannity called for President Donald Trump to pardon himself on two separate occasions on Monday.

Hannity hosted former national security adviser Michael Flynn's lawyer and former Trump campaign attorney Sidney Powell on his radio show. In the segment, the two praised Trump's decision to issue a full pardon for Flynn.

Hannity brought up the possibility of Trump pardoning himself and his family, saying, "the president out the door needs to pardon his whole family and himself because they want this witch hunt to go on in perpetuity." 

"They're so full of rage and insanity against the president… I assume that the power of the pardon is absolute and that he should be able to pardon anybody that he wants to," Hannity added.

Powell replied, "It is absolute, it's in the Constitution but I don't know about the ability to pardon himself."

On his Fox News show later in the evening, Hannity harped on the same point with guest former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Referring to former special counsel Robert Mueller's deputy Andrew Weissmann's New York Times op-ed calling for prosecuting Trump once he is out of office, Hannity told Gingrich, "if that's what they wanna do, if Biden became president, I'd tell Trump, pardon yourself and pardon your family."

As Business Insider's Sonam Sheth and Tom Porter have pointed out the president's Constitutional powers to grant pardons and clemency are broad, but they are untested in this arena. A pardon would also only impact federal cases, not those brought at the state level, of which Trump could face at least nine potential suits.