Giuliani Downplays Idea Of President Trump Self-Pardon
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WASHINGTON (AP) - Can a president pardon himself? An attorney for President Donald Trump is playing down the possibility that Trump would try to - if it came to that.
Rudy Giuliani says Trump might have that authority but exercising it would be "unthinkable." Besides, Giuliani, adds, Trump has done nothing wrong and has no need to consider pardoning himself.
Giuliani appeared on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday, a day after it was revealed that Trump's lawyers wrote a secret 20-page letter to special counsel Robert Mueller arguing that the president can't be compelled to testify in front of a grand jury.
The existence of the letter composed in January was first reported and posted by The New York Times on Saturday.
The lawyers contend in their January letter that the Constitution empowers the president to, "if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon."
Giuliani's comments come as the White House sharpens its legal and political defenses against the special counsel Russia probe.
He made it clear Trump's legal team would combat any effort to force the president to testify in front of a grand jury.
But Giuliani suggested that he did not entirely agree with the letter's premise that a president could never be charged with obstruction of justice.
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