Congressman Matt Gaetz: Trump Should Pardon Himself

November 27, 2020
matt gaetz trump

Congressman Matt Gaetz believes President Trump should consider a pardon for himself and others in his administration as a means to fend off the radical left.

Gaetz made the comments during an appearance with Fox News personality Laura Ingraham earlier this week.

“President Trump should pardon Michael Flynn. He should pardon the Thanksgiving turkey,” he said. “He should pardon everyone from himself to his administration officials to Joe Exotic if he has to.”

While those comments were seemingly lighthearted, what lies on the horizon when President Trump leaves office – whether in 2021 or 2025 – is anything but.

“You see from the radical left a bloodlust that will only be quenched if they come after the people who worked so hard to animate the Trump administration with the policies and the vigor and the effectiveness that delivered for the American people,” Gaetz explained.

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Matt Gaetz Says Trump Should Pardon Himself

Despite a media and resistance party heavily invested in portraying President Trump as a criminal, it is important to note he has never been charged with a crime.

That said, there is actually legal precedence for granting such pardons.

The Washington Post reports:

In Ex parte Garland, the Supreme Court settled the question of preemptive pardons. The justices in that 1866 case decided that while pardons could reach only past acts, the pardon “may be exercised at any time after [the act’s] commission, either before legal proceedings are taken or during their pendency or after conviction and judgment.”

They go on to note that Abraham Lincoln pardoned dozens of people preemptively.

Perhaps most famously, President Gerald Ford pardoned President Richard Nixon, who had not been charged with anything at the time.

Would Joe Biden be willing to tamp down the fires of controversy in America by doing the same for Trump? 

Self-pardons have been an issue of much debate during President Trump’s tenure.

Law scholar Jonathan Turley has argued that the President has the right to do so.

“There is no language specifying who may or may not be the subject of a pardon,” he wrote in a USA Today column. “The president is simply given the power to pardon any federal crime.”

“As a textual matter, there is nothing to prevent Trump from adding his own name to the list of pardoned individuals.”

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The Radical Left Will Never Stop

Signs of the ‘bloodlust’ Gaetz references have already been seen as Biden has been declared President-elect.

Congressman Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ) demanded a thorough investigation and prosecution of the President and members of his administration.

Despite mentioning the phrase “many crimes,” Pascrell’s statement references none, instead making vague allusions to ‘profiting from his office’ and ‘endangering national security.’

Which, incidentally, he may want to draft a statement about the President-elect since evidence regarding his son Hunter’s business dealings with China seem to indicate actual guilt in such accusations.

Additionally, actor Rob Reiner says that a “non-partisan commission” should be created to investigate Trump after he leaves office to “restore faith in our Constitution and the Rule of Law.”

As for the pardon power – federal pardons issued by the president apply only to federal law; they do not apply to civil, state, or local offenses. And New York prosecutors have been harassing the Trump family for years now.

Ivanka Trump, the President’s daughter, recently called them “ruthless” and accused them of “harassment, pure and simple.”

It is harassment and the harassment, quite clearly, is never going to stop.

By Rusty Weiss

Rusty Weiss has been covering politics for over 15 years. His writings have appeared in the Daily Caller, Fox... More about Rusty Weiss

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