The president’s broad constitutional prerogative to issue pardons is under extraordinary attack from Democrats in Congress and the states as tensions mount over the fate of a string of investigations linked to the 2016 Russian election-hacking scandal.
This week, Democrats on both Capitol Hill and at the New York State Assembly began efforts to thwart Mr. Trump following his pardon last week of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby — former George W. Bush aide convicted of lying to the FBI over the leak of the identity of a covert CIA agent.
While White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders insisted the Libby pardon had nothing to do with Robert Mueller’s special counsel Russian probe, Democrats have bristled at reports that Mr. Trump could be softening the legal ground for coming pardons for his family and former associates ensnared in the investigation.
California Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, has introduced a bill that would allow Congress to view evidence against anyone receiving a pardon, provided that person is connected to an investigation involving the president or is a member of the president’s family.
Mr. Schiff called the Libby pardon “the last straw” and added that his bill “will have an important deterrent impact, as well as inform the Congress if circumstances arise in which the president uses the pardon power for an illicit purpose, to protect himself, to obstruct justice.”
In New York, Democratic state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who has probed Mr. Trump’s private business empire, announced moves to clarify state law to ensure anyone receiving a presidential pardon could still be charged with violations of state law.
Mr. Schneiderman urged state lawmakers to eliminate a provision in the existing law he claimed could be used to fight state charges by anyone who has received a federal pardon for similar infractions. The loophole was identified in the state’s double jeopardy law, which protects people from repeat prosecutions for the same allegations.
“Simply put, a defendant pardoned by the president for a serious federal crime could be freed from all accountability under federal and state criminal law, even though the president has no authority under the U.S. Constitution to pardon state crimes,” Mr. Schneiderman wrote in a letter sent to Albany lawmakers this week.
For months, the White House has batted back rumors that Mr. Trump is mulling pardons for multiple family members and former staffers under investigation, including his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law, Jared Kushner, former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort.
While a pardon does not reverse a guilty charge, it does restore civil rights normally lost as a result of a criminal conviction.
Mr. Libby was convicted in 2007. His pardon last week was Mr. Trump’s third. He has also pardoned former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was awaiting sentencing for contempt of court, and a Navy sailor convicted of photographing classified portions of a submarine.
The sideways approaches of Democrats in Washington and Albany reflect the broad consensus that a president faces very few limits on his pardoning authority under the Constitution. Both initiatives face what could be decisive opposition from Republicans.
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