Donald Trump’s pardon conundrum

| 12:01 pm EDT June 26, 2018
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Late last week we learned that Special Counsel Robert Mueller added four new assistant U.S. attorneys to the criminal case against thirteen Russians and three companies. At first there was some speculation as to the reason for these recent additions. It is now believed that Mueller may be planning to hand off this portion of the investigation into Trump-Russia conspiracy to outside prosecutors. While there are multiple reasons for this procedure, many believe this play could be another four-dimensional chess move by Mueller to ensure this critical investigation into treason against America continues, even if Mueller’s investigation is ended prematurely.

Some political experts are saying that Mueller simply does not have the time or manpower to deal with this offshoot investigation while preparing to go to trial against Paul Manafort, but it appears Mueller is playing several moves ahead. As Trump’s newest and loudest lawyer Rudy Giuliani has made clear, Trump and his legal team are less concerned with being found to have actually broken any laws, and instead focused on public opinion and support for Trump in the public eye.

As Rachel Maddow explained recently on her show, the indictment of Russians, which many questioned the reasoning at the time, was a masterful move to likely prevent even Trump from completely ending the probe. As the investigation gets closer to Trump’s family, the odds of pardons becomes more likely. While experts say that Trump cannot pardon himself or his co-conspirators (Trump has stated his disagreement many times), he would have to pardon every person indicted if he wanted to effectively end the investigation (although it would almost definitely be restarted similar to what happened after Nixon’s Saturday Night Massacre).

While a Trump pardon of a co-conspirator would certainly create a legal fight and a possible constitutional crisis, I have yet to hear anyone but Maddow discuss the fact that Trump would also have to pardon all of the indicted Russians if he really wanted to stifle Mueller’s investigation. While Trump and Giuliani have continually screamed that Trump can pardon anyone, what would the optics be, should Trump attempt to pardon the Russians who attacked America’s democracy by hacking our election? No matter how desperate Trump gets as Mueller gets closer to him, any attempt to pardon a Russian who attacked America might just be even too far for some of Trump’s supporters. Of course many will support him no matter what facts come out, but pardoning Russians may just be too much for some of them, and once his approval falls into the twenties, things will not go well for him.