Sorry, Michael Cohen, but that pardon isn’t happening
Now that the mountain of evidence against Michael Cohen has turned into an avalanche landing directly on his head, and it’s become evident that he’ll likely lose if he goes to trial, and he’s telling his friends that he “can’t take” the pressure anymore, people are asking if Donald Trump will try to pardon him to prevent him from flipping. This is a timely reminder of why Trump probably wouldn’t help himself if he tried to pardon Cohen, and in fact Trump could end up hurting himself in the process.
No sitting president has ever tried to silence his own alleged co-conspirators by pardoning them, so there’s no established legal precedent for whether such pardons are constitutional. Most (not all) legal scholars believe that if Trump tried to pardon Cohen, the Supreme Court would strike it down. Even if the federal pardon were upheld, state level charges could be brought against Cohen, which the president definitely cannot pardon.
Then there’s the unlikely scenario in which Trump pardons Cohen on federal charges, the Supreme Court upholds it, and then the state level charges against Cohen fall apart. In such case, Cohen would be facing no legal jeopardy at all. Therefore he wouldn’t be able to invoke the Fifth Amendment, because he would be at no risk of incriminating himself. So in this scenario Cohen would have to testify against Trump, as a direct result of Trump having pardoned him.
All of the above is why Donald Trump never bothered to try pardoning Michael Flynn and Rick Gates before they cut plea deals against him. It’s why Trump didn’t bother to try pardoning Paul Manafort before things got ugly for him. And it’s why Trump probably won’t bother trying to pardon Michael Cohen either. If Cohen is capable of rational thought, he’s already figured this out.
