Pence might pardon Trump
The president could quit to escape federal prosecution
News Analysis
By Steven A Cohen
Look for an embittered President Trump to resign a few days early so that an Acting President Mike Pence can pardon him of any federal crimes he might be prosecuted for.
That has to be Trump’s fallback plan in the likely event that his increasingly brazen attempts to steal the 2020 election fail. Republican state legislators would be fools to let Trump strong-arm them into defying their state’s voters and choosing electors who would vote for Trump over Democrat Joe Biden when the Electoral College meets to finalize the Nov. 3 presidential election next month. They know that; Trump’s efforts to coerce lawmakers in at least two key battleground states that Biden won, Pennsylvania and Michigan, quickly failed, according to news reports on statements made by legislative leaders.
President-elect Biden beat Trump by more than 6 million votes nationwide, and he carried the key states whose electoral votes put the incumbent in the White House in 2016 despite having lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million.
Biden says he isn’t interested in seeing Trump prosecuted, because that will widen the divisions that he is hoping to heal. Trump got more than 70 million votes, which is a stunning accomplishment for a president whose tax policies decimated the middle class, who has ignored a pandemic that had killed nearly a quarter million Americans by Election Day, had sought to take away health insurance from an estimated 20 million people and allow insurers to deny coverage to about 160 million with pre-existing conditions.
Those issues are just at the tip of a very large iceberg, but they illustrate Trump’s incredible success in using lies and racist undercurrents to get people to vote against their own interests.
Also, they involve “policy,” not criminality. Trump has myriad tax issues, alleged campaign-finance law violations and alleged self-dealing as president that he might face federal prosecution over without a pardon. It’s doubtful that he would risk the uncertainty of pardoning himself just to stay on until his term ends January 20 and he loses the protection of the Justice Department’s policy that says a sitting president cannot be prosecuted.
Even with a pardon, and that assumes Pence remains a willing partner, Trump may face prosecution in New York. At least two investigations into Trump’s taxes are reported to be ongoing there. It doesn’t matter that he recently made Florida his home state.
