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Since then, the idea of a presidential self-pardon has floated on the fringes of constitutional dialogue. Scholars are split on whether the president’s constitutionally conferred power “to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment,” includes self-pardon. One side points out, correctly, that the text of the Constitution limits the pardon power in only one respect—“cases of impeachment”—and thus can be read as unlimited in every other way. But the other side notes, also correctly, that there is no mention of self-pardon in the framing or ratification debates, nor in the legal history of pardons. As the late University of Chicago scholar Philip Kurland, who during the Watergate hearings helped the Senate Judiciary Committee conclude that Nixon had obstructed justice, once summed up the literature: “Obviously there’s no answer.”

In 2018, of course, scholars’ views don’t mean much. The current constitutional rule is Donald Trump can do anything he can get away with. The president operates by hotel-burglar logic: If people don’t want to be robbed, they ought to lock their doors; if the Founders didn’t want Trump to do something, it’s their own fault for not writing “the president can’t do this.”

But even if Trump could get away with a self-pardon, would it do him any good?

The most crucial calculation for a self-pardoning president is when the pardon takes place. Suppose that Trump decides to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller and also pardon himself and his associates for any federal crimes they may have already committed. Everybody’s off the hook.

But there’s a catch: One possible charge against Trump is that he has conspired to obstruct justice—and continues to do so. As of the date of the pardon, past acts of conspiracy could no longer be prosecuted. But if Trump blocked investigations after the pardon, he would be committing fresh acts of obstruction—which the pardon could not have covered. According to Samuel W. Buell, a former federal prosecutor who teaches a seminar at Duke University called “The Presidency and Criminal Investigations,” if the president were prosecuted for the post-pardon acts, his pre-pardon conduct could be used against him in court—for instance, as evidence of “the background and purpose” of any conspiracy he was charged with.

Moreover, the pardon itself may be a criminal act under federal law. “Lawful acts can constitute obstruction of justice when done with a bad motive,” Buell says. “I don’t see why a pardon would be any different, if it’s done for the purpose of keeping the president from being held to account.”

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In his wickedly entertaining 2012 book, Constitutional Cliffhangers: A Legal Guide for Presidents and Their Enemies, Brian Kalt, a Michigan State University law professor, imagined a president who pardoned himself regularly to cover all illegal acts committed since the previous pardon; each successive pardon would cover the previous pardon. But even an energetically self-pardoning president won’t be president forever. Eventually, one self-pardon would have to be the final one, and thus not pardonable by the president himself. The self-pardoner would be one pardon short of home free.