Can the president pardon himself?
In a brief 1974 legal memorandum written days before Richard Nixon resigned over his role in the Watergate scandal, the Justice Department said that a president can’t give a pardon to himself under the age-old legal principle that “no one may be a judge in his own case.”
No president has ever tried to pardon himself, and some legal scholars disagree with the 1974 Justice Department opinion.
“The answer is crystal clear: No one knows, and we will probably never obtain a definitive answer,” Harvard Prof. Alan Dershowitz wrote in a 2018 op-ed. Others, like former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy, argue that the president is allowed to self-pardon.
Mr. Trump appears to believe he can grant himself clemency. In June 2018 he wrote on Twitter: “As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong?”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/can-president-trump-pardon-himself-and-his-family-11606947916?mod=e2fb&fbclid=IwAR3jNzmGJ5bGBhpyGGnXAMBrTGmZ3fRlHZphd8eH2jdPeW_kfojIX5vxc3M