Even Rudy Giuliani thought her plan to seek blanket immunity, before breaching Georgia voting machines, was “over the top,” according to a new book by reporters Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman.
As allies of Donald Trump schemed to seize voting machines in swing states after the 2020 election, Sidney Powell proposed issuing preemptive pardons—which the team described as “hunting licenses”—to shield them from legal liability, according to a new book by investigative reporters Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman.
“I need six to eight pardons,” the former Trump attorney said in a Virginia planning meeting, according to Find Me the Votes, excerpts of which were reviewed by Vanity Fair ahead of its January 30 publication date. “What we need is a ‘hunting license’ that provides top cover for ops,” a member of Powell’s team wrote to Lin Wood, another Trump lawyer involved in the effort to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, according to Isikoff and Klaidman.
According to Isikoff and Klaidman, the team asked Michael Trimarco, an associate of Rudy Giuliani’s, to get the former New York City mayor to approve the pardon proposal. But Giuliani “dismissed the idea as over the top,” according to the book. Trimarco apparently agreed, recalling that he thought, “What the fuck?” as the group mulled the idea.
There actually isn’t a requirement that pardons be announced until they get someone out of the consequences. Trump could have pardoned himself for any federal crime, and just left the document in a drawer somewhere to be used later.
The question of constitutionality has never been tested, so maybe it works and maybe it doesn’t. As others have noted, it wouldn’t work at all for state crimes. But as a concept, “secret” pardons are conceivably possible and potentially valid. We just never had a criminal so brazen in the White House that anyone thought of it before.
Trump could not have pardoned himself because pardoning is not a thing people can do to themselves. Don’t normalize the idea that it is.
Imagine people saying “I pardon myself” after bumping into you on the street. That’s the level of absurdity we’re at.
None of that logic works.
Random people can’t legally pardon anyone. That’s why they can’t pardon themselves.
The President can legally pardon people accused of federal crimes. It’s only common sense that stops one from pardoning themselves, not the law.