http://www.sun-sentinel.com/opinion/editorials/fl-op-editorial-president-trump-pardon-hiself-20180605-story.html
"A dictator occupies the White House. That word should not be uttered lightly, but it defines with precision any head of state who, like Donald Trump, declares himself to be above the law. Trump and his lawyers have made it clear that he believes himself above the law — ANY law, not just obstruction of justice. On Twitter Monday, Trump even asserted the “absolute right to PARDON myself,” though he insisted yet again that he has done nothing wrong. Remember what they say about protesting too much. No other president uttered such staggering arrogance — not even Richard Nixon, who resigned rather than face certain impeachment for obstruction of justice in the Watergate scandal and begged a pardon from his successor to forestall a criminal indictment. Four days before he resigned, the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel wrote that “Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the president cannot pardon himself.” That opinion still stands. “It would be a tremendous abuse of his authority if he were to do so, as well as remarkably unwise,” said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, one of the few Republicans to speak up for the nation. “If I were president and somebody, some lawyer told me that I could do that, I’d hire a new lawyer,” said Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, chair of the Judiciary Committee. But to take Trump at his word, he thinks he could get away with it, and that is a clear and present peril to our democratic republic. Whatever his intent — whether to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, pardon anyone whom Mueller indicts as complicit in crimes, or simply to pardon himself if it comes to that — Trump is counting on continued indulgence from his claque of enablers in Congress, who have excused multiple scandals that would have brought down a Democratic president. These people are as faithless as Trump to their oaths of office. For some, it’s about Trump’s radical judicial appointments, the tax cuts and other destructive policies."
