Whether the Department of Justice opinion is right is an open legal question, with scholars on both sides of the political spectrum disagreeing in good faith.- Ted Cruz June 5, 2018īut back to the REAL matter at hand: journalists reporting what occurred and people making fun of him. The text of the Constitution provides, the President 'shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.'- Ted Cruz June 5, 2018Ĭruz then delved into the question at hand-parsing the Constitution as well as the now infamous 1970 opinion where the Department of Justice said the president didn’t have the authority to grant himself a pardon-before saying the matter was essentially unsettled. If we were actually focusing on the Constitution, the answer would be more complicated. Virtually every Dem is saying 'of course not, the president can't pardon himself (mostly because we hate Trump).' On the other hand, some Rs are saying 'of course the president can.'- Ted Cruz June 5, 2018 On the question of whether a president can pardon himself, we're seeing an abundance of knee-jerk partisanship and dishonest journalism.- Ted Cruz June 5, 2018 Cruz even wrote an article as recently as 2015 on the presidential pardon.Īnd Cruz, who does not take too kindly to being dunked on, couldn’t let it stand, going on a 17-tweet spree, letting everyone know that first off, despite saying he wasn’t an expert on pardons, he is an expert on pardons, and also screw you, you losers. It got even worse for Cruz when people on Twitter noted that Cruz had, in fact, studied presidential pardons. Naturally, sites jumped at Cruz being quiet over Trump. Here's the audio /3UhsX3f8Jh- Haley Byrd June 4, 2018 Cruz is silent for eighteen (18!) seconds before telling reporters it’s not a constitutional area he’s studied.- Haley Byrd June 4, 2018Īlright, folks. I ask Ted Cruz if he agrees with Trump that the president can pardon himself. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tx.) went on a lengthy, midnight tweetstorm last night, attempting to defend his silence over President Donald Trump‘s claim that he could pardon himself.Ĭruz was pressed about the matter in the Senate hallways on Monday, after Trump rollicked the political world by tweeting that numerous legal scholars agree he is essentially above the law.

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