The Congressional Research Service has prepared a summary overview of the presidential pardon power, addressing various legal questions such as: “whether the President can issue ‘prospective’ pardons; whether the President can pardon himself; and the extent to which Congress can regulate or respond to the exercise of the President’s pardon authority.”
So can the President pardon himself?
“The Framers did not debate this question at the Convention, and it unclear whether they considered whether the pardon power could be applied in this manner. No President has attempted to pardon himself. . . Accordingly, this is an unsettled constitutional question, unlikely to be resolved unless a President acts to pardon himself for a criminal offense.”
See Presidential Pardons: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), CRS Legal Sidebar, August 28, 2017.
Other new and updated reports from the Congressional Research Service include the following:
Allowances and Office Staff for Former Presidents, FY2016-FY2018 Appropriations, CRS Insight, August 28, 2017
Transport Agencies Withdraw Proposed Sleep Apnea Rules, CRS Insight, August 24, 2017
Kurds in Iraq Propose Controversial Referendum on Independence, CRS Insight, August 25, 2017
China’s Economic Rise: History, Trends, Challenges, and Implications for the United States, updated August 26, 2017
China-U.S. Trade Issues, updated August 26, 2017
Denice Ross, former U.S. Chief Data Scientist and Data Policy Institute lead at the Federation of American Scientists, will be honored for her stewardship of public data by the National Academy of Public Administration, where she has been named a Fellow.
Confirmation that the construction of the security perimeter and associated security infrastructure at RAF Lakenheath are still ongoing once again raises questions about whether U.S. nuclear weapons have already been deployed to the base.
Alaskans are sensibly pulling back from the vogue for bans and returning to a western tradition that has worked for more than half a century – one that welcomes innovation but also oversees it closely.
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