In a tweetstorm late last night, Ted Cruz weighed in on Trump’s pardon power from a constitutional perspective and also called out dishonest journalists for attacking him over ignoring their question yesterday for ’18 seconds’. They even went so far as to paint him as a partisan hypocrite, which he addresses below:
On the question of whether a president can pardon himself, we're seeing an abundance of knee-jerk partisanship and dishonest journalism.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 5, 2018
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 (@tedcruz) June 5, 2018
If we were actually focusing on the Constitution, the answer would be more complicated. 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 (@tedcruz) June 5, 2018
That text has no limitation on WHOM can be pardoned (although nobody can be pardoned from impeachment or for non-federal offenses).
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 5, 2018
However, in the 1970s, the Department of Justice did issue a legal opinion that the president cannot pardon himself, relying on the principle that nobody can be the judge in his own case.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 5, 2018
That legal principle has a long and venerable history, but it is not reflected in the constitutional text.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 5, 2018
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 (@tedcruz) June 5, 2018
Some dishonest journalists have attacked me for "taking 18 seconds" to answer -- without acknowledging that I was walking through the Capitol, late to a meeting, and simply ignoring a question that a reporter had called out at me (as senators do every single day in the Capitol).
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 5, 2018
When reporters chased me down the hall, and another asked the question again, I chose to answer.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 5, 2018
Yet others (see https://t.co/drS6Youbi2) have focused on my criticisms of President Obama's abuse of executive power, suggesting that it is somehow hypocritical not to oppose Trump's assertion of executive power.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 5, 2018
They cite a law review article I wrote saying that Obama's executive amnesty was illegal, and that the pardon power did not justify it.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 5, 2018
What those attacks miss is that it is clear that (1) pardons must be retrospective (looking to crimes in the past), not prospective (pardoning future crimes), and (2) they must be addressed to specific persons, not generic categories of offenses.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 5, 2018
Both are straightforward legal propositions; neither is implicated because they do not concern WHOM can be pardoned.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 5, 2018
Finally, other partisan journalists have attacked me for saying "that is not a constitutional issue I have studied, so I will withhold judgment at this point." That was true then, and is true now.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 5, 2018
This is not a question one should answer based on knee-jerk partisanship, as opposed to careful constitutional analysis.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 5, 2018
As for me, I still haven't studied the issue at that level of detail, and I don't intend to -- because this is nothing more than an academic debate.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 5, 2018
At this point, none of the investigations has demonstrated any criminal conduct needing to be pardoned, as much as those who hate the president might wish otherwise.
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) June 5, 2018
Cruz is right, this is simply an academic debate at this point. Trump has done nothing wrong that would even necessitate the consideration of a pardon of himself. The problem is that Trump has foisted that debate on everyone with his tweet yesterday.
In any event, I’m glad he called out the media as they shouldn’t be left unchallenged when they attack and smear like this.