Following Thursday's announcement that a grand jury voted to indict former President Donald Trump, there have been questions about his ability to pardon himself if he wins the 2024 presidential election.
The Manhattan District Attorney's Office confirmed in a statement Thursday that it had contacted Trump's attorneys "to coordinate his surrender," for arraignment on the grand jury indictment, which remains under seal. District Attorney Alvin Bragg has been investigating Trump for possible violations of campaign finance laws for alleged hush money payments he allegedly made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016.
Trump responded to the indictment in a statement saying in part: "Never before in our Nation's history has this been done. The Democrats have cheated countless times over the decades, including spying on my campaign, but weaponizing our justice system to punish a political opponent, who just so happens to be a President of the United States and by far the leading Republican candidate for President, has never happened before. Ever."
In addition to the Manhattan charges, Trump is facing legal issues in Georgia with an investigation into alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, as well as a special counsel investigation into the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot and his handling of classified documents that were found last summer at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
"It's going to get pretty wicked going forward," George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said on Fox News after the Trump indictment was announced. "It's hard to see these prosecutions being completed before the election. The assumption is that Georgia is the closest to come in next and then you've got the special counsel. The special counsel has a unique schedule problem.
"The Department of Justice takes the view that—I think the incorrect view—that you can't indict a sitting president, which means if they're going to indict Donald Trump, they better do it before he gets elected again. But that doesn't give them a lot of runway to take off this particular case.
"But then the election becomes a very odd debate, because a president, in my view, can give himself a pardon. And so the election could come down to how people feel about a self-pardon. Donald Trump could run in part by saying, 'I'm going to pardon myself and go after the deep state.'"
Turley said in an op-ed published in The Hill: "While a newly elected Trump could only pardon himself for the federal crimes, it is the federal case that likely represents the greatest threat to him."
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, a president's clemency power is limited to federal offenses, not state crimes, as Turley has previously pointed out.
Constitutional attorney Andrew Lieb told Newsweek on Friday that "Trump has 34 counts that he will have to defend before a NY jury, not the media or his MAGA constituents, and because it's a NY jury, no President can pardon him and save his hide [state law is not subject to Presidential pardons]."
The indictment remains under seal and the exact charges are unknown at this time, but there have been reports that the former president is facing 34 counts.
"Trump's only way out is beating the charges, and any commentator who is evaluating his odds is showing their true colors because the counts are still under seal [unknown] and the facts supporting them have not been made public," Lieb, an attorney at the Lieb at Law firm, told Newsweek.
"Simply, Trump is going to have a stressful next year in battling the NY DA's Office where the rule of law will prevail, not the way he can control the mob."
Jennifer S. Breen, an associate professor of law at Syracuse University, told Newsweek that "no, [Trump] wouldn't be able to pardon himself because the pardon power in the Constitution only extends to federal crime."
Newsweek reached out to Trump's spokesperson via email for comment.
Correction 4/3/23, 9:37 a.m. ET: This story has been corrected to add context to comments made by Turley. A previous version of the story stated that Turley said the Manhattan District Attorney's Office will need to indict Trump before he gets elected and the former president could potentially pardon himself on those charges. Turley was instead speaking about the possible federal charges Trump is facing from the special counsel's investigation, not state charges.
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