Obviously, I am not a lawyer. But I do have some legal thoughts about Rudy Giuliani's comment that President Trump could pardon himself if need be. My logic also involves the answer to another conumdrum -- whether a president can be indicted. I think this is clearly unconstitutional because the constitutional cure is impeachment for "high crimes, etc."
Let's assume that President Trump invites James Comey to the White House where he shoots him dead. He cannot immediately be indicted for this crime. Constitutionaly he would first have to be impeached by the House and then convicted in the Senate to be removed from office (a process I am pretty certain that SCOTUS would not permit him to pardon himself from.) This should be a very quick event. Only then could he be indicted and brought to justice in our regular criminal system.
But here is the rub. Trump could not then pardon himself because he no longer would be president. And, I could be wrong, but I don't think that Trump could give himself a prospective pardon ... before the above die process was completed ... while he was still president.
Therefore, all this hot air about him pardoning himself is just that ...hot air.
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