Could President Trump pardon himself? Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh doesn’t know, or won’t say.
Trump’s Supreme Court pick sidestepped two questions from Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) this morning about potential pardons from Trump amid the ongoing special counsel investigation.
Asked at his Senate confirmation hearing if Trump could pardon himself, Kavanaugh said he had never looked at self-pardons.
“The question of self-pardons is something I have never analyzed. It’s a question I have not written about. It’s a question, therefore, that’s a hypothetical question that I can’t begin to answer in this context, as a sitting judge and as a nominee,” Kavanaugh told Leahy.
When Leahy followed up with a question about if Trump could pardon others in exchange for them agreeing not to testify against him, Kavanaugh similarly demurred.
“Senator I’m not going to answer hypothetical questions of that sort,” Kavanaugh said.
Leahy wrapped up his questions warning that he hoped “for the sake for the country that remains a hypothetical question.”
The back-and-forth came during Kavanaugh’s second day during the Judiciary Committee’s week-long hearing on the high court nomination.
Democrats are concerned that Kavanaugh will give conservatives a fifth vote on the Supreme Court and could help protect Trump from Mueller’s probe if it reaches the Supreme Court.
Talk of potential pardons for individuals in Trump’s orbit has loomed over Mueller’s investigation and trials that have spun out of the probe.