Twitchy regular Seth Abramson, in one of his patented long Twitter rants, is claiming that the “Pardon Clause prohibits using the pardon power to obstruct impeachments” and, thus, the recent pardons he just issued aren’t valid:
The Pardon Clause prohibits using the pardon power to obstruct impeachments. Trump repeatedly opined—rightly—that Mueller's probe could lead to a referral for possible impeachment (which it did). The pardons he just gave are the ones he dangled to obstruct Mueller. See the issue?
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) December 24, 2020
But, he’s wrong.
From actual lawyer Akiva Cohen who explains how “The Pardon Clause does NOT LIMIT the PARDON power that way (he tweeted a correction to that last line adding “LIMIT”):
Oh, for fuck's sake, Seth. Can't you take like two weeks off from misinforming people about the law?
Almost every word of this thread is wrong, starting from its fundamental premise. The Pardon Clause does NOT the PARDON power that way https://t.co/GAUPXqoV4L
— Akiva Cohen (@AkivaMCohen) December 24, 2020
Here's what the Pardon Clause says: the President "shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment."
— Akiva Cohen (@AkivaMCohen) December 24, 2020
It does NOT say "except where the offense is relevant to the impeachment of someone else" or "except where the pardon will obstruct someone else's impeachment"
— Akiva Cohen (@AkivaMCohen) December 24, 2020
What this means is very very straightforward. If Judge Totallyno Taracist is being impeached for stealing from Black litigants and lawyers in his court, the president can't pardon him and thereby prevent impeachment & removal
That's it
— Akiva Cohen (@AkivaMCohen) December 24, 2020
Yes, at some level you could describe "trying to prevent an impeachment by pardoning the person being impeached for the offense they are being impeached for" as "obstructing an impeachment". But pretending that limits a broader category of "obstruction" is stupid & dishonest
— Akiva Cohen (@AkivaMCohen) December 24, 2020
Abramson, however, doubled-down:
This is authentic frontier gibberish, Seth. I tweeted the full text of the Pardon Clause there – folks, can you see anything in there that "explicitly" give Congress standing to challenge pardons?https://t.co/rXfOnmD9UT
— Akiva Cohen (@AkivaMCohen) December 24, 2020
Keep in mind, Cohen isn’t some Trump-supporting lawyer:
(Spoiler, it does not). Nor does it give Congress standing *implicitly*. All it does is say "Pardons don't apply when someone is being impeached" – which means that if some official being impeached comes running in saying "stop! Stop! I have a pardon" Congress gets to say pic.twitter.com/Tm2vhyABw3
— Akiva Cohen (@AkivaMCohen) December 24, 2020
The Congress doesn't have to (or get to) go to court and file a suit to have the pardon declared void. It just continues on its merry way, impeaching the now-pardoned official with all the joy it can muster pic.twitter.com/jlwiGNOVwz
— Akiva Cohen (@AkivaMCohen) December 24, 2020
And if the guy who took the pardon runs to Court and says "stop them, I have a pardon" the Court just goes pic.twitter.com/MjE8XTs0be
— Akiva Cohen (@AkivaMCohen) December 24, 2020
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