Speaker 1: Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani are accused of plotting to sell presidential
pardons as Trump's time in the Oval Office was winding down for the very affordable price,
quite frankly, in context of $2 million apiece, a former staffer says in a lawsuit.
We've already discussed the outrageous sexual assault allegations that are part of this
lawsuit from former Giuliani staffer Noelle Dunphy earlier in the show.
I now want to focus in on the presidential pardon part.
There's a Businessinsider article that summarizes this quite well.
On Monday, Rudy Giuliani was hit with a bombshell rape civil lawsuit filed by a former staffer.
The staffer alleged in the lawsuit that Giuliani asked if she knew anyone who wanted to buy
a presidential pardon.
The suit says Giuliani said he was telling them selling them for $2 million, splitting
the profit with Donald Trump.
Now, where do you even start with this?
We have said many times over the last months an allegation is made against Donald Trump
and it's written off as obviously not believable.
And then another allegation is made that is very similar and another one and there are
records and lordy, there are tapes or whatever the case may be.
There are already preexisting allegations that there were all sorts of different ways
that potential pardons were being shopped and representatives were bringing them to
Trump.
And there were rumors of what about some kind of financial aspect to this?
And now there is a lawsuit which says under penalty of perjury, that there was a plan
between Giuliani and Trump to sell pardons for $2 million apiece and to split the money.
Is this proof that that was taking place?
No.
Is this proof that they did it and sold any pardons?
It is not proof, but it is, again, corroboration of a pattern that has been alleged from sources
who have no interaction with each other and don't know each other.
Now, one of the most important questions to ask here and it's a fair question and it's
a question that we should ask.
Is it explicitly illegal for the president of the United States to sell pardons?
The reason we have to ask this question is one of the things we learned during the Trump
presidency is that just because there are things that Trump did or is accused of doing
that no former president tried to do, that is not a guarantee that the thing Trump tried
to do is actually against the law.
And to some degree, one of the things that Donald Trump exposed through his presidency
is that the checks and balances and separation of powers that the founders of the Constitution
put in place.
Never expected or assumed that there would be someone in power like Trump who might try
to circumvent them.
But let's get to the question.
Is it explicitly illegal for a president to sell pardons?
My research is that it is not explicitly illegal.
There is not an explicit provision that says a president can't sell pardons or can't receive
benefits in exchange for pardons.
Benefits could be all sorts of different things, however, and this is where so many of these
issues get complicated.
There are legal experts that have said, even without an explicit provision saying you can't
sell a pardon as president, you could indeed as a president selling pardons, be violating
other federal laws, bribery.
You just because you're the president and you're not explicitly barred from selling
pardons doesn't mean you couldn't be charged with bribery in accepting money for a pardon.
Fraud, Obstruction of justice.
Obstruction of justice is an interesting one.
Imagine that the president sells a pardon to someone who's under investigation or under
prosecution by the Justice Department by pardoning them, potentially preemptively.
You are effectively interfering with the administration of justice because you're saying whatever
the facts point to, whatever the Justice Department Justice Department thinks they have based
on the facts and the evidence.
I'm issuing a preemptive pardon.
You're interfering with the administration of justice, and thus it could be an abuse
of power or obstruction of justice.
That all being said, those are not explicit provisions that make it illegal for the president
of the United States to sell a pardon.
And this is we learned this time and time again with Trump, we don't actually have strong
enough checks and balances many of us might have assumed for a long time no one like Trump
will ever come to power.
So we don't need to worry about some of these checks and balances that aren't strong enough.
Well, we very quickly learned that we do need to worry about it.
We will see where this goes.
Stunning blockbuster stuff