Hannity says Trump should pardon himself, whole family before leaving office

Hannity was addressing Sidney Powell, who was kicked off Trump's election fraud-claiming legal team.

Dec 1, 2020

Fox News opinion host Sean Hannity said on Monday that President Donald Trump should pardon himself and his family before the end of his term.

The comments came as Hannity was speaking to former Trump attorney Sidney Powell, who was kicked off the president’s legal team making election fraud claims.

“The president out the door needs to pardon his whole family and himself because they want this witch hunt to go on in perpetuity. They’re so full of rage and insanity against the president,” Hannity said. “I mean, I assume that the power of the pardon is absolute and that he should be able to pardon anybody that he wants to?”

“It is absolute,” Powell replied. “It’s in the Constitution.”

Legal experts disagree on the potential limits of the presidential pardon, including whether or not a president could proactively pardon themself. Even if that was possible for Trump, it would only be for federal crimes. He could still be investigated, charged and convicted of state crimes, like the pending fraud case in New York.

Last Wednesday, Trump pardoned former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia. Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz then tweeted that Trump should pardon himself.

“President Trump should pardon Flynn, the Thanksgiving turkey, and everyone from himself, to his admin, to Joe Exotic if he has to,” Gaetz said referring to the star of the Netflix reality series, Tiger King.

The president retweeted his ally’s remark.

Hannity went viral Monday night for claiming he does not “vet the information” he gives out on his show.

”This show, we, in this hour, I am not told what to say. I don’t vet the information on this program that I give out,” Hannity said, as a graphic reading “Media Malpractice” appeared onscreen. “We have always been independent, follow our own path on the show. That’s not going to change for me ever.”

Later, Hannity clarified his earlier assertions. “By the way, when I said I don’t vet this program, I vet the program,” he said. “We vet the facts. We got Obama right. We got Russia right. We got Ukraine right. We vetted Biden when nobody else would and the Biden family… We vet what we do. We’re not told what to do.”

Legally, Trump could pardon his inner circle. It is unclear what accusations for which he would need to pardon his children. However, it is being suggested he may pardon Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law, Jared. The elder Kushner was convicted for illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering in 2005 and served two years in federal prison. A pardon would clear his felony conviction.

Despite calls from some Democrats for an investigation into Trump, President-elect Joe Biden has said that he will not “do what this president does and use the Justice Department as my vehicle to insist that something happen.”

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