Giuliani: Trump ‘probably’ has power to pardon himself

Rudy Giuliani said early Sunday that President Trump “probably” has the power to pardon himself, but has no plans to do so.

“He’s not, but he probably does,” Giuliani, who recently joined Trump’s legal team, said on ABC’s “This Week.”

{mosads}”He has no intention of pardoning himself,” Giuliani said.

“That’s another really interesting constitutional question: Can the president pardon himself?” he added.

“It would be an open question. I think it would probably get answered by, ‘gosh that’s what the Constitution says.’ And if you want to change it, change it. But, yeah.”

JUST IN: Does Pres. Trump have the power to pardon himself?

“He’s not, but he probably does,” Rudy Giuliani tells @GStephanopoulos. “He has no intention of pardoning himself, but that doesn’t say he can’t.” https://t.co/IEUEWnjQqe #ThisWeek pic.twitter.com/IE1AocigYl

— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) June 3, 2018

“I think the political ramifications of that would be tough,” Giuliani continued. “Pardoning other people is one thing, pardoning yourself is another.”

Giuliani’s comments come after a report that Trump’s lawyers argued in a letter to special counsel Robert Mueller that the president could not have obstructed justice because he has constitutional authority over all federal investigations.

The New York Times obtained the letter, which argues that the Constitution gives Trump the broad authority to, “if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon.”

Giuliani told ABC that Mueller has not responded to the Trump legal team’s letter.

On NBC’s “Meet The Press,” Giuliani distanced himself from the letter, which was written months before he joined Trump’s legal team.

“I’m not sure I would have written that,” Giuliani said, calling the allusion to a pardon “sort of a hollow promise” and “impractical.”

“The president of the United States pardoning himself would just be unthinkable, and it would lead to probably an immediate impeachment,” he said.

Giuliani added that Trump did nothing wrong and has no need to pardon himself.

Trump last week pardoned conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza, who was convicted in 2014 of making illegal campaign donations.

The president has now pardoned five individuals in his first 17 months in office.

Giuliani on ABC disputed that Trump’s decision to pardon D’Souza and others is an indication he’s willing to pardon his allies caught up in Mueller’s probe.

“These are so different than the cases he’s involved in,” Giuliani said. “And the issue of any pardon there is so far — I mean, except for a couple guilty pleas, nobody’s really been convicted yet.”

— This report was updated at 10:38 a.m.