Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said Sunday that President Trump would be impeached if he were to pardon himself.
“There’s no way that [Trump pardoning himself] will happen and the reason it won’t is because it’ll become a political problem,” Christie told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday. “If the president were to pardon himself, he’ll get impeached.”
The Trump campaign surrogate added that Trump is “executing the pardon authority in a more aggressive way than most presidents have in the past.”
The president has issued five official pardons in his first year and a half in office, most recently pardoning conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza in late May.
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Christie pushed back against recent arguments that those pardons could signal Trump’s willingness to pardon witnesses in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
“I don’t think you can then read that into it,” Christie said, noting that, when the president perceives “an injustice” he wants to “fix it immediately.”
Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani told “This Week” earlier on Sunday that the president “probably” has the power to pardon himself.
“He probably does,” Giuliani said, adding that Trump “has no intention of pardoning himself.”
”That’s another really interesting constitutional question: Can the president pardon himself?” Giuliani asked.
“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.”
Giuliani’s comments follow hours after The New York Times reported that Trump’s legal team had sent a confidential 20-page letter to Mueller arguing that the president could not have obstructed justice because he has constitutional authority over all federal investigations.
Giuliani told ABC that Mueller’s team has not responded to the letter, but told ABC News on Saturday that the special counsel should investigate his team in response to the letter’s publication, adding that Trump’s legal team would take Mueller to court if the special counsel attempts to subpoena Trump.