CNN Legal Analyst Elie Honig Warns Trump Self-Pardon Could Be Coming — And ‘It Seems Like He Can Do It’

In an exclusive interview with Mediaite, CNN legal analyst Elie Honig warned that President Donald Trump’s waning days in office will be a chaotic “pardon-palooza” that could even include a controversial self-pardon.

Honig was a guest on this week’s edition of The Interview podcast, where host and Mediaite editorial honcho Aidan McLaughlin asked the former federal prosecutor what to expect from what will likely be several months of a lame-duck presidency — if current trends hold.

“Oh, it’s going to be chaos,” Honig said, and added that “it’ll just be pardon palooza.”

Mr. Honig noted that “There seems to be a little bit of an impression out there that the president loses some of his powers once he’s… lost the election and is a lame duck. Not at all. He doesn’t lose a single legal or constitutional power. He still has the pardon power.”

Honig listed some pardons he would expect to see, telling McLaughlin “I’m sure Michael Flynn, I’m sure he’s going to pardon Michael, Paul Manafort, and George Papadopoulos, even though the latter two have already served their time, just to make a point, just as a final, you know, finger in the eye of Robert Mueller.”

Honig predicted preemptive pardons for members of the Trump family, and added that “one of the fascinating questions is, will he pardon himself or attempt to pardon himself?”

“We don’t know the answer to whether that’s lawful or constitutional because no one’s ever tried it. It’s never come up,” Honig said. “Look, on the face of it, it seems like he can do it. I mean, the Constitution does not place any explicit limitation on a self pardon.”

“On the other hand, it’s definitely not what our framers anticipated or wanted or, I mean, they hated and abhorred self-dealing. And that is the ultimate form of self-dealing,” Honig added.

Trump himself has repeatedly said that he has the power to pardon himself.

Listen above, and catch the full episode here.

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