It "would be outrageous" for a sitting US president to pardon himself, former attorney Preet Bharara has asserted after Donald Trump's lawyer said probably the President has the power to pardon himself in the Russia collusion affair.
The question of self-pardon arose after the New York Times published a 20-page letter to the special counsel Robert Mueller from Trump's lawyers.
In the letter, they say the president has absolute power as US legal chief to end investigations, or "even exercise his power to pardon".
Asked about the letter of Trump's attorney Jay Sekulow and then-Trump lawyer John Dowd, Trump's attorney Rudy Giuliani said yesterday that the President is not going to pardon himself but "probably does" have the power to do it.
"He has no intention of pardoning himself," Giuliani told ABC's "This Week." 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 yes."
"I think (if) the President decided he was going to pardon himself, I think that's almost self-executing impeachment," Bharara, a CNN legal analyst, said on CNN's "State of the Union."
It also says that the letter contradicts several public statements by Sekulow and also by White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, who said Trump "certainly didn't dictate," but rather "weighed in, offered suggestion like any father would do."