Document Discusses Potential Presidential Use of Pardons to Shield Mueller Investigation Allies

few restraints about the way he deals with his adversaries. He could act unilaterally and shut down the investigation, forcing a legal test likely before the Supreme Court. He could order the Attorney General—even given his prior recusal—to repeal the Special Counsel regulations and close down the investigation, and fire him if he refused. Or he could fire Rosenstein and seek someone else to oversee the investigation in ways more to his liking. The Mueller team continues to believe it is protected by political realities—the President can not know how Congress might respond, and it might well respond with impeachment. At the same time, it has tried to game out the uncharted legal areas of exactly what happens to all of its "work product" and to the sitting grand juries if the investigation is in fact shut down or its mission altered. Likewise, people around the President—embracing a constitutional face-off as militantly as they maintain the Mueller investigation is—say this unknown legal area that might be advantageous to the President. The delays and disruption that result as courts sort out the ramifications of the President's actions might well be the President's legal friend—the reason some in the White House have been urging the President to end the investigation, whatever the political fallout. The President's constitutional pardon powers appear to be some of the most troubling and threatening issues for the Special Counsel. The Counsel's office believes the President will use his pardon power as an instrument to undermine the investigation. According to present and former White House advisors, the President's recent spate of pardons are in part his way of taunting the Special Counsel. The White House, according to these sources, is aware that the Special Counsel has concluded the President's pardon power is near absolute: the President can certainly pardon himself, and others involved in the investigation. Most immediately, the Special Counsel's office believes that the President will pardon Michael Flynn, perhaps in the coming weeks. The question for the Mueller team is if it can build an exception to the President's pardon authority. It’s view here falls back on the egregiousness of the President's own behavior: there is a level of obstruction of justice that all reasonable men might know when they see it. If you pardon someone to get yourself off the hook, that's obstruction, and subverting the rule of law and the constitution you've pledged to uphold. HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_030252