Conservative Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin on Sunday predicted that President Donald Trump would resign the presidency in order to get a pardon from Vice President Mike Pence.
Rubin explained that Trump
"...risks being prosecuted after he leaves office. For that very reason, I would predict here on MSNBC that when Trump leaves office, he will resign the presidency 10 minutes before Mike Pence leaves office, allowing Pence to pardon him.”
“Wow!” MSNBC guest host Jonathan Capehart replied. “We got that on tape.”
Watch here.
The Justice Department on Friday suggested that Trump is a felon after court filings revealed he instructed his former fixer Michael Cohen to violate campaign finance laws.
Trump is also ensnared in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Trump's connection to Russian efforts to rig the 2016 presidential election and for obstruction of justice.
There are additional probes by the Southern District of New York into Trump's company and charity for tax evasion and money laundering.
Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe concurs with Rubin.
But people were not here for it.
How did that work out for Nixon?
And people found a hole in the theory: Pence may not be safe from Mueller either.
So there's a solution:
Or perhaps Pence is not quite as loyal as Trump thinks:
Pence was hand-picked by Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chair with deep ties to Russia, who in August was convicted of multiple felonies. Last month, Manafort was busted for lying to prosecutors and feeding information back to the Trump administration while under investigation.
Others say Pence pardoning Trump would be politically very stupid and that a pardon would not shield Trump from facing prosecution for state crimes.
Some, though, think Trump will not be in office long enough to get a pardon or win re-election.
Thanks to Mueller's document dump, Trump may be facing the prospect of impeachment.
Capehart added that presidential pardons require an admission of guilt, which is something Trump is unlikely to agree to.
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