Congress could breach Trump's 'sad reality' if president issues pardons: analyst

Donald Trump could find himself under investigation should he act on a sweeping range of pardons, a political analyst has claimed.

Frank Bowman, a law professor at the University of Missouri and former federal prosecutor, believes Trump may dangle pardons in front of compliant officials, but proceeding with such pardons would open him to investigation.

Bowman explained to Slate's Shirin Ali that the promise itself could be a legally dubious position for Trump, let alone carrying out the pardon.

He said, "I mean, that’s a sad political reality, but it doesn’t change the constitutional law of impeachment. Is it an abuse of the pardon power to pardon the past conduct of your criminal co-conspirators or to promise pardons for the commission of future crimes? Is that impeachable? Of course it is.

"That being so, Congress certainly has the power to investigate, if that’s what the president’s doing. Congress today, if it wanted to, could investigate the uses and promises to use the pardon power of the president.

"Now they won’t do it, of course, because both chambers of Congress are controlled by Republicans. However, Democrats, if they gain a majority in either or both houses, I think it’s incumbent on them to investigate this pretty unapologetically. They should investigate these potential criminal misuses of pardon power as part of their oversight authority and through their power to inquire into impeachable conduct."

Administration insiders told Zeteo's Asawin Siebsaeng that officials such as Stephen Miller and Pete Hegseth fear the midterms will put them in grave danger of impeachment.

"Some of them have told me they’ve noticed a growing trend of Democratic politicians making public calls for aggressive prosecutions of Trumplanders in the future — a trend one Trump aide privately lamented as 'kind of worrisome,'" he wrote.

"And a significant number of senior appointees working in Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon, in Stephen Miller’s White House, and in so many other departments and crime-laboratories of the Trump-Vance administration do not think that federal pardons will be enough."