Abstract

The clemency power of the U.S. President is limited to pardoning federal offences and expressly excludes federal impeachment from the pardon power. There is no explicit prohibition upon who might be the recipient of a presidential pardon. The U.S. Constitution does not expressly prohibit the President from issuing a self-pardon. If the American Framers placed only the one exception for impeachment, then arguably they meant to exclude all other conceivable exceptions. Yet, the very notion of such presidential self-forgiveness raises arguments criticizing the possibility. Would not a selfpardon place the President above the law? In the process of investigating the various arguments denying and supporting the possibility, the parameters and the goals of issuing and accepting or rejecting a presidential pardon are developed along with alternative methods of achieving the same result as a self-pardon without actually issuing a self-pardon. Hence, the puzzle. The essay’s narrow and guarded conclusions are arrived at defeasibly. That is, the essay is driven by the force of the arguments over this paradoxical constitutional dilemma. The essay is intended as the beginning rather than a completion of the inquiry.