It's time to vote for repeal of Obamacare in Senate today - CNN

Washington (CNN)It's time to vote.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has the Senate set to vote Tuesday on the first major test for the GOP effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. It's a vote on the motion to proceed to debate and amendments on the House-passed health care bill (i.e. the AHCA.)

John McCain to return to Senate Tuesday for health care vote

John McCain to return to Senate Tuesday for health care vote

President Donald Trump ratcheted up the pressure Tuesday morning, tweeting: "Big day for HealthCare. After 7 years of talking, we will soon see whether or not Republicans are willing to step up to the plate!"

McConnell needs 50 out of the 52 Senate Republicans to support him. Here's everything else you need to know for today:

John McCain is coming back

This was the big news Monday night. Sen. John McCain's office said the Arizona Republican is going to be in the Senate Tuesday for the vote. That means McConnell has a teeny bit more wiggle room. Now, instead of only being able to afford one defection, McConnell can have two. That gets McConnell closer, but these are still very narrow margins and a lot of senators on the fence (see below.)

While he remains undecided on a final bill, McCain has always said he would support moving forward to debate health care. His surprise return puts some pressure on his colleagues to ensure McCain didn't come back for nothing.

Does anyone know what they are voting to proceed to

Technically yes -- the House-passed bill. That was always going to be the case procedurally. After that and debate, an open amendment process would begin.

Donald Trump's political jamboree

Donald Trump's political jamboree

In McConnell's ideal world, the idea was to have an agreed upon substitute amendment, with 50 votes in support in hand, that would serve as the final amendment of the process, pass the Senate, pass the House and hit Trump's desk. Or something close to that.

But too many GOP senators opposed that amendment last week, so the motion to proceed could open up a can of worms. As Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tennessee, put it to reporters, we're entering a "wild west" type of scenario if the procedural vote passes. Anything that's germane to the bill and falls within the confines of the budget reconciliation rules, can be offered on the floor.

How this will all play out

Republican senators will meet behind closed doors for their weekly lunch at 12:45 p.m.

Democrats pitch 'A Better Deal' agenda: Focus on job training, lowering costs

Democrats pitch 'A Better Deal' agenda: Focus on job training, lowering costs

During that meeting, the final pitch will be made, not just by leadership, but by rank-and-file members who want to move forward with this process. The order in which specific amendments will be offered -- from the 2015 repeal-only bill, to Cassidy-Collins, to Graham-Cassidy, to everything in between -- will also be discussed, aides say. Immediately following this meeting, the Senate will proceed to the procedural vote (at 2:15 p.m. or so).

What's happening right now

The final lobbying blitz. The President. The Vice President. Administration officials. Senate GOP leadership. All are pushing members not to be the vote that shuts this process down. The pressure inside the building right now is immense, something that has become exceedingly clear as senators who have clearly, and publicly, opposed past iterations of this bill have remained firmly in the "undecided" camp.

Who appears firmly in the "no" camp

No surprise here: Maine Sen. Susan Collins

Who to watch:

These senators will decide if health care moves forward or not. Period. They have different asks and needs and to this point, none have been publicly, sufficiently provided to them. But there are a lot of promises being made, along with near unlimited pressure from the White House and leadership to just. Let. The. Process. Move. Forward.

On Tuesday we'll see if that's enough.

Sen. Rob Portman

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito

Sen. Lisa Murkowski

Sen. Dean Heller

Sen. Mike Lee

Sen. Rand Paul

Sen. Jerry Moran

Sen. Ron Johnson

Here's a sampling of what some of them are saying

"I'm not blindly voting," Paul said Monday night when members were still waiting to see if leadership had a plan on what bill to ultimately substitute.

"I'm not real happy with the process. I think you guys are more than aware of that," Johnson said.

McCain returning to Senate for critical vote 01:30

Why vote yes on this, with no clear "replace" plan or final product already locked in

There are a myriad of reasons this could move forward, among them: No senator wants to be the senator to kill the effort. Senators have received specific promises and/or assurances regarding which amendments will be considered on the floor. Senators have received specific promises and/or assurances regarding specific policy provisions that will be in any final product before the final vote.

So why vote yes to proceed?

The most common answer is so that there can be an open debate.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas: "We can't vote to amend the bill or debate it unless we get on it."

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas: "Any senator can introduce any amendment that he or she wishes ... that's the way the process works."

Sen. John Kennedy, R-Louisiana: "It's inexplicable to me why anyone including Democrats wouldn't vote to allow us to debate the bill and offer amendments."

Why vote no on this, with no clear "replace" plan or final product already locked in?

Several senators (among them Collins, Capito and Murkowski), have said they want a "replace" plan ready to go before voting "yes." Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, has made clear "repeal-only" is not a satisfactory option for him. All of these senators have said the House-passed bill, and, up to this point, every version of the Senate bill that has been offered, haven't struck the right balance on Medicaid.

Utah Sen. Mike Lee has said his procedural vote is contingent on the 2015 repeal-only bill being the final product, or changes to Cruz's regulations amendment. Sen. Rand Paul has asked for similar assurances regarding the 2015 repeal-only bill, or a very clear opportunity to separate the insurance stabilization aspects of any bill from the repeal portion. On top of all of that, entering an open amendment process, where Democrats' sole goal will be to offer politically damaging amendment after politically damaging amendment, is a risky move for any senator who may one day seek re-election.

When will we know how everyone is voting

When they call the yeas and nays.

There is tremendous pressure not to the "no" vote that can be blamed for sinking this process, which means senators, up to this point, are keeping their powder dry. That may change Tuesday morning, or even as senators walk from their closed-door lunch to the floor. But at the moment, there is a very real possibility it will not. We're all just going to have to find out if this thing lives or dies on the Senate floor.

If the procedural vote passes, does that mean the bill eventually will?

No.

Short of an agreement on some final substitute amendment that locks in 50 votes -- something they've repeatedly come up short on accomplishing -- the process going forward is far from a sure thing. But momentum -- and hour after hour of amendment votes -- can be a unifying process. That's what leadership is counting on right now.

If this thing goes down, is it really dead?

If there's one lesson that everyone should've learned over the last six months, it's that when you've promised to do something for seven years on the campaign trail, failure is an awfully tough pill to swallow. There will be every reason to give another go. Just take a look at what Sen. John Thune told CNN Monday night:

Sanders calls GOP health care bill 'destructive' and 'irresponsible'

Sanders calls GOP health care bill 'destructive' and 'irresponsible'

CNN: If it fails, is health care dead for at least a while or do you go right back to figuring it out?

Thune: "I don't. I think it might get slotted in behind something else that we might move to. You know, we have a reconciliation vehicle that's available until the end of the fiscal year so we have to move at some point. I don't think the issue is going away. I don't think it gets any easier to solve the longer this things hangs around. I've been of the school for a long time that at some point you have to listen and modify and adjust and get it to where you think you have the best possible product you can have but at some point you have to vote and that's I think where we are. People are going to hold us accountable for processing and handling at some point on this issue. It could become, maybe not front and center as it is at this point, but it's going to have to be dealt with."

What does the majority whip think?

The man in charge of counting votes for Senate Republicans, whip John Cornyn of Texas, said he expects enough Republicans will vote to take up the bill. But when asked what the GOP would do it the bill is blocked, he too said his party would not walk away from the contentious issue. If they get 48 or 49 votes, he explained, leaders will know who they need to work with to get a bill over the finish line.

He added that Republicans would not start from scratch with committee hearings and the like but would stay with the leadership-led process underway now.

What is Trump saying?

Trump to Tom Price: Get votes or you're fired 01:15

The President spent Monday telling his fellow Republicans it's time to fulfill their long-term promises to voters to repeal Obamacare.

In a White House speech, Trump said the GOP hasn't done it's job.

"For the last seven years, Republicans have been united in standing up for Obamacare's victims. Remember repeal and replace, repeal and replace, they kept saying it over and over again. Every Republican running for office promised immediate relief from this disastrous law," Trump said. "We, as a party, must fulfill that solemn promise to the voters of this country to repeal and replace.

"But so far, Senate Republicans have not done their job in ending the Obamacare nightmare," he added.

These Are the Next 5 Industries That Amazon Could Take Over - TIME Business

These Are the Next 5 Industries That Amazon Could Take Over

Posted: 24 Jul 2017 07:06 AM PDT

No one should doubt Amazon.com’s power to disrupt new industries. While the onetime online bookstore has grown to dominate retail, it has also become a major player in businesses ranging from cloud computing to Hollywood — and even has experimented seriously with drones.
It’s no wonder that fear strikes investors and executives when they learn — or even hear rumors — that Amazon wants to compete in their industry. It’s the business-world equivalent of seeing viking sails appear on the horizon.
Just last month, grocery store stocks plunged when news arrived that Amazon planned to acquire trendy, upscale grocer Whole Foods. Then Amazon struck again late last week, with home improvement stores taking the hit.

Here are five industries that have all suffered recently from what one stock analyst has dubbed, “the Amazon effect” — the threat, real or perceived, that Amazon is on the verge of upending their business models.

Home Improvement Stores

Even as more and more retail moves online, big-box home improvement retailers Lowe’s and Home Depot have continued to thrive. After all, chances are you want to see your kitchen tile in person before ordering hundreds of dollars’ worth. And it’s not always easy to know exactly what size of bathroom fixture you need until you’re standing in front of a display model.
The upshot: Brick-and-mortar do-it-yourself stores have so far been able to keep customers coming in. But on Thursday, at least one lucrative segment of the business — home appliances — came under threat when also-ran Sears Holdings announced it had struck a deal for Amazon to sell the popular Kenmore-brand appliances. Appliances aren’t a perfect fit for online commerce; installation can be a big job and requires expertise. But some investors headed for the exits anyway: Shares of Home Depot closed down 4% by end of day, while Lowe’s fell 5.5%.

Grocery Stores

The news last month that Amazon planned to acquire Whole Foods for $13.7 billion might have rated as a blip. Sure, Whole Foods enjoys outsize cultural cachet among the arugula-munching set, but its overall market share in the grocery business is a measly 2%. But market watchers immediately began to speculate that Whole Foods’ roughly 450 stores would be turned into killer distribution hubs, enabling Amazon to deliver fresh groceries and other goods to upscale neighborhoods — or that the stores would become pickup points allowing customers to buy online, then have groceries put right in the trunks of their cars.
Either way Wall Street figured the consequences for other grocers would be dire: Kroger shares plunged more than 9% on the day the news emerged, while Target fell 5.1% and Wal-Mart dropped 4.7%.

Meal Kit Companies

When a young company has an IPO — the first time it sells shares to the public — it’s supposed to be the belle of the ball. Investment bankers work hard to drum up hype, so starry-eyed investors will pay top dollar.
For meal kit company Blue Apron, however, rumors that Amazon might be preparing a competing service put a huge damper on the party. Blue Apron had originally planned to sell shares for $15 to $17 late last month, but ended up settling for $10 after Amazon’s Whole Foods purchase gave investors jitters. Blue Apron took another big hit early last week when news broke that Amazon had filed for a patent, and may already be testing its own kits. Blue Apron shares closed Friday at $6.55, having lost roughly a third of their value.

Banks

So far, America’s biggest banks have been largely immune to Silicon Valley disruption. That doesn’t mean they haven’t been looking over their shoulders, however. In February, a rumor that Amazon might buy Capital One prompted banking industry bible American Banker to (sort of) reassure readers, “No way that could happen … well, er, right, everybody?”
Such a deal might, indeed, prompt a veto from regulators. Yet Amazon is already enmeshed in the banking industry, and its ties are only poised to deepen. Amazon Marketplace — the part of Amazon.com that lets consumers purchase goods from third-party merchants (when you use Amazon to buy an out-of-print book from a bookstore across the country, for instance) — already allows shoppers to send payments directly to vendors in the U.S. and Europe, according to the FT. Amazon also offers loans to some of those small businesses; last month, for instance, it said loaned them $3 billion. No wonder Inc. recently warned that Amazon could swallow small business lending “like a python.”

Real Estate Brokers

Sometimes, all it takes is a hint. Earlier this month, in the runup to Amazon’s popular Prime Day sale, some shoppers noticed what appeared to be the beta version of a new “Hire a Realtor” service on Amazon’s home page. Soon screen shots of the page were circulating on trade Web sites, while the stock price of would-be competitor Zillow tumbled 3.5%.
The industry breathed a sigh of relief when the dummy Web page disappeared a day later, as quietly as it had arrived, and the National Association of Realtors reassured members that Amazon does not have permission to use the trademarked word “realtor.” Zillow stock also bounced back.
Yet trade publication The Real Deal predicted that Zillow “may soon meet its match.”

The constants of nature are among the things you just do not want to mess with - Economist

The constants of nature are among the things you just do not want to mess with

IF YOU give a balloon a modest electric charge—by rubbing it on your jumper, say—you can stick it to the ceiling, thereby both delighting small children and revealing a basic truth about the universe: electromagnetic forces are much stronger than gravitational ones. Despite the fact that there is a whole planet pulling down on that balloon with all the gravity that its six billion trillion tonnes can provide, your party trick is enough to thwart it. This disparity in the forces’ strengths, though, tells you little about why the absolute strengths are what they are. Nor, when it comes down to it, does the hard-won wisdom of the world’s physicists.

The way that the laws of nature, expressed in mathematics, describe the relationships between space, time and matter has a great formal coherence. But some aspects of this systematic and highly successful description stand alone. There are fundamental constants in physics that are apparently arbitrary—numbers that seem to exist entirely in their own right, without reference to the rest of the universe. No obvious reason seems to exist for them to be as they are; they are simply the way the world is.

One of these, called the fine-structure constant, says how strong electromagnetic forces are. Its value is 1/137. If it were larger, balloons would stick more strongly to ceilings. If it were smaller, their weight would more easily pull them down.

Such possibilities might seem to be of no particular importance. It is obvious that the universe would be fundamentally different if either force went away: no electromagnetism, no molecules; no gravity, no planets. That a small change in the strength of either might matter is harder to imagine. But it would.

In the 1950s Sir Fred Hoyle, a British astrophysicist, realised that the abundance of carbon in the universe was a bit of a conundrum. Carbon, like almost all other elements, is made in stars, where fusion creates heavier elements from the nuclei of lighter ones. Nuclei all have positive electric charges, and since like charges repel each other, this means that the nuclear banging together needs to be pretty forceful. If electromagnetism were only a little stronger, then even in the hearts of stars nuclei would not be banged together hard enough to bring forth carbon. That said, if it were just a little weaker, carbon would be simply one step on the way to nuclei that were heavier still, no sooner made than consumed.

• In either case, the result would be a universe radically less amenable to life. The quality and number of the bonds that carbon atoms can form with each other and with atoms of other elements provide a unique versatility when it comes to the creation of large and complex molecules; no other element comes close. Without carbon there would be no polymers with which to make either wool or rubber, no muscles with which to rub the two together, no brains to conceive of doing so—or of explaining what happens afterwards. According to the most recent studies, which take into account far more subtleties than Hoyle knew about in the 1950s, if the fine-structure constant were 4% higher, or 4% smaller, the universe would be essentially rubber-, wool- and carbon-free, and there would be no chemical basis for life.
  This is far from the only example of what is sometimes called “fine tuning” in the physical universe: that is, seemingly arbitrary arrangements which turn out to be necessary for life. The rate at which the universe expands, its ratio of matter to energy and various other apparently arbitrary factors can be seen as showing signs of such fine tuning.
  Some, including some scientists, take this as evidence for the role of an intelligence in the creation of the universe, or the setting of its laws. Hoyle himself had a tendency to such views, though he did not hold them in a way that fitted into any religious tradition. Others see it as a selection effect: of all the universes that there could be, only those in which observers are possible get observed. There should be no surprise to carbon-based life forms in the discovery that their universe is well supplied with carbon; what other sort of universe could they expect?
  This way of thinking has become particularly pertinent as physical theory has opened up the possibility of a “multiverse”—wherein that which is observed, or will ever be observable, from Earth is but the tiniest fraction of all there is, with other universes subject to other rules in an endless panoply beyond. Seen in this light, untuned, un-lived-in universes may not be mere counterfactuals, but real and profuse. Maybe there is something that can be learned by considering them not just as thought experiments, but in the context of the rules that govern what gets created in the whole great ensemble.
  Curiouser and curiouser
  Perhaps the most fruitful way of thinking about fine tuning is to appreciate it as a focus for curiosity. In the 1970s there was talk of fine tuning as an explanation of why, cosmologically speaking, the universe was both smooth and flat (unlike a billiard ball, smooth but not flat, or a shingle beach, flat but not smooth). In the 1980s physicists fascinated by this conundrum came up with a theory that explained both attributes in terms of a single process, known as cosmic inflation, a theoretical path which led, in time, to the interest in multiverses. Perhaps some things which currently appear to be fine-tuned—such as the rate at which the universe’s expansion accelerates—may similarly, with enough hard thought, come to be seen as consequences of a deeper necessity in the laws of nature.
  It is not clear why things which seem fine-tuned should be more likely routes to deeper insights than other aspects of reality. But perhaps they do not need to be. Perhaps a seeming quirk or coincidence that captures the imagination is enough in and of itself to provide the spur to progress. Finding, or appreciating, a way in which the universe appears fine-tuned generates the same sensations as a balloon stuck out-of-reach on the ceiling: delight, curiosity and an exquisite frustration. That is often all the path to understanding needs.
• Economist
  
  
  
  
  

Jared Kushner sealed Manhattan real estate deal with oligarch's firm cited in money-laundering case - Guardian

Jared Kushner sealed Manhattan real estate deal with oligarch's firm cited in money-laundering case

Donald Trump’s son-in-law bought part of old New York Times building from Soviet-born tycoon, Guardian investigation into Russian money in NYC property market finds

Jared Kushner, seen in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in May.

Monday 24 July 2017 16.00 AEST

Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of Donald Trump, who acts as his senior White House adviser, secured a multimillion-dollar Manhattan real estate deal with a Soviet-born oligarch whose company was cited in a major New York money laundering case now being probed by members of Congress.

Trump not convinced Russian meddling took place, communications chief says

A Guardian investigation has established a series of overlapping ties and relationships involving alleged Russian money laundering, New York real estate deals and members of Trump’s inner circle. They include a 2015 sale of part of the old New York Times building in Manhattan involving Kushner and a billionaire real estate tycoon and diamond mogul, Lev Leviev.

The ties between Trump family real estate deals and Russian money interests are attracting growing interest from the justice department’s special counsel, Robert Mueller, as he seeks to determine whether the Trump campaign collaborated with Russia to distort the outcome of the 2016 race. Mueller has reportedly expanded his inquiry to look at real estate deals involving the Trump Organization, as well as Kushner’s financing.

Kushner will go before the US Senate intelligence committee on Monday in a closed session of the panel’s inquiry into Russian interference in the election in what could be a pivotal hearing into the affair.

Leviev, a global tycoon known as the “king of diamonds”, was a business partner of the Russian-owned company Prevezon Holdings that was at the center of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit launched in New York. Under the leadership of US attorney Preet Bharara, who was fired by Trump in March, prosecutors pursued Prevezon for allegedly attempting to use Manhattan real estate deals to launder money stolen from the Russian treasury.

The scam had been uncovered by Sergei Magnitsky, an accountant who died in 2009 in a Moscow jail in suspicious circumstances. US sanctions against Russia imposed after Magnitsky’s death were a central topic of conversation at the notorious Trump Tower meeting last June between Kushner, Donald Trump Jr, Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort and a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin.

Donald Jr and Manafort have been called to testify before the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, at which they are certain to face questions about the Trump Tower encounter.

Two days before it was due to open in court in May, the Prevezon case was settled for $6m with no admission of guilt on the part of the defendants. But since details of the Trump Tower meeting emerged, the abrupt settlement of the Prevezon case has come under renewed scrutiny from congressional investigators.

Four Russians attended the meeting, led by Natalia Veselnitskaya, a lawyer with known Kremlin connections who acted as legal counsel for Prevezon in the money laundering case and who called the $6m settlement so slight that “it seemed almost an apology from the government”. Sixteen Democratic members of the House judiciary committee have now written to the justice department in light of the Trump Tower meeting demanding to know whether there was any interference behind the decision to avoid trial.

Constitutional experts are also demanding an official inquiry. “We need a full accounting by Trump’s justice department of the unexplained and frankly outrageous settlement that is likely to be just the tip of a vast financial iceberg,” said Laurence Tribe, Harvard University professor of constitutional law.

Separately, the focus of investigators on Trump family finances stem from the vast flow of Russian wealth that has been poured into New York real estate in recent years. As Donald Trump Jr put it in 2008, referring to the Trump Organization: “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia

Among the overlapping connections is the 2015 deal in which Kushner paid $295m to acquire several floors of the old New York Times building at 43rd street in Manhattan from the US branch of Leviev’s company, Africa Israel Investments (AFI), and its partner Five Mile Capital. The sale has been identified as of possible interest to the Mueller investigation as Kushner later went on to borrow $285m in refinancing from Deutsche Bank, the German financial house that itself has been embroiled in Russian money laundering scandals and whose loans to Trump are coming under intensifying scrutiny.

Court documents and company records show that AFI was cited in the Prevezon case as a business partner of the defendants. In 2008, Prevezon entered a partnership with AFI in which Prevezon bought for €3m, a 30% stake in four AFI subsidiaries in the Netherlands. Five years later, AFI tried to return the money to the Russian-owned company, but it was intercepted and frozen by Dutch authorities at the request of the US government as part of the Prevezon money-laundering probe.

In Manhattan, Leviev’s firm also sold condominiums to Prevezon Holdings from one of its landmark developments at 20 Pine Street, just a few blocks from Wall Street.

Real estate brochures describe the lavish interior decor of the condominiums, replete with bathrooms bedecked in stone and exotic woods, and boasting “the ultimate in pampering; a sybaritic recessed rain shower”. The 20 Pine Street apartments that Leviev sold to Prevezon were later frozen by US prosecutors seeking to block the flow of what they alleged to be money stolen from the Russian treasury and laundered through New York real estate.

Prevezon’s 20 Pine Street apartments and €3m in assets were all released as part of the settlement in May.

The Guardian contacted both Kushner and Leviev for comment, but they did not immediately respond.

The pursuit of Prevezon Holdings for alleged money laundering took on enormous political significance as it unfolded. For the prosecutors, it was a test case over suspicious Russian money flows designed to show the US was serious about going after money launderers. For the Russians, it was an opportunity to push back against stringent US sanctions that had long infuriated the Kremlin.

In court documents, US prosecutors accused Prevezon and its sole shareholder, Denis Katsyv, of participating in the laundering of proceeds of the vast tax fraud that stole $230m from the Russian treasury and moved it out of the country in chunks. Prevezon was alleged to have received some of the fraudulent spoils through a network of shell companies, hiding the money by investing in Manhattan real estate including the Leviev condominiums in 20 Pine Street.

Prevezon and Katsyv have consistently denied any involvement in money laundering and have dismissed the lawsuit as “ill-conceived”. In a statement released at the time of the settlement, they said they had “no involvement in or knowledge of any fraudulent activities”.

Magnitsky discovered the massive tax fraud, said to be one of the largest in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, in 2007. After he blew the whistle on the scam, he was arrested by the same officials whom he had accused of covering up the racket and imprisoned, dying in jail having been denied medical treatment.

Magnitsky’s death led to a political backlash in the US that in turn spawned tough sanctions on Russia, known as the Magnitsky Act. Russian individuals associated with the lawyer’s demise and other human rights abuses were banned entry to the US.

Russian man at Trump Jr meeting had partner with Soviet intelligence ties

Veselnitskaya not only acted as Prevezon’s Russian counsel in the money-laundering case, she also was a leading lobbyist against the Magnitsky sanctions. She raised the subject prominently at the meeting in Trump Tower with Don Jr and Kushner, though according to Veselnitskaya the president’s son-in-law left after 10 minutes.

By the time of the Trump Tower meeting, Veselnitskaya was already personally acquainted with Russia’s powerful prosecutor general, Yuri Chaika, and her lobbying against the Magnitsky sanctions had drawn significant attention in government circles.

“Natalia’s main role was coordinating, including regular coordination with Chaika, whom she knew personally,” said a source acquainted with the Prevezon case.

Veselnitskaya told the Guardian: “My meeting with Trump’s son was a private meeting; nobody in the government had anything to do with it.” She declined to answer a follow-up question about whether and how she knew Chaika.

Jamison Firestone, the founder of the Russian law firm that employed Magnitsky at the time that he exposed the fraud, said that Veselnitskaya clearly intended to use the Trump Tower meeting to lobby against the Magnitsky sanctions. “They really made it a state priority to get rid of these sanctions,” he said.

Would Trump's suggestion of a self presidential pardon be legal ?

President Trump is considering pardoning himself. The following are comments from 15 legal experts if that's legal.

President Trump’s lawyers are exploring the potential uses of presidential pardons — including whether the president can pardon himself — as part of an effort to undermine special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, according to a new Washington Post report.

I reached out to 15 legal experts and asked them if the president has the constitutional authority to pardon himself. As it turns out, this is something of a legal gray area. The overwhelming consensus was that Trump could make a plausible legal argument that his pardoning powers extend to himself, mostly because the Constitution isn’t clear about this — and, frankly, because this is just not a situation the framers expected.

All the experts agreed about one other fact: Even if Trump does pardon himself, that would not shield him from impeachment hearings. And most believe if he did make a move like this, it would be both an admission of guilt and a potential constitutional crisis.

You can read their full responses below.

Asha Rangappa, associate dean, Yale Law School

It's a historical anomaly that the pardon power is even in the Constitution, considering that it is derived from royal grants of clemency and the framers of the Constitution, who had just revolted against a tyrannical king, were leery of putting too much power in the hands of a single person. A worst-case scenario like the current crisis is probably one of the reasons why.

That's why it's useful to look at Alexander Hamilton's defense of the pardon power, which he lays out in Federalist No. 74. Hamilton notes that "humanity and good policy" require that such a power ought to remain in the hands of the president — rather than dispersed among the many members of Congress — because "the sense of responsibility" he would feel in having such enormous power over another person's fate would ensure that he exercised it with "scrupulousness and caution."

Hamilton also argued that the president would be less susceptible to political pressures and partisanship than Congress in cases like treason or after times of national crisis, when forgiveness and reconciliation might be warranted.

This is obviously not dispositive, since the text of the Constitution doesn't impose any limitations on pardons except that they can't be used in cases of impeachment. However, Hamilton's concept of the pardon power was predicated on the idea that the president would be exercising it for the benefit of another person or the country — not for his own personal gain.

Of course, presidents can deceive themselves into thinking that their bad acts are justified for the common good (Nixon, anyone?), but the point of the pardon power was to bestow mercy on another, not to enrich oneself.

Mark Tushnet, law professor, Harvard University

The president's constitutional power to pardon "offenses against the United States" is limited only by excluding "cases of Impeachment." A self-pardon for ordinary criminal offenses does not fall within that exception, on my understanding.

A self-pardon might well be outrageously improper (unless there was the prospect of charges brought by a rogue prosecutor, whom, for some reason, the president could not control by firing him or her), but the response the Constitution creates for such misconduct is impeachment, a political rather than criminal remedy.

Samuel Gross, law professor, University of Michigan

The president is considering pardoning himself as a way to avoid a Department of Justice investigation into his electoral campaign? This is theater of the absurd. The fact that we're even talking about it is a measure of how far we've fallen under Trump.

Jessica Levinson, law professor, Loyola Law School

As is the case with a number of important constitutional issues, the answer to the question here of whether or not the president can pardon himself exists in gray area. Or put more bluntly, the answer is, "Who the heck knows?" This is partly because this is simply not a question we ask ourselves very often.

Let's take a step back and remember the unique reality we all now inhabit. This is not an issue which the courts have been asked to answer. Why? Because a president is rarely in the position of asking whether he will pardon himself.

The Constitution means whatever the courts say it means. If the US Supreme Court decided tomorrow that the word "emolument" actually means "sunglasses," then that is the law of the land. Congress would have to ratify an amendment to the Constitution to change or override that interpretation. Article II, Section II of the Constitution provides that the president "shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment."

Shortly before President Nixon resigned from office, the Office of Legal Counsel issued an opinion in which they cautioned that no one may be a judge in his own case. (This is also a principle of so-called "natural law.") This meant, the OLC said, that the president cannot pardon himself.

In addition, the language of the clause and Supreme Court case law seems to assume that there is someone giving the pardon (let's call this person Mr. President) and someone receiving the pardon (let's call this person Mr. Not President). Put another way, the language seems to assume there is a grantor and a recipient who are two different people.

But a conclusion based on natural law and an assertion that the language "seems to assume" something is hardly a conclusion you want to take to the proverbial bank.

“THE POINT OF THE PARDON POWER WAS TO BESTOW MERCY ON ANOTHER, NOT TO ENRICH ONESELF.”

—ASHA RANGAPPA, ASSOCIATE DEAN, YALE LAW SCHOOL

Jimmy Gurulé, law professor, University of Notre Dame

The recent revelation that President Trump has asked his lawyers whether the president of the United States has the constitutional authority to pardon himself is absolutely stunning. President Trump’s inquiry on the scope of the president's pardon power demonstrates consciousness of guilt. Only if President Trump believes that he may be guilty of a crime would he be interested in pardoning himself. This is not the behavior of an innocent man.

Further, the view that the president has the power to pardon himself contradicts a central tenet of American democracy: "No man is above the law." In a democracy based on the rule of law, no one may engage in criminal conduct with impunity, including the president of the United States.

Susan Low Bloch, law professor, Georgetown University

I believe the president can pardon anyone, including him or herself. But the pardon cannot stop an investigation and, in a well-functioning democracy, should provoke an impeachment. The Constitution specifically provides that the pardon power does not prevent — or undo — an impeachment. I'm not sure if these Republicans would impeach, but I think that is the only check on the president.

Keith Whittington, professor of politics, Princeton University

A validity of a presidential self-pardon is an issue of genuine uncertainty. Although theoretically interesting, this is one of those questions that seemed "purely academic" and of no real practical consequence, and yet here we are.

There are two potential checks on the pardoning power that should be noted upfront. First, the Constitution specifically rules out the possibility of pardoning someone for impeachable offenses. Moreover, I think Congress could certainly regard an "abuse" of the pardoning power as an impeachable offense in and of itself (even if we were to think that such a pardon should be regarded as legally valid).

There are fair questions as to what should count as an abuse that would rise to that level, but a self-pardon should certainly do it. In this context, I think a pardon of any member of the Trump family for offenses committed as part of the presidential campaign or its aftermath would be an impeachable offense.

Second, the value of a pardon is that it provides legal immunity from criminal liability for some action, and in order to invoke that immunity, the pardon must be presented to a court in response to a prosecution. At that point, the judiciary would have to make a ruling on whether to accept the pardon as valid.

In the case of a self-pardon, ultimately the US Supreme Court would have to render its own conclusion on whether the courts should accept such a pardon as constitutionally valid, and there would really be no option but to reach an independent judgment on that question and not simply defer to the judgment made by the president.

“THIS IS THEATER OF THE ABSURD. THE FACT THAT WE'RE EVEN TALKING ABOUT IT IS A MEASURE OF HOW FAR WE'VE FALLEN UNDER TRUMP.”

—SAMUEL GROSS, LAW PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

But substantively, can the president pardon himself? The pardoning power is vested solely in the president, and the constitutional text only identifies a single qualification on that power (does not apply in cases of impeachment).

Our legal tradition nonetheless recognizes implicit limits on that power (e.g., pardon can only be issued after the offense has been committed). There is no well-established legal tradition regarding self-pardons. All that might suggest that the president could do it, and then take his chances in an impeachment.

Julie O’Sullivan, law professor, Georgetown University

The text of the Constitution says that the president has no pardon power over impeachment. If the president were to pardon himself to preempt a legitimate investigation into potential criminal wrongdoing, it would have no effect on congressional investigations. In the debates surrounding the framing of the Constitution, the framers were very clear: No one, least of all the president, can be above the law.

If President Trump does this, and it does not immediately provoke an impeachment inquiry — that is, if the Republican majority can excuse such a blatant disregard for the rule of law — then we are in a full-blown constitutional crisis. The Saturday Night Massacre pales by comparison. That was a stupid burglary. This is potential collusion with a foreign power over the most important electoral contest in the United States.

Miriam Baer, law professor, Brooklyn Law School

News that the president allegedly asked his lawyers to investigate the viability of a “self-pardon” raises a number of questions, separate and apart from that pardon’s effect on any subsequent criminal prosecution. (The Constitution on its face makes clear that the pardon cannot block impeachment; whether and how it might affect a later criminal prosecution is unclear.)

First, it is surprising this kind of a request — one that ordinarily would arise in the context of a confidential communication between a client and his attorneys — found its way to reporters. If one or more of Mr. Trump’s “close advisers” (the terminology employed by the Washington Post) communicated this information to reporters, did they do so with or without the president’s knowledge? One of the president’s attorneys has already denied the Washington Post’s report as “nonsense,” but that doesn’t reveal much about the original leak.

Moreover, one might wonder if the self-pardon talk is being raised as a method of reining in the special prosecutor’s investigation, or as a means of distracting the special prosecutor’s team by forcing them to consider a series of unprecedented, even if politically far-fetched, legal arguments.

The New York Times’s report that the Trump team is investigating Mr. Mueller’s team for conflicts of interests is consistent with this tactic. The actual merits of these claims matter less than their intended strategic effect, which is to place the special prosecutor and his team on the defensive.

“THE CONSTITUTION MEANS WHATEVER THE COURTS SAY IT MEANS. IF THE US SUPREME COURT DECIDED TOMORROW THAT THE WORD ‘EMOLUMENT’ ACTUALLY MEANS ‘SUNGLASSES,’ THEN THAT IS THE LAW OF THE LAND.”

—JESSICA LEVINSON, LAW PROFESSOR, LOYOLA LAW SCHOOL

Steven Duke, law professor, Yale University

There is, of course, no precedent on whether a president can pardon himself. The question is mostly academic. A president can’t be prosecuted federally while in office, so a pardon would only be of legal significance after he left office, and the validity of it would likely be tested in a federal prosecution.

If such a prosecution seemed a serious possibility, the president would likely make a deal with his successor (Pence?) to grant him a pardon after he left office, just as Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. (There was suspicion of such a deal, but Ford denied it and there was no evidence of one.)

In any event, a president cannot use the pardon power to immunize himself from impeachment or from prosecution by one or more of the 50 states. Were a president to pardon himself, this would surely trigger prosecution in the states (e.g., for fraud or tax evasion). It would, therefore, be a very foolish decision. The pardon would be admissible evidence of guilt.

Diane Marie Amann, law professor, University of Georgia

“I beg your pardon.” That standard phrasing exposes the oddity of the notion that a person may pardon himself. One simply does not say, “Pardon me,” while standing in front of a mirror. This also holds true in our government — in John Adams’s words, “a government of laws and not of men.”

To permit the elected leader of that government to absolve himself of wrongdoing — perhaps, for good measure, to do so on a weekly basis — would erode the bedrock of our Constitution.

It was based on this reasoning that the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel wrote in 1974: “Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the President cannot pardon himself.” Days later, President Richard M. Nixon chose to extricate himself from scandal not by self-pardon, but rather by resignation from office. Nixon’s precedent should put an end to the current discussion.

Even if a president were to break from this tradition, it would not free him from all concerns about accountability. Congress’s powers of impeachment would remain undisturbed. The same is true of states’ powers to prosecute, for a president’s power applies only to federal crimes. Self-pardon thus would do little to advance a president’s self-interest, yet it would do much to undermine our national interest.

Jed Shugerman, law professor, Fordham University

First, can Trump pardon himself? That’s surprisingly hard to answer. The constitutional text gives no answer, and the convention debates aren’t particularly helpful.

Some people cite the Latin phrase “Nemo judex in causa sua” (one can’t be a judge in his own case) as some kind of answer, but the pardon power is executive, not judicial, so a president isn’t formally a judge in his own case. Plus, we don’t live in Rome, even if the Latin sounds wicked smart.

The bottom line is that the only significant barriers to self-pardons are politics (impeachment) and federalism (state powers).

Eric Posner, law professor, University of Chicago

I don’t think a self-pardon would work. The major question is, What would happen if, after Trump leaves office, investigators determine that he committed a crime covered by a self-pardon? They would very likely bring charges against him anyway, and then it would be up to a judge to decide whether a self-pardon is valid.

The Constitution gives the president the power to pardon, but as is always the case with powers bestowed by the Constitution, the contours of that power are uncertain. A judge would probably worry that if he ruled that a president can pardon himself, future presidents will feel free to commit crimes.

While impeachment might seem like an adequate deterrent, because removal from office requires two-thirds of the Senate, presidents normally don’t need to worry about impeachment. It is possible that a judge would rule that even if a self-pardon would relieve the president of liability for a crime, the act of self-pardoning itself is a crime, obstruction of justice, that would independently create criminal liability.

“THE VIEW THAT THE PRESIDENT HAS THE POWER TO PARDON HIMSELF CONTRADICTS A CENTRAL TENET OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY: ‘NO MAN IS ABOVE THE LAW.’”

—JIMMY GURULé, LAW PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME

Bob Bauer, law professor, New York University

The president and his legal team may consider throwing the constitutional dice on a self-pardon and winning. Of course, all issues, including ones of this magnitude, come before the court on specific facts, in a particular case, which shape or influence the outcome.

The Trump team is not shaping up the facts to its benefit. The president and his lawyers' attacks on the attorney general, the deputy attorney general, the former FBI director, and the special counsel, Robert Mueller — along with the reports of their research into the personal background of Mueller team members — leave them open to the charge that they are considering a pardon as an act of obstruction.

This is not a case where Mr. Mueller has brought controversial charges, or where there are other unique circumstances that might arguably support the resort to an unprecedented, extraordinary, and constitutionally uncertain act. All that is so far clear is that the president does not want an investigation, not of himself or of his aides and family members, and he is not ready to let the experienced prosecution team "see where the evidence will lead."

Perhaps he is genuinely offended by the whole process, which he may believe is rigged and running amok. Others may conclude that he has something to hide. Mr. Trump may be gambling that in pardoning himself, the courts will see things his way. They may not.

Peter Shane, law professor, Ohio State University

In 1993, I wrote an article critical of George H.W. Bush's decision to pardon six defendants in prosecutions related to the Iran-Contra scandal, an episode in which his own role and prior knowledge (if any) have never, I think, been fully clarified.

I noted that the text of the Constitution did not explicitly limit the pardon power, but added this:

The courts could conceivably determine . . . that Presidents are without power to pardon themselves. General Haig reportedly presented this option to Richard Nixon, who rejected it. . . . [A] President's capacity to pardon himself would seem to violate flagrantly the cornerstone premise of due process and the separation of powers that no person should be judge in her own cause.

Interestingly, the chief objection to conferring the pardon power on the President was the fear of some critics that the President might use her authority to shield her confederates in treason.

Although reasoning from snippets is problematic, it is worth noting the response of James Wilson to Edmund Randolph's unsuccessful proposal during the Philadelphia Convention to bar presidential pardons in treason cases. Wilson contended that a pardon power was needed even as to the crime of treason, and if the President 'himself be a party to the guilt he can be impeached and prosecuted.' 2 Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, at 626 (Max Farrand ed., 1937)."

The response of Wilson — an influential framer and one of the Supreme Court's first justices — implies that presidents cannot pardon themselves; if they could, then the scenario he offered would not be a guaranteed option.

In other words, this is a gray area, but the Constitution's commitment to checks and balances and more generally to the rule of law strongly argue against self-pardoning.