group that is looking at the overall security clearance process and who maintains those and whether or not those are needed across the board within government. in terms of the pardon process, the president has the authority to carry out those decisions. he takes input and looks at them on a case-by-case basis. go ahead. you said there are people looking at the security clearance. can you tell daws secretary sanders: a number of members on the national security team, i would have to get back to you. i know the chief of staff is involved in that process. sarah, thank you, earlier this week the president told our colleagues at reuters that he could run it, in reference to the mueller investigation. what does he mean by that? secretary sanders: the president has said many times that he s chosen to remain uninvolved in this process. and that s where we are right now. is that an indication that
what the president s campaign was engaged in that may not have been part of the counts in this trial. so that would be a gross abuse of process. now, it is true that the president has the power of the pardon. on the other hand, if you look at the guidelines for which justice departments have used in the past for exercising that pardon power, there have been clearer steps that have been gone through. this president has blown through all of that. he has undermined the integrity of the pardon process. he has politicized it. you asked me about the response from my republican colleagues in response to what the president has done in revoking security clearances, that would be a moment if he used the pardon power in such an abusive way that people as americans, as patriots need to stand up. they need to stand up for the rule of law. let s see how things proceed. again, the main thing is this
and it was true in the traditional pardon process, it would be too early. most people don t use preemptive pardons, also the supreme court has upheld them. it s not too soon if this jury goes in a certain direction. do you think that paul manafort s defense reflects some hail mary hope for a pardon? absolutely. first of all, donald trump has signalled in multiple ways that he would very seriously consider pardoning paul manafort, one, by some of the other people he has pardoned, dnesh, joe arpaio. scooter lib by. he s got a trail of pardons that can only indicated to anyone who may face charges that he will protect them as long as they don t turn on him. i think we ve seen that play out in multiple ways with other
the american people, for instance with the stormy daniel payment, a lot of suspense whether president trump knew about it and he goes on television and his job to get ahead of the story and maybe tell us about that or something we didn t know. in this case he could possibly be telling us trump did indeed ask comey to back off of flynn. he was not loose with whether or not he directed cohen to make the payment. he said not to my knowledge, never said no, absolutely not and careful when he said, not to my knowledge and whether or not trump would rule out a pardon for michael cohen. he said he hadn t discussed it with cohen and didn t rule that out. those are two interesting things in terms of what he was saying. they know how much heat there has been on this pardon process. we will have more on the show.
bit here too. hugh hewitt, what would be the ramifications if the president were to pardon michael cohen? the president will be impeached by a democratic majority, period. regardless of what happens? he will be impeached by the democratic party if they take the house. if he does things that are reported in a mueller report which indicate collusion of any sort or manipulation of the pardon process, i think he loses votes in the senate, which he ll be acquitted and, therefore, there is no upside to a pardon, period. it s bad for the reputation of the president, it s bad for the country and it s bad all the way around so it should be a nonstarter. anita, do you agree with that? i think a pardon would be politically disastrous. if you look at what ended richard nixon s reign as president, it wasn t anything except the crumbling of his political support within his own party and that s why he had to leave office. i think a pardon starts to take you to that place. i agree with hugh.