Alan Dershowitz: ‘I Don’t Think That a President Necessarily Has the Power to Pardon Himself’

Monday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz said he does not believe President Donald Trump was correct in his assertion that a president can pardon himself.

Dershowitz said, “I’ve always said it would be utterly inappropriate for a president to collude with ay foreign power, especially an enemy foreign power, absolutely inappropriate. But there is a difference between inappropriate and criminal. For something to be criminal it has to be in the criminal statute book.”

He continued, “Look, I have disagreed with a great deal of what has gone on today from the White House. I don’t think that a president necessarily has the power to pardon himself.”

He added, “Nobody knows the answer to that question. It is clearly on a blank slate. Nobody should be saying either that the president clearly has a power to pardon himself or the president doesn’t have the power. We don’t know the answer to the question and probably will never find it out. ”

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