Can the President pardon himself from a lawsuit? Suppose for some reason not directly related to his presidency (e.g. for breach of a contract we signed before he was president) I sue the current POTUS in a federal court. If I win the lawsuit, and the court orders the President to pay me $100,000, can he pardon himself?
No. The Pardon Clause only extends the power to pardon &quot;offenses against the United States,&quot; which essentially means that the president can only issue a pardon in a federal criminal case. A contract claim is civil rather than criminal, and governed by state law rather than federal, so the Pardon Clause would not affect the president's liability.
Lawyers may break confidentiality with client permission. You can also break your own confidentiality and talk to the prosecutor yourself. The prosecutor's response is up to the prosecutor; however, they tend to not be super excited about giving immunity to a witness for the defense if they might want to prosecute the witness later (and courts often are fine with that), so the more they suspect about your true role the less likely they are to grant it. No. If the feds later find truly independent evidence (they have the burden of showing it's truly independent), they can prosecute. Some states give transactional immunity to witnesses (you can't be prosecuted for crimes you testified about for any reason), but the Fifth Amendment doesn't require it and at least the feds aren't bound by state transactional immunity. It's hard to prosecute, but is possible if prosecutors play their cards right. Yes, it does allow civil liability. There is no right against self-incrimination in civil matters, only criminal liability. If the forced testimony leads to a lawsuit that bankrupts you, too bad.
I believe you are using rule of law when you mean due process. The former refers to equality before the law and the subjugation of executive government to the law while the latter refers accepted measures of justice and fairness in the administration of the law and, in the United States, to the supremacy of the judiciary over the legislature (the situation is reversed in the UK). Assuming that to be the case, the due process clause in the fifth amendment provides that "No person shall ... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law ...". That is, actions against Huawei must only be taken as permitted by the law. The law that permits the President to institute the Huawei ban is the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. As such, at face value, this is a legitimate exercise in executive power. Huawei has the right to challenge the ban in US courts, as such, they have been afforded due process.
The only relevant case heard by SCOTUS is Nixon v. US, 506 U.S. 224, where a federal judge was tried and convicted for actual crimes, but would not resign his position so continued to draw his salary. The key legal question was whether the matter is "justiciable" (meaning, not a political matter but a legal matter). Nixon's argument was that Senate Rule XI violates the Impeachment Trial Clause, and the court held that the question (more specifically what it means to "try") is nonjusticiable. White &amp; Blackmun, and Souter, wrote concurring opinions (which might be called on in a subsequent impeachment case) that reminds the reader (and future court) what was not part of the holding of the court, and what might therefore allow future impeachment review. White writes The Court is of the view that the Constitution forbids us even to consider his contention. I find no such prohibition and would therefore reach the merits of the claim. I concur in the judgment because the Senate fulfilled its constitutional obligation to "try" petitioner. He observes that the Senate has very wide discretion in specifying impeachment trial procedures and because it is extremely unlikely that the Senate would abuse its discretion and insist on a procedure that could not be deemed a trial by reasonable judges. But, I would prefer not to announce an unreviewable discretion in the Senate to ignore completely the constitutional direction to "try" impeachment cases. When asked at oral argument whether that direction would be satisfied if, after a House vote to impeach, the Senate, without any procedure whatsoever, unanimously found the accused guilty of being "a bad guy," counsel for the United States answered that the Government's theory "leads me to answer that question yes." Tr. of Oral Arg. 51. Especially in light of this advice from the Solicitor General, I would not issue an invitation to the Senate to find an excuse, in the name of other pressing business, to be dismissive of its critical role in the impeachment process. Souter in his opinion states that One can, nevertheless, envision different and unusual circumstances that might justify a more searching review of impeachment proceedings. If the Senate were to act in a manner seriously threatening the integrity of its results, convicting, say, upon a coin toss, or upon a summary determination that an officer of the United States was simply" 'a bad guy,'", judicial interference might well be appropriate. In such circumstances, the Senate's action might be so far beyond the scope of its constitutional authority, and the consequent impact on the Republic so great, as to merit a judicial response despite the prudential concerns that would ordinarily counsel silence. In other words, review of an impeachment is largely but not entirely off the table, at least until SCOTUS declares that impeachments are completely unreviewable, no matter what, period (unlikely to ever happen).
How should I proceed? I am asking law friends to recommend some employment lawyers, but other than this, can I do anything else? You definitely don't need an employment lawyer for this. From a legal standpoint, the matter is very simple: If you grant their request (whether by signing or otherwise expressing your acceptance), you would be waiving any remedies currently available to you for their breach of contract. The company's attempt to override its contract with you is quite naive, but the company can always (and evidently does) try to get away with its liability nonetheless. I would not be surprised if the company subsequently tries harder to intimidate you, but that does not change your legal position &amp; merits unless you sign the waiver the company is pursuing. Asking for your post-termination availability reinforces the notion of company's poor planning and subpar management.
To start, for this hypothetical to happen, a whole bunch of decisions contrary to sanity have to happen: The Vice President and President Pro Tempore do not invoke the 25th Amendment to temporarily remove the President from office Congress does not issue Articles of Impeachment The President does not pardon himself The District Attorney decides to prosecute the sitting President rather than waiting for his term to be over There are probably more I'm missing. With that out of the way, in theory there's no law that says a President cannot serve while in prison, and simply being a felon does not disqualify him from the Presidency. The judge might order that while he was still serving as President, he serve his time under house arrest - he'd constantly be surrounded by police officers, so it would be pretty difficult for him to run, and it would keep him as as able as possible to keep performing the official functions of the office. The judge could also just defer his sentence. Putting him in regular prison would have serious national security implications, both in terms of protecting his person and in allowing him to effectively serve as Commander-in-Chief, so the government could probably make a compelling case against putting a sitting President in prison. According to this Senate Report, the President will also continue to receive Secret Service protection once he leaves office, so long as he is not removed by Impeachment. There doesn't seem to be a provision against that protection if the President is in prison, so the Secret Service would be obliged to find a way to protect him while he is in prison. Most likely this would mean he would be put in an isolated prison wing, possibly with Secret Service protecting his section.
Art II, Sec 2, Cl 1 of The Constitution says of the president "and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment". The Constitution does not state any further restrictions on the presidential power, and there are no statutory limits, because, as observed in Ex parte Garland, 71 U.S. 333 The power of pardon conferred by the Constitution upon the President is unlimited except in cases of impeachment. It extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment. The power is not subject to legislative control. Accordingly, presidents have written pardons on and with numerous different writing instruments. Insofar as there are no constitutional restrictions beyond the aforementioned, it is not required that a pardon be signed, or that it be on a tangible semi-permanent medium. It is impossible to know what such a pardon tweet would look like, beyond the limit on length. The one place where a presidential signature is required is under the Presentment Clause, that when presented with a bill that passed the two houses of Congress, "If he approve he shall sign it". Such a signature need not be actually written by the president, it may and often is written by an autopen. The question of the legality of autopen signatures for bills has not been presented to SCOTUS, but the Department of Justice has issued an opinion (July 7, 2005) that it is legal. I have failed to locate a repository of presidential pardons (the actual documents), so I do not know if, so far, all presidential pardons were written down and signed, though I would expect it to be so. The Arpaio pardon was signed (or auto-signed), likewise Obama's final mass-pardon on Jan 17, and previous Obama pardons were, but pre-Obama, DOJ does not provide any document.
The Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination applies only in criminal trials, but it permits a witness to refuse to answer a question in either criminal or civil cases, including in a deposition. If he had committed crimes or thought that his answers might have incriminated him, he should have declined to answer. I'm not terribly familiar with this case, but it occurs to me that a lot of the allegations against Cosby go pretty far back; it could be that he was talking about something so far back that he wasn't exposed to any criminal liability. In a case like that, it may even be that a judge had already ordered him to answer the question. Assuming that he voluntarily answered the question, he has waived his right against self-incrimination and the testimony is generally admissible.