WASHINGTON _ President Donald Trump asserted for the first time Monday that he has "the absolute right" to pardon himself, a marker laid down in a tweet on the morning of his 500th day in office.
Minutes later, he fired off another new claim: that the appointment of the special counsel for the Russia investigation, Robert S. Mueller III, is "totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL."
"The appointment of the Special Councel (sic) is totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL! Despite that, we play the game because I, unlike the Democrats, have done nothing wrong!" the president tweeted.
That attack on Mueller, who was named just over a year ago by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, Trump's appointee, followed a tweet in which Trump wrote, "As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong?"
That initial tweet is something of a response to a report Saturday in the New York Times of a letter written by two of Trump's lawyers, who argued in January that the president's powers are so broad as to make it impossible for him to have obstructed justice.
Many legal experts subsequently challenged that assertion. On television on Sunday, Trump's own lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was less emphatic on the subject of the president's pardoning power, suggesting that Trump might have the authority to pardon himself but would be unwise to actually do so.
"Pardoning himself would be unthinkable and probably lead to immediate impeachment," Giuliani said Sunday during an interview on NBC's "Meet The Press."
Trump, in his tweet, also reiterated his misleading criticism of the investigators working under the special counsel to probe Russia's interference in the 2016 campaign, possible cooperation by Trump associates and whether the president has obstructed justice during the ongoing investigation.
He wrote that "the never ending Witch Hunt, led by 13 very Angry and Conflicted Democrats (& others) continues into the mid-terms!"
Mueller is a registered Republican, as is Rosenstein. Several lawyers on the team are Democrats.
