The Presidential pardon power in the Constitution reads:
… shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of impeachment.
Most people interpret this to mean that a President cannot pardon somebody who has been impeached. But I’m not so sure that is actually the intended meaning. Imagine the case of a judge being impeached. Does this mean the President could pardon that judge before the Senate holds a trial? Or does it mean that if the Senate convicts, the President could “pardon” that conviction, thereby putting the judge back in office and restoring his right to hold future office?
Maybe, but that seems awkward at minimum and illogical on the face of it. Impeachment isn’t a criminal proceeding. It is political. Being found guiltily in an impeachment trial isn’t a judicial action and doesn’t carry a criminal punishment. It only includes sanctions about the ability to keep or receive a (political) office. So the concept of “pardoning an impeachment” just doesn’t make a lot of sense.
I would suggest the actual intended meaning could be that once impeached, the President cannot pardon anybody until the Senate tries the impeachment. That would actually make a lot of sense because if a person is being impeached, it is for high crimes (by definition) and it is perfectly reasonable that a person in that position should not have the power to bribe witnesses with pardons.
So, perhaps by the end of the day, Trump will no longer have a pardon power. I would further speculate that nobody is talking about that yet because they don’t want Trump to rush out and pardon 1000 people this afternoon. My humble prediction (and maybe I am completely off base here) is that tomorrow morning, you will here a whole lot of people saying that Trump no longer can pardon anybody for the rest of his term. He can’t pardon his kids. He can’t pardon the Proud Boys. He can’t pardon Guiliani. And he can’t pardon himself.
And further, I suggest this is the PRIMARY reason for Pelosi pushing the impeachment process so hard — in other words, this is the MAIN thing Pelosi is trying to achieve — stop the wave of pardons of the worst criminals.
I freely admit this is speculation. We will know tomorrow morning.