The disconnect is that people are reading between the lines and, rightfully so, wondering "Why is he asking about the extent of his pardoning powers" and saying it looks bad, given the timing.
...except i agree with that. and have said so, repeatedly, that he's looking into it for Kushner and by extension, Ivanka.
StealThisSheen posted...
While you're just sitting there refusing to read between the lines and going "Trump's aides say he's just curious and isn't thinking about pardoning himself, so he's just curious and not thinking about pardoning himself."
no it's that the issue of the president issuing a pardon has very, very few limitations and the only explicit limits is about impeachment. it's a very small hop to go "wait so can the president pardon himself?" from that as just a throwaway question because everyone thinks "president" when they hear "impeachment." if you're seriously focused on this idea then congrats, you're falling for one of the stupidest ideas which has no basis of anything of why he's asking about pardons and not looking at the obvious answer of his son in law who's fucked in a big way right now.
the washington post states two people talked to them about this. the same two people who leaked this info to the washington post are the ones who said that it isn't him talking about himself. why would they leak the info and lie? if it raises questions for you then raise the questions to the right people, by targeting trump himself it looks silly and dumb.
You want to believe the aides. Okay. But the aides said that trump is the one who expressed this sudden interest. So unless I'm misunderstanding what you meant, then wouldn't targeting trump make sense here? Since he's the one who initiated this in the first place? ---