Sorry I hope this doesn’t go against the no politics rule. I promise this isn’t meant to be partisan but rather questions on legality for purely curiosity sake. But if it is please remove and I understand.
Is there a limit to US presidential power when it comes to pardons? Can it be used for any crime in the US or are there some things it cannot?
For example, if someone were to hypothetically carry out an assassination on a sitting president (any president, this is just a thought exercise), they would be sentenced to death most likely. But let’s say that the person was hired by the sitting VP. Assassin takes out the president, VP becomes president, then pardons assassin.
Based on current laws, could that happen? What other bizarre uses could happen?
Please keep this non-political per the rules.
Presidential pardons in the US only apply to federal crimes, not state crimes. In your situation the assassin could theoretically be pardoned of treason, sedition, hate crime, or whatever applied federally. But murder is a felony in all 50 states and DC, so the president would not be able to pardon that.
Theoretically, it seems second degree murder can be subject to a pardon… https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-pardons-two-police-officers-convicted-murder-black-man-washington-2025-01-23
From the office of the pardon attorney: https://www.justice.gov/pardon/clemency-grants-president-donald-j-trump-2025-present
January 22, 2025 - 2 Pardons
NAME and WARRANT DISTRICT SENTENCED OFFENSE Terence Dale Sutton, Jr. District of Columbia 66 months imprisonment; three years supervised release Murder in second degree; conspiracy; obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting Andrew Zabavsky District of Columbia 48 months imprisonment; three years supervised release Conspiracy; obstruction of justice and aiding and abettingThis is probably just because it’s DC. The rules get really muddy there. For a long time the highest elected position in DC was head of the school board, and even though ostensibly there’s “home rule” now, Congress still loves to punish the local populace by overriding anything they think scores points with their base back in Idaho. If you get convicted of a felony in DC you actually get transferred to federal prison.
To be clear, DC is a federal territory, not a state, so it doesn’t matter who their highest local elected official is. The only official with pardon power in federal territory is POTUS.
Even if there were, would the current administration respect it? Of course not.
If we assume a presidential pardon takes 3 seconds with the words “I pardon you” given by the president himself, assuming they need to sleep 8 hours a day and will only stay one term (four years), the limit that a president can pardon is 28,050,624 times. The president can pardon multiple people at once to bypass this limitation, but a president that considers this as a limitation of their powers will likely never get elected.
However if we move the idea towards its strength, it doesn’t extend to violation of state laws. I have no idea how US law works, but I’m certain assasinating the president violates states law, so no.
Lol, could you imagine if the president just came out on a live broadcast and said, “I pardon everyone currently convicted of a federal crime”
