Putting this aside, for someone like Trump, who always looks to exploit whatever flaws or loopholes exist in a law, it's a no-brainer that he would take the option of the frankly crazy rule that the President has the power to pardon any federal crimes without any constraint barring in cases of impeachment.

But I find it unbelievable that a President could even have the ability to pardon hinself. I also find it unbelievable that it takes many more votes to remove a Supreme Court Justice from the bench than it does to appoint/confirm one.

Believe it.  It takes a simple majority vote of the 100 member US Senate to confirm a Supreme Court justice - it would take a 2/3 vote of that same body to remove one (i.e. conviction in a court of impeachment).

Also, re: presidential pardons - when Nixon was contemplating pardoning himself (and it's a little known fact that he was) - the US Department of Justice issued a non-binding legal opinion that it would be unconstitutional for a president to do so; apparently this was enough to scare Nixon away from trying.  

For the purposes of discussing the repercussions of pardons, Peter brings up the important Supreme Court case of Burdick v United States - I have to remind everyone, including myself, that what we are contending with TODAY is a TOTALLY different US Supreme Court.  In addition to Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito (two VERY far right judges) - you now have no less than three Trump appointed justices: Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett.  If I still remember my Kindergarten math, that makes 5 out of 9 - a majority.

As Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes said: "the Constitution is what the judges say it is."  

Marc

If Trump does try it, I hope any valid prosecutions proceed anyway, so that where (if) there is genuine guilt, it is firmly established.

On the same note, is the lifetime sitting of the judges in the constitution mandatory or again just convention? Getting rid of the lifetime appointments would solve lots of your problems. 

--------------------------------

The wording of the Constitution says they shall hold their offices during good behaviour. In other words, there is no term limit -- it's as long as they want to keep doing it, so long as they haven't been naughty enough for congress to remove them.

In terms of numbers on the Supreme Court, the constitution doesn't say anything about how it should be organised... It's basically left up to Congress.

So the number is determined by whatever the Judiciary Act says. That has been changed a number of times between the first Judiciary Act in 1789 and the last time it was amended, which was 1869 . It was originally 6, but has been as low as 5, as high as 10 and the current 9 was set in the Judiciary Act of 1869.

So in theory there is nothing to preclude Congress amending the Judiciary Act to alter that number, but in practice I would think that is unlikely without a very good reason (i.e. something above and beyond the opportune wants of party politics), simply because that law has stood and seemed to work perfectly well for so long.

Lots of talk about succession these days.  

It’s becoming clear that the MAGAts and hard right conservatives are not going to go along to get along anymore.  Every election they lose they will probably react like they are now. 

Would it really be so bad if they went away so Trump could be their leader forever?  What’s the downside?