first, it's a very sorry state of affairs that the supreme court is probably even more partisan now than it was when it issued bush v. gore, in which the republican majority sided with the candidate they no doubt voted for on election day and covered it with logic so twisted it could be considered farce.
i have zero confidence in this court to find a thoughtful answer to this question.
second, it's plain that benedict donald's use of a self-pardon would be a flagrant abuse, an obvious obstruction of justice.
that said, constitutional questions should be answered not as one-offs, but to set precedent for future cases, so justices should consider different circumstances under which a self-pardon might happen.
on its face, the founders didn't want a corrupt government, and a self-pardon could allow a president to violate federal law with impunity. clearly the founders didn't want to grant anyone a license to do that.
however, note that the original intent of the pardon power was to give the president a check and balance against over-zealous prosecutors. remember that the english liked to lock up colonists they didn't like, and we owe much of the constitution and the bill of rights to the founder's efforts to prevent this.
so, what happens if an over-zealous prosecutor goes after the president and the president can't self-pardon? it seems that, either you have to allow a self-pardon or you have to give the president some other protection, e.g., to fire the prosecutor or to at least say that a sitting president can't be prosecuted (although that doesn't prevent a president from being locked up once out of office).
if a president does abuse a self-pardon, one might reason that at least the people can then vote that person out, or that congress could impeach and remove. remember, of course, the founders paid attention to institutional powers, and didn't really contemplate the current situation where a same-party congress might refuse to impeach and remove a president, no matter how horrendous.
i don't know that i have an answer to this.
like i said, i think it's actually an interesting constitutional question -- even though it would clearly be an abuse of power in the current situation.
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