It was readily apparent that the Tribune could have snagged this scoop only from someone with full knowledge of the inquiry at the U.S. Customs Service, which is under the administrative control of the U.S. Treasury Dept.

Rather than investigate the fraud allegation, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York instead charged that the paper had bribed someone at the U.S. Treasury Dept. to obtain its exclusive, and further convened a grand jury to investigate the matter and determine the source of the paper's information.

When the New York Tribune's city editor, George Burdick, and the paper's shipping news editor, William Curtin, were subpoenaed to testify, Burdick invoked his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination in refusing to reveal the source of his paper's information.

President Woodrow Wilson then sought to compel Burdick's testimony by issuing him an unconditional pardon, reasoning that by eliminating Burdick's criminal liability, any necessity for 5th Amendment protections on his part would be precluded:

"Now, therefore, be it known, that I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, in consideration of the premises, divers other good and sufficient reasons me thereunto moving, do hereby grant unto the said George Burdick a full and unconditional pardon for all offenses against the United States which he, the said George Burdick, has committed or may have committed, or taken part in, in connection with the securing, writing about, or assisting in the publication of the information so incorporated in the aforementioned article, and in connection with any other article, matter, or thing concerning which he may be interrogated in the said grand jury proceeding, thereby absolving him from the consequences of every such criminal act." (Emphasis is mine.)

George Burdick refused to accept Wilson's pardon, and once again declined to reveal his paper's source(s) to the grand jury. The presiding judge then fined Burdick $500, which was a not-insubstantial penalty in 1914, and ordered him jailed for contempt of court until he complied with the court's directive. The incarcerated editor appealed the judge's ruling, which eventually worked its way to SCOTUS in Washington, where the case was argued in August 1914.

Writing for the majority in January 1915, Supreme Court Justice Joseph McKenna determined that Burdick did not have to testify before the federal grand jury in New York, because he had every right to reject Wilson's pardon.

"It is to be borne in mind that the power of the President under the Constitution to grant pardons and the right of a witness must be kept in accommodation. Both have sanction in the Constitution, and it should, therefore, be the anxiety of the law to preserve both,-to leave to each its proper place. In this as in other conflicts between personal rights and the powers of government, technical-even nice-distinctions are proper to be regarded. Granting, then, that the pardon was legally issued and was sufficient for immunity, it was Burdick's right to refuse it, as we have seen; and it, therefore, not becoming effective, his right under the Constitution to decline to testify remained to be asserted; and the reasons for his action were personal. ... If it be objected that the sensitiveness of Burdick was extreme because his refusal to answer was itself an implication of crime, we answer, not necessarily in fact, not at all in theory of law. It supposed only a possibility of a charge of crime, and interposed protection against the charge, and, reaching beyond it, against furnishing what might be urged or used as evidence to support it."

"This brings us to the differences between legislative immunity and a pardon. They are substantial. The latter carries an imputation of guilt; acceptance a confession of it. The former has no such imputation or confession. It is tantamount to the silence of the witness. It is noncommittal. It is the unobtrusive act of the law given protection against a sinister use of his testimony, not like a pardon, requiring him to confess his guilt in order to avoid a conviction of it." (Emphasis is mine.)

McKenna further ruled on behalf of the majority that the government had no right to compel a witness to accept a pardon for the expressed purpose of then requiring him to testify in a criminal inquiry. He vacated the finding of contempt against George Burdick, and ordered his immediate release from federal custody.

In a legal opinion issued just four days before Nixon stepped down, the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel concluded that a president can't pardon himself. The opinion was written in response to concerns that he might try to do so.

"Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the president cannot pardon himself," wrote Mary Lawton, who was then acting assistant attorney general.

The "would likely be grounds" caveat does not comfort me, there is  no backstop for failure. What if he were to shoot Nancy Pelosi,  Steny Hoyer, Adam Schiff and maybe a couple of Never tRump Repugs? What if was really rich enough to buy off congress (and give them immunity)? What if he just dissolved congress? Rig or even cancel elections?

From my perspective, granted as an historian and not as an attorney, such an implied power runs completely counter to the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in July 1974 in U.S. v. Nixon, while affirming Chief Justice Marshall's contention in U.S. v. Burr (1807) that the president was "no ordinary individual," nevertheless ruled that:

"[T]he President's generalized assertion of privilege must yield to the demonstrated, specific need for evidence in a pending criminal trial and the fundamental demands of due process of law in the fair administration of criminal justice." (Emphasis is mine.)

This country has long operated under the premise that no one is above the law. Presidents are not absolute monarchs, and we're not playing a game of Monopoly. We rightly ought to be treading much more carefully here than some people apparently seem to be doing thus far, in their haste to undercut the Special Counsel's investigation into a very grave and compromising breach of national security, by which they'd preemptively grant Trump the authority to give himself and his cronies a "Get Out of Jail Free" card in this serious matter.

Further, we ought to consider Chief Justice Marshall's ruling in Marbury v. Madison (1801), in which he rightly asserted that it was the exclusive prerogative of the court to interpret federal law, and not that of any member of the executive branch or private citizen in the employ of an elected official. This point of contention needs to be tried in court, rather than conceded without contest in the realm of public opinion.

If "America's Mayor" can express his opinions, then so do I. And I think that Crazy Uncle Rudy is blowing smoke up America's a$$. I am not willing to cede any such authority to Trump & Co. on this matter without a fight, and you shouldn't be so quick to do so, either.

 Being your own judge and jury does seem to be off kilter for a democracy...it took a civil war in England to drive home the legal constraints of the Magna Carta, applicable to a King as well as a shopkeeper.