DEMS/INVESTIGATIONS/NEW YORK/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “With their new monopoly on power in the Legislature, Democrats have seized the opportunity to highlight their opposition to the Trump administration in several policy areas, including access to abortion, immigrant rights, gun control and election reform. So far, however, they have not confronted the New Yorker in the White House on a more direct and personal level. But there are signs a confrontation may be near, particularly over the president’s potential use of his pardon power. President Donald Trump’s adversaries are hoping to use the levers they alone possess because the president is a New York resident and (presumably) a taxpayer, in the same way that the Southern District of New York has unique power to investigate the president’s financial dealings…In Albany, in addition to the possible challenge to pardons Trump may issue, proposals have been floated on subjects dealing with the disclosure of Trump’s taxes and even the appearance of his name on public property. The federal government is barred from trying somebody twice for the same crime. But New York’s statute takes this further than is constitutionally necessary by saying state prosecutors can’t charge someone who has received a federal pardon with a related state crime.”
–Rebecca Morin, “Jay Inslee calls Trump’s wind energy doubts ‘moronic’,” Politico, March 4, 2019 1:06 pm