In a formerly secret letter to the office of Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller, counsel for the U.S. president argued that he, President Trump, had the inherent power to, if need be, pardon himself.

We are in a madhouse.

The argument is a stunning one but it’s been coming since election day. Trump and his lawyers have essentially embraced the argument advanced by former-president Richard Nixon, who, in an interview with the late David Frost, argued when a president does it, it’s legal. Watergate cast that idea into the trash can of history — until now — that presidents, like kings, are above the law.

In 1974, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Nixon, as in Richard Nixon, the president, that no one, not even the President of the United States, is above the law.

But King Donald I, heeds another law — the law of power, the law of privilege, the law of wealth. You think he or his lawyers give a fig about the Supreme Court? They serve King Donald and he serves himself.

Imagine the scene: “I, Donald Trump, hereby pardon Donald Trump.” Signed, Donald Trump. We are in a madhouse, one of America’s own making: The King Donald Trump Show.

— Live from a prison nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.

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Mumia’s commentaries appear in collaboration with Prison Radio. You can listen to Mumia read this and all of his columns at prisonradio.org.

Photo: King Donald. Credit: Andrea Hanks/White House.