AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENTYou have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.News AnalysisThe deal the president reached with his own subordinates relies on a mechanism created by Congress that legal experts had warned was subject to manipulation.Listen · 9:57 min The addendum to the federal government’s settlement with President Trump flirted with a grave question: Can the president pardon himself?Credit...Eric Lee for The New York TimesMay 20, 2026, 12:41 p.m. ETIn January, on a flight to his Florida club Mar-a-Lago, President Trump mused about his $10 billion lawsuit against the I.R.S. “I’m supposed to work out a settlement with myself,” he said.Mr. Trump is a tough negotiator, and, looking in the mirror, he faced an equally tenacious adversary. But the president managed to work out a deal with himself on Monday, one as novel and brazen as the process that spawned it.He dropped his lawsuit, extracting from his own government a promise to create a $1.8 billion fund to dole out to his political allies. A day later, in a curious addendum, Todd Blanche, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer and the acting attorney general, purported to immunize him from lawsuits arising from a great many things, not least his tax liabilities.The government of the United States, Mr. Blanche wrote, is “forever barred and precluded” from pursuing claims against Mr. Trump involving “lawfare and/or weaponization” or tax returns.The whole enterprise was a jarring shock to the conventional understanding of the constitutional system, raising what legal experts said were profound questions about presidential power. If the arrangement is allowed to stand, they said, Mr. Trump will have managed simultaneously to thwart Congress’s power of the purse and the ability of the courts to police the separation of powers.Indeed, Tuesday’s addendum flirted with a grave question with no settled answer: Can the president pardon himself?Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.AdvertisementSKIP ADVERTISEMENT