We have written before about what Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, calls the Trump Paradox: "Everything the president of the United States says must be taken seriously; nothing that Donald Trump says can be taken seriously."

The Trump Paradox applies, in spades, to what the president tweeted Monday morning: "As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong ...?"

The claim of absolute executive immunity is — in the words of Trump lawyer Rudolph Giuliani — "unthinkable" because it invites immediate impeachment. The president is not a monarch nor a dictator. He is not above the law.

The framers of the Constitution — who had just rid themselves of a king — never envisioned such a power. Scholars disagree about shades of meaning within clauses within the Constitution, and Trump is right: There are a handful of respected legal scholars, even some from the left, who agree with him. But no court would recognize such a claim and Congress would rebel.

Still, the Trump Paradox is in effect, so nothing is off the table.

Trump has never demonstrated any understanding of the constitutional limits on the presidency. He has treated the office as an extension of his real estate empire, where what he says goes, even if it's patently false and possibly illegal. Of late, he and his lawyers have read the president's constitutional mandate to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" to mean that he is the nation's chief law enforcement officer.

As such, they argue, he can call off FBI investigations of his friends or order one of his enemies. He could wave off FBI agents working for a special prosecutor appointed to investigate whether a foreign nation colluded with his presidential campaign. If done with corrupt motives, that could amount to obstruction of justice, which history shows to be an impeachable offense.

But in a January letter to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, published last weekend by The New York Times, Trump's lawyers argued that "by virtue of his position as the chief law enforcement officer," Trump cannot obstruct justice "because that would amount to him obstructing himself."

Clearly Mueller's investigation has Trump rattled. Former campaign aides and personal associates have been indicted, copped pleas or are under investigation. Trump's lawyers have undermined sworn testimony the president's son, Donald Jr., gave before Congress. If this is a "witch hunt," it's a witch-rich environment.

Trump has been experimenting with his pardon powers of late, as if to say, "Hang tough, boys." If he starts issuing pardons to cover his tracks, he'll plunge the nation into a constitutional crisis the likes of which not even Richard Nixon imagined.

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