New York’s Double-Jeopardy Loophole
The state attorney general asked the legislature to change state law so that the president or his associates could be tried in New York even if pardoned under federal law.
New York state has long functioned as the ace up the sleeve of President Trump’s critics.
The reasoning goes like this: Trump could attempt to pardon people implicated in the Russia probe, whether Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, or someone else, thus preventing a trial or perhaps insulating himself from legal ramifications. The vast discretion affording the chief executive in the pardon power would allow the president to short-circuit accountability. However, the pardon power only applies to federal laws, so another jurisdiction could haul figures like Cohen and Manafort, or even potentially Trump himself, into state court. Practically speaking, that would probably happen in New York,
