The legal nuances of the President of the United States pardoning himself don't seem to rankle Republican Senator James Lankford as much as the fact that the administration is talking about it at all. "It's really an odd conversation, quite frankly, out of the White House, to be talking about presidential pardons when the whole time you're saying 'I didn't do anything,'" Lankford, Oklahoma's junior senator, told Cheddar's J.D. Durkin on Tuesday. In [a tweet](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1003616210922147841) the day before, President Trump said, "I have the absolute right to pardon myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong?" The statement touched off a constitutional debate over presidential powers. "It seems weird to suddenly have this switch-up message coming from the White House," Lankford said, adding: "I think the White House should be focused on getting information out." As a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Lankford said that information should be included in a bipartisan report on exactly what happened during the 2016 presidential campaign, and put an end to the speculation over Russian involvement in the election. That includes concluding the work of the special counsel, Robert Mueller. "At the end of the day, let's get the facts out there, because the nation has to move on," Lankford said. For more, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/republican-senators-frustrated-by-budget-appropriations-process).

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Embattled Fed Gov. Lisa Cook says she’ll sue Trump to keep her job
Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook's lawyer says she'll sue President Donald Trump's administration to try to prevent him from firing her. Longtime Washington attorney Abbe Lowell said Tuesday that Trump “has no authority to remove” Cook. If Trump succeeds in removing Cook from the Fed's board of governors, it could erode the Fed’s political independence, which is considered critical to its ability to fight inflation because it enables the Fed to take unpopular steps like raising interest rates. The Republican president said Monday he was removing Cook because of allegations she committed mortgage fraud. Cook was appointed by Democratic President Joe Biden in 2022 and says she won't step down.
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