If you give him a chance, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) — a former Texas solicitor general and, as his former Harvard Law professors Alan Dershowitz and Lawrence Tribe will attest, a brilliant constitutional law student — will tell you that he has argued before the Supreme Court nine times. According to his campaign site, Cruz "is dedicated to upholding the rule of law and preserving the Constitution." But if you ask him, as The Weekly Standard's Haley Byrd did on Monday, if the president of the United States has the legal right to pardon himself, as Trump claims, Cruz might wait a full, awkward 18 seconds to tell you that "this is not a constitutional issue I've studied, so I will withhold judgment at this point."
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