He wouldn’t really say one way or the other – and it didn’t come off like he was prepared to answer the question…

There is a meme of sorts going around the internet that for Hillary to be pardoned she’d have to be charged with something; that isn’t true. When Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon he hadn’t been charged with anything. A pardon can be of a blanket variety and cover all acts within a time period or subject matter.

But it’s a larger issue than that. The whole question of Hillary and her prospective pardon is absolutely fascinating.

Really fascinating. Because a pardon isn’t a lifetime get out of jail free card; anything illegal Hillary might do after the pardon is granted would be prosecutable. And if she gets pardoned, she no longer has 5th Amendment protection if she’s called as a witness before Congress or in front of a grand jury – or a jury.

And all you need is a new set of folks at Main Justice and/or the Eastern District of New York, the DOJ office where Obama’s corrupt Attorney General Loretta Lynch used to work and has left behind a cadre of partisan hacks who to date have blocked the FBI’s Clinton Foundation investigation from returning charges, and you’ll have that grand jury empaneled.

So unless Obama wants to pardon practically everybody in the Democrat Party and Clinton machine, there is still a very active and potentially fruitful investigation into both her e-mails and the Clinton Foundation with lots of potential defendants.

Huma Abedin, for example. Cheryl Mills. Doug Band. Bill Clinton. Chelsea Clinton. John Podesta. The list goes on.

So let’s say Obama pardons Hillary Clinton, and only Hillary Clinton. And she gets called to testify at a trial where Band and Abedin are defendants, for example.

Now that pardon is more a liability than an asset. Now she’s under oath and she starts getting asked some extremely uncomfortable questions about pay-for-play and bribery, and perhaps connections between the Clinton Foundation and Democrat National Committee, etc. She starts having to answer for a whole web of potential corruption that could open up half the Democratic Party establishment to legal problems.

And how does she handle this? She can’t take the 5th. She has to answer, or it’s contempt of court and maybe even obstruction of justice. She can’t lie, because that’s perjury. And the pardon can’t save her.

And what if the investigation ends up uncovering connections to the White House? If pardoning Hillary Clinton loosens her lips to implicate Valerie Jarrett, or even the president himself, it could be a signature mistake for Obama to pardon her.

Whereas not pardoning Hillary means she’s going to clam up and block the investigation as best she can, and if the Trump DOJ can get her they’re probably happy with that scalp and don’t look into the White House connections.

It’s fascinating, depending on how much meat is on the bone here and who is actually involved. What seems fairly clear is that a pardon doesn’t solve all the problems the Clintons have created for themselves and their party.