According to the Supreme Court's 2024 decision, the president most likely has complete criminal immunity, but the payer may be imprisoned for bribery or conspiracy. This creates an odd asymmetry in the current legal system. This situation isn't speculative. Justice Sotomayor wrote bluntly in her dissent in Trump: "Bribe for a pardon? Immune. Immune. Immune.
The legislative branch has not been inactive. At least one bill in the 119th Congress (S. 5256) aims to add "any pardon, commutation, or reprieve, or the offer of such pardon, commutation, or reprieve" as an example of an "official act" under § 201 and to specifically include the president and vice president in the definition of "public official" for bribery purposes. A startling clause in the bill states that a presidential self-pardon would be "void and of no legal effect."
However, a fundamental question still needs to be answered: Is a pardon obtained by bribery legitimate in and of itself?
Legal scholarship leads to an unsettling conclusion. Albert Alschuler examined the historical record in a 2021 law review article and discovered that no case had determined whether a pardon "remains effective when the recipient paid cash for it." In other words, even if the payer is found guilty, the purchased pardon might still be valid because, according to current law, the legality of the pardon's acquisition and its validity are two distinct issues.
This leads to an unsettling closed loop: money can buy freedom, but the pardon itself may still be hanging on the wall even though the buyer may go to jail for it. Additionally, the Supreme Court's precedents and the Constitution have combined to create an almost impenetrable barrier for the president.
Depending on your stance on the transaction, selling pardons could be legal or illegal. The law is unambiguous, severe, and uncompromising for the buyer. The law is unclear, enshrouded in layers of immunity, and possibly unreachable for the seller. This imbalance is a critique of the American legal system in and of itself: who is the law protecting when the highest official can legally do something that makes everyone else involved criminals?