FILE - In this May 20, 2014 file photo, conservative scholar and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza, left, accompanied by his lawyer Benjamin Brafman leaves federal court, in New York. President Donald Trump says... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this May 20, 2014 file photo, conservative scholar and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza, left, accompanied by his lawyer Benjamin Brafman leaves federal court, in New York. President Donald Trump says he will pardon conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza who pleaded guilty to campaign finance fraud.... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this May 20, 2014 file photo, conservative scholar and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza, left, accompanied by his lawyer Benjamin Brafman leaves federal court, in New York. President Donald Trump says he will pardon conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza who pleaded guilty to campaign finance fraud.... (Associated Press) FILE - In this May 20, 2014 file photo, conservative scholar and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza, left, accompanied by his lawyer Benjamin Brafman leaves federal court, in New York. President Donald Trump says... (Associated Press) 
 
 WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on President Donald Trump's consideration of pardons and sentence commutations (all times local): 
 
 12:05 p.m. 
 
 President Donald Trump says he is considering commuting the sentence of ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich and pardoning Martha Stewart. 
 
 The comments came aboard Air Force One on Thursday after he announced on Twitter that he planned to pardon conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza. 
 
 Trump tells reporters that Blagojevich said something dumb but that "lots of politicians" do and thinks his sentence is excessive. 
 
 The Democratic former governor began serving his 14-year prison sentence on corruption convictions in 2012. His scheduled release date is 2024. Blagojevich was also a contestant on Trump's "Celebrity Apprentice" reality television show in 2010. 
 
 Stewart was convicted in 2004 of obstructing justice and lying to the government about why she unloaded stock just before the price plummeted. 
 
 Trump says she "used to be one of my biggest fans." 
 
 ___ 
 
 10:10 a.m. 
 
 President Donald Trump says he will pardon conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza, who pleaded guilty to campaign finance fraud. 
 
 Trump tweeted Thursday: "Will be giving a Full Pardon to Dinesh D'Souza today. He was treated very unfairly by our government!" 
 
 In 2014, D'Souza was sentenced to five years of probation after he pleaded guilty to violating federal election law by making illegal contributions to a U.S. Senate campaign in the names of others. ||||| Recently pardoned conservative filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza wasted no time before mocking the man who put him away following his full pardon by President Trump on Thursday. 
 
 “KARMA IS A BITCH DEPT: @PreetBharara wanted to destroy a fellow Indian American to advance his career. Then he got fired & I got pardoned,” D’Souza tweeted at Bharara, former United States attorney for the Southern District of New York. 
 
 Bharara indicted D’Souza in 2014 for using “straw donors” to funnel $20,000 to Wendy Long’s 2012 US Senate campaign in New York. D’Souza pleaded guilty and was sentenced to eight months in a halfway house and five years’ probation​, along with a $30,000 fine. 
 
 Trump fired Bharara, appointed by President Barack Obama, after he refused to resign last year. 
 
 The former prosecutor tweeted earlier Thursday that he stands by the conviction. 
 
 “The President has the right to pardon but the facts are these: D’Souza intentionally broke the law, voluntarily pled guilty, apologized for his conduct & the judge found no unfairness. The career prosecutors and agents did their job. Period,” he tweeted. ||||| Trump: 'I have the absolute right to pardon myself' 8:40 AM ET Tue, 5 June 2018 | 01:00 
 
 President Donald Trump said Monday he has "the absolute right" to pardon himself — but added that he has "done nothing wrong." 
 
 The tweet followed The New York Times' publication of a confidential letter over the weekend, in which Trump's lawyers argued to special counsel Robert Mueller that the president's broad powers mean he could not have obstructed justice. 
 
 The 20-page letter also suggested that the president even wields the constitutional ability to exercise the pardon power in matters related to the special counsel's probe of the links between the Trump campaign and Russia. 
 
 The assertion that a U.S. president holds an "absolute" power to pardon himself was endorsed on Sunday by Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York and a current member of Trump's legal team. 
 
 Read more: Trump lays out two rationales for pardoning himself in the Mueller probe 
 
 In an ABC News interview, Giuliani said Trump "probably does" have the power to pardon himself, though "he has no intention" of doing so. 
 
 In word and action, Trump's latest uses of the pardon power could hold implications for how the president plans to act as the Russia probe, and the numerous lawsuits it has spawned, move forward. 
 
 Trump exercised his power to pardon last week for a sixth time, for conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D'Souza, who was convicted of making an illegal campaign contribution. In a tweet, Trump said D'Souza "was treated very unfairly by our government!" 
 
 Later that day, Trump told reporters he was considering pardoning celebrity lifestyle guru Martha Stewart and was considering commuting the sentence of ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich of Illinois. He said both also had been treated "unfairly." 
 
 Stewart was convicted in 2004 and sentenced to five months for a conviction related to a stock-selling scheme. Blagojevich, a Democrat, was sentenced in 2011 to 14 years in prison on corruption convictions, including trying to trade the Senate seat that became vacant when President Barack Obama went to the White House. Stewart and Blagojevich had ties to Trump's "Celebrity Apprentice" reality TV show. 
 
 But Trump's latest tweets suggest he may be considering pardons for the very people who could be offering information about him to federal investigators. 
 
 In just over a year, the special counsel has issued more than a dozen indictments, against Russians accused of working to affect the 2016 election as well as former Trump campaign officials, such as former campaign chief Paul Manafort. 
 
 Mueller's team has also secured guilty pleas from Trump's first national security advisor, Michael Flynn, and Manafort's longtime associate, Rick Gates, among others. Both men have agreed to fully cooperate with the probe. 
 
 No president has ever pardoned themselves. But a Justice Department memorandum from 1974 — shortly before the resignation of President Richard Nixon — asserted that the president did not possess such a power. 
 
 "Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the President cannot pardon himself," Mary Lawton, former acting assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel, said in the memorandum. 
 
 Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor who runs a commutations clinic at the University of St. Thomas, said the most controversial legal question is not the pardon itself, but what comes after. 
 
 "He can issue himself a pardon warrant. There is nothing to stop him from doing so," Osler said. "The question is what happens next. It could be that it could not be challenged until a prosecutor presented a charge against him, and he relied on the pardon as a defense." 
 
 Trump attacked the legal legitimacy of the special counsel in a follow-up tweet. Mueller's team, which was appointed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in May 2017, is "totally UNCONSTITUTIONAL," Trump said. 
 
 The president maintained in both tweets that he has done "nothing wrong." 
 
 Numerous Trump campaign associates and other individuals have been interviewed as part of Mueller's investigation. While Trump has previously said he would like to participate in an interview, the letter argues that the special counsel must meet a high standard to prove that only the president himself could provide the information they seek. 
 
 The special counsel is also looking into whether an obstruction of justice occurred as part of the investigations into Russian meddling and possible collusion with the Trump campaign. 
 
 But Trump's lawyers contend in the letter that the commander in chief "could neither constitutionally nor legally constitute obstruction because that would amount to him obstructing himself, and that he could, if he wished, terminate the inquiry, or even exercise his power to pardon if he so desired." 
 
 A spokesman for the special counsel declined to comment on Trump's tweets. The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment. 
 
 --CNBC's Tucker Higgins contributed to this report.
– President Trump made big news Thursday through his power to issue pardons and commute sentences. First, he announced that he would issue a full pardon to conservative firebrand Dinesh D'Souza, who once pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations. Hours later came two higher-profile names: Trump told reporters on Air Force One that he might pardon Martha Stewart and free former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich from prison, reports the AP. Details and developments: D'Souza: "He was treated very unfairly by our government!" Trump tweeted. In 2014, D'Souza received five years' probation and a $30,000 fine after prosecutors say he used "straw donors," reports the Washington Post. That is, prosecutors say he got people to donate money to the GOP New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in 2012 with the understanding that he would reimburse them. His background: The 57-year-old is a best-selling author and filmmaker who was one of President Obama's most vocal critics. He also went after Hillary Clinton frequently. See this trailer for his Hillary's America for a taste. He has a "penchant for trolling and needling liberals," writes Dylan Matthews in a profile at Vox. D'Souza has long maintained that he was prosecuted because of his politics, and he was gloating publicly at the expense of former US attorney Preet Bharara Thursday, notes the New York Post, which collects the related tweets.