Conservative groups influential with the Trump administration have pressed for the preemptive acts of clemency.
There’s a world of difference between a pardon issues to prevent malicious prosecution for non-crimew and one issued to people you’ve been instructing to commit crimes
Gosh, so weird. I would think the most bestest and most transparent admin in history would not need any kind of pardons?
Pardons for…what?
Pardon’s must be nullified. You cannot pardon betraying the constitution or you invite future attempts.
I agree with you but changing the president’s ability to pardon crimes, an absurdly broad power, would require an amendment to the Constitution. I’m afraid that do so is a political impossibility right now. There are frankly too many criminals in office at all levels of government that would do everything they can to impede any such attempt. Trump has already pardoned his followers who betrayed the Constitution and committed treason on Jan-6 and I’ve heard only a peep or two about trying to limit the president’s power of clemency.
So what you’re saying is that you can’t think of any solution that doesn’t include violence?
Where did I suggest violence would work? I agreed that I felt the power of the pardon was too broad and said that I don’t see a viable solution. That doesn’t equal burn everything down.
What is the second solution?
If there is a huge problem that has no solution within the law, that means the problem will not be solved while the law is in place.
So what is the second solution?
You are putting words in my mouth. I never suggested there was a “second solution” that I was advocating for. I specifically said I agreed with the other poster that the power of the pardon was too broad but the Constitution cannot be changed in the current political climate. How does that equate to me advocating violence?
People say getting rid of the pardon power takes a constitutional amendment… Y’all are not being creative enough like Republicans.
Just have the next president tell the Supreme Court to reinterpret pardons as unconstitutional. If they refuse tell them they you will assassinate any who refuse as an official act.
We can go further: Now that the supreme Court has rules that presidents have immunity for all official acts, the next president could simply imprison the pardoned officials. In fact, the next president should dismiss and replace the Supreme Court justices who voted to give presidents complete immunity, so that the precedent can be reverted.
They can still testify.
Republicans aren’t real good about showing up when subpoenaed to testify.
A pardon is an admittance of criminality and guilt.
They should’ve treated as criminals until they make amends to society.
I don’t agree with that necessarily when people cheer to lock someone up without a cause. Like if a president came forward and pardoned say all the people who have immigrated to this country for any previous issues while filing out immigration paperwork, such as typos name changes, and so on then it isn’t directly to cover for guilt, but rather to protect a group of people from harassment.
Edit then you can institute a review process and further assistance while submitting such paperwork in the future and it could mitigate witch hunts and mistreatment of people
I hear what you are saying, but legally that isn’t how it works. The previous commenter is correct, legally speaking in the US. A pardon is absolutely an admission of guilt.
There are ways around this. You can submit an Alford Plea at your original trial, which again would still indicate guilt under the law, but is a way that a defendant can legally enter into the record that they are “innocent of the charges, but due to circumstances beyond their control, one will submit to the punishment.”
IANYL. I don’t know how this would actually play out inside the bureaucracy.
No a pardon doesn’t have to do with guilt. Guilt is depicted by a judge/jury or by taking a plea deal. A pardon can occur before charges are even filed, and one cannot be declared guilty until a conviction is made… Which would never come to be.
So legally yes, that’s exactly how it works. If Trump pardons Kushner for using U.S. funds and negotiating on behalf of the U.S. like Kushners lawyer recognized he was the signatory on an account holding $770 million dollars but did not make any decisions without Trump approval.
No charges have yet been brought against him. If said pardon goes through it doesnt mean he actually did anything wrong… it means he won’t have to appear in a federal court and explain where/when he turned over access to those accounts when Trump left office(he likely never did)
But in the U.S. you are innocent until proven guilty, and in such a case… He wasn’t proven guilty.
According to Associate Justice Joseph McKenna, writing the majority opinion in the U.S. Supreme Court case Burdick v. United States, a pardon is “an imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it.”
According to US legal precedent a pardon carries with it the implication that you are guilty, and can therefore be refused to allow an innocent conviction. Skipping the trial also skips the presumption of innocence.
The presidential pardon needs to be abolished.
Elect me as president. I’ll start pardoning whistleblowers and antifa. They’ll abolish it within a week.
It’s almost like the writers of the Constitution got tired of arguing after a certain point and did not care about looking deeper at many of the provisions that could easily be abused.
I don’t see them as the deep thinkers others do. They had grievances for the times and it’s clear that the works are all driven by those grievances and not for a long lasting society.
Almost like they were human. Is it better for them to just be ideal symbols than something real and complicated?
