Pardon are US

Now that Biden has pardoned his son, Hunter, there is a move underfoot to pardon all the potential targets of Trump's vindictive wrath. There are about 60 people who may benefit, including Jack Smith, Marrack Garland, Elizabeth Cheney. Nancy Palosi--you know, the usual suspects.

About the only one that cannot be pardoned by Biden, is Biden himself. No president has issued one for himself. It is said Ford had made a secret deal with Richard Nixon to pardon him after he resigned. I do not think that has ever been proven.

Up till now, a pardon issued by a president can never be revoked. The question is, though, will Trump try to revoke the pardons of his potential targets, should they be issued.

Turning this around a bit. Trump has said he will pardon all those who were involved in the January 6, 2021 insurrection, plus all his other conspirators in other alleged crimes.

I can see this spiraling out of control at the end of every administration. Biden does it now, Trump does it later, next President writes everything off at the end of his/her/their administration.

More information here: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/12/04/biden-white-house-pardons-00192610

Should the line be crossed. What say you?
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Comments

  • I think if it was not for Trump, Biden would not be considering any of these pre-emptive pardons.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    edited December 2024
    Gramps49 wrote: »
    I can see this spiraling out of control at the end of every administration. Biden does it now, Trump does it later, next President writes everything off at the end of his/her/their administration.

    The whole "Trump does it later" ignores the fact that Donald Trump has already done it. He pardoned Roger Stone so Stone could be out of jail and helping organize January 6. He also pardoned Steve Bannon, George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, and a whole bevy of his own alleged co-conspirators on his way out the door. If the idea is that Biden granting a bunch of pardons to people that Trump has explicitly said he intends abuse his power to persecute is going to set off some out of control spiral it seems like yet another example of something only being a problem when Democrats do it.

    Has Donald Trump been president* before? Views apparently differ.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    If Biden wants us -- well, me -- to believe he's a good Catholic who cherishes every human life, he would commute the sentence of everyone on the federal death row.

    I don't care in the least that he's pardoned his son, and I'd be fine with pre-emptive pardons for anyone in Trump's sights. Dollars to doughnuts all those folks will endure investigations anyway.
  • If Biden does preemptive pardons. it will play right into the conservative media's hands: "See! Trump was right! They were unlawfully conspiring against him! Why else would they need pardons? All indictments against Trump should be dismissed forthwith because the pardons prove that he was illegally targeted blah blah blah blah..."

    I think it would be better for Biden to do nothing.

    What I recall was that, in 2016, Trump was shouting "Lock her up!" against Clinton...only to immediately lose interest in even trying once he got elected--because he never really gave a damn about Clinton. He just wanted some issue with legs to get him elected.

    Now, admittedly, we are dealing with a Trump who has been investigated and indicted and convicted, so maybe he will be more interested in pursuing vengeance. But it is possible that was just another schtick to get elected and that he is far more interested in getting his indictments dropped and convictions thrown out than in investigating anybody else.

    Basically, Trump says he wants vengeance, and he wants to investigate and imprison his political foes...and because Trump says it, I automatically assume it is all a lie. I suppose it is possible that he was telling the truth for once, but I'd rather see that proven first than to assume (contrary to evidence) that he is capable of telling the truth.
  • Kash Patel, Trump's nomination for FBI Director has said he will go after those who tried to prosecute Trump as well as other enemies. I think Patel will do what he says if he is approved.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries also has suggestions about who else should be pardoned: the working-class Americans in the federal prison system whose lives have been ruined by unjustly aggressive prosecutions for nonviolent offenses.

    Hedgehog wrote: »
    I think it would be better for Biden to do nothing.
    Adam Schiff agrees with you, and doesn't want to be pardoned in advance: "I would urge the president not to do that. I think it would seem defensive and unnecessary."
    Basically, Trump says he wants vengeance, and he wants to investigate and imprison his political foes...and because Trump says it, I automatically assume it is all a lie. I suppose it is possible that he was telling the truth for once, but I'd rather see that proven first than to assume (contrary to evidence) that he is capable of telling the truth.
    No politician does everything they say they're going to do, but Trump did do plenty of the things he said he would the first time he was in office. Here's a scorecard on key promises. He kept some of them: nominated someone for SCOTUS from his list; renegotiated NAFTA; raised tariffs; moved the US embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem; pulled the US out of the Paris climate agreement.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    I’m with Adam Schiff. There is a huge difference between political attacks re the alleged Jan 6 set up and anything that would stand up in a court of law.
  • Ah, but whose you-know-what are the courts, especially the Supreme Court, kissing nowadays?

    I'm sure Biden doesn't give a flying f--- about what anyone might think of his pardoning his son or anyone else, or of any pre-emptive pardons he might issue. Why should he? Especially when you consider who you-know-who has promised to pardon as soon as he has the power to do so.

    Biden should do everything in his power to thwart the spiteful, vindictive plans of you-know-who. If Adam Schiff doesn't want to accept a pardon, that's his business.
  • Barnabas62Barnabas62 Shipmate, Host Emeritus
    It would be Washington DC for any trial re January 6. And I just cannot see any Washington jury finding any of the Jan 6 committee guilty of anything. I’m not sure that any Washington Grand Jury would indict, regardless of the ham sandwich test.

    Dr Fauci is also a target apparently but that also looks like an issue for a Washington court.
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Kash Patel, Trump's nomination for FBI Director has said he will go after those who tried to prosecute Trump as well as other enemies. I think Patel will do what he says if he is approved.

    A couple of things here. First, the FBI director serves a statutory 10 year term and theoretically should only be fired for cause. This was put into place to help promote the FBI's theoretical political neutrality after the abused of the Hoover years. (J. Edgar, not Herbert.) Christopher Wray, the current FBI director, is not due to leave his position until 2027. Of course Wray is only in his current job because Trump fired James Comey and installed Wray. I would hope that Trump's eventual nominee for Attorney General gets grilled extensively on the independence of the FBI and whether Wray has done anything to merit dismissal.

    Anyway, one of the paths Biden could take in issuing a bunch of pardons that would short circuit good faith claims of partisanship (though I'm not sure any such claims would be made in good faith) would be to simply pardon everyone on Kash Patel's extensive enemies list except for Biden himself. There are a lot of Republicans on that list, many of them Trump appointees who locked horns with Patel during the previous Trump administration*.
  • What does the asterisk mean, @Crœsos?
  • Biden crossed the line. Now there is no line left.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    @sharkshooter, you'd leave your son to the tender mercies of Kash Patel?
  • Biden crossed the line. Now there is no line left.

    Which line?

    Did Republicans cross any lines in their prosecution of Hunter Biden?
  • Did the Chattanooga Choo Choo ever get a pardon ?
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    Telford wrote: »
    Did the Chattanooga Choo Choo ever get a pardon ?

    This doesn't even get the song right.
  • TelfordTelford Shipmate
    edited December 2024
    Ruth wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    Did the Chattanooga Choo Choo ever get a pardon ?

    This doesn't even get the song right.
    Your advice on how to get it right would be really appreciated
  • Ruth wrote: »
    @sharkshooter, you'd leave your son to the tender mercies of Kash Patel?

    My son is not a criminal.
  • She meant if you were Pres. Biden, @sharkshooter -- not if you were you.
  • I think it's pretty clear that Hunter Biden is not a great human, and much of his behavior leaves a considerable amount to be desired.

    Do I think he attracted more attention because he's the president's son than he would have attracted had he been some random scuzzy corrupt corporate nonentity? Yes. Do I care about that? Not all that much.

    Do I care about President Biden pardoning him? I can't say I'm all that surprised. I think it's wrong, although I can sympathize.
  • What's wrong about it?
  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    The_Riv wrote: »
    What's wrong about it?

    You shouldn't use your political power to benefit your family.
  • DafydDafyd Hell Host
    The_Riv wrote: »
    What's wrong about it?
    You shouldn't use your political power to benefit your family.
    There's a word for it.
    That said, I think the case is a little different if you reasonably believe that your political power may make your family a target for your political enemies.
  • I think that's a pretty detached and superficial view of this situation.
  • Biden crossed the line. Now there is no line left.
    Clinton pardoned his brother.
    Trump pardoned his son-in-law’s father (Charles Kushner).

    So what line exactly did Biden cross that eliminated the line?

    And what line exactly did Biden cross that was a bigger deal than Ford’s pardon of Nixon?


  • ArethosemyfeetArethosemyfeet Shipmate, Heaven Host
    The_Riv wrote: »
    I think that's a pretty detached and superficial view of this situation.

    If Hunter was being fitted up for crimes he didn't commit then pardoning him would be fair enough. The thing is that Hunter seems to have actually committed crimes, and is being allowed to get away with them.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    Telford wrote: »
    Ruth wrote: »
    Telford wrote: »
    Did the Chattanooga Choo Choo ever get a pardon ?
    This doesn't even get the song right.
    Your advice on how to get it right would be really appreciated
    Look up the lyrics. The singer is just saying "pardon me" the way one does before asking a question, not soliciting a pardon for the train.

    People use power of all kinds to benefit their families all the time. It would be weird if they didn't.

    Years ago I went to traffic school after getting a ticket for a moving violation, back when traffic school took a whole day in person. It was led by a police officer, who late in the afternoon talked about when someone would and would not get a ticket if pulled over by a traffic cop. He called on people, asking, "If a cop observed a clear moving violation and pulled the driver over and it turned out to be their mom/friend/cousin [different example for each person], would the cop give them a ticket?" Each person dutifully said yes. After going through this ritual question and answer four or five times, he laughed and poked fun at each of them, saying of course a cop wouldn't give a ticket to any of these people.
  • Ruth wrote: »
    People use power of all kinds to benefit their families all the time. It would be weird if they didn't.

    You seem to have misspelled "honest".

    Politicians, police officers and the like are entrusted with powers in order to serve the public good - not so they can be corrupt nepotistic scuzzballs.


  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    How many police officers would give a traffic ticket to their mom?
  • The_Riv wrote: »
    I think that's a pretty detached and superficial view of this situation.

    If Hunter was being fitted up for crimes he didn't commit then pardoning him would be fair enough. The thing is that Hunter seems to have actually committed crimes, and is being allowed to get away with them.

    Re: his federal tax charges, he pleaded guilty. That's not getting away with them, that's accepting responsibility for them. Punishment is an altogether different issue.

    Do family members of public servants relinquish any aspect of their citizenship when someone related to them is elected to office?

    Does the manner in which a person's wrongdoing is prosecuted matter?

    We have always held distinctions between the person and the office of the President. Your claim is that the person -- the father -- Joe Biden, pardoned his son. I submit the POTUS pardoned a son.
  • The_Riv wrote: »
    I think that's a pretty detached and superficial view of this situation.
    If Hunter was being fitted up for crimes he didn't commit then pardoning him would be fair enough. The thing is that Hunter seems to have actually committed crimes, and is being allowed to get away with them.

    As I noted elsewhere the Hunter Biden prosecution was pretty clearly a politically motivated abuse of prosecutorial discretion. You can find the details at the link in my other post, but the tl;dr version is that Hunter was convicted of crimes that are almost never prosecuted and also never carry a prison sentence for first time offenders without the kind of extenuating circumstances that don’t exist in this case.

    The first charge was tax evasion. In cases like this, where the accused is a first time offender who has already paid his back taxes and late penalties and fines before the trial starts a prosecution is almost never brought. It certainly doesn’t result in a custodial sentence. Should the U.S. be tougher on tax evaders? Probably. Should that toughness begin and end with Hunter Biden? Definitely not.

    The other offense is lying about being a drug addict on an application to buy a firearm. This is usually a sentence enhancer, only prosecuted when the addict uses the gun he bought in another, separate crime. I’ve never heard of it being prosecuted as a stand-alone offense. (The GOP finally found a white man they don’t think should own a gun.)

    So given all this and given that one of the purposes of the presidential pardon power is to correct miscarriages of justice, I’d say this is an example of using the pardon power for its intended purpose. It was the right thing to do regardless of whether the person involved was the president’s son.
  • And since when is the clemency power limited only to the factually innocent? Biden earlier granted a pardon to all 6,500 people currently serving federal sentences for non-violent drug offenses. Most of them were probably factually guilty of drug possession or similar. Likewise his pardon of everyone convicted of being gay while serving in the U.S. military. I’m sure most of them were factually guilty of actually being gay, but most people don’t argue that this was therefore an obvious abuse of the presidential pardon.
  • Ruth wrote: »
    People use power of all kinds to benefit their families all the time. It would be weird if they didn't.
    You seem to have misspelled "honest".
    You seem to be mixing apples and oranges. How is pardoning a family member “dishonest”? One may think it’s an abuse of power or lacks integrity, but unless there’s some kind of undisclosed deal or something like that, refraining from pardoning family members isn’t a matter of honesty.

    The relevant question is whether a pardon would be appropriate if the facts were the same except that the person being pardoned didn’t have the surname “Biden.” For the reasons @Crœsos has laid out, it seems clear to me that a pardon would be appropriate for anyone else in a similar position.


  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    Biden crossed the line. Now there is no line left.
    Clinton pardoned his brother.
    Trump pardoned his son-in-law’s father (Charles Kushner).

    So what line exactly did Biden cross that eliminated the line?

    And what line exactly did Biden cross that was a bigger deal than Ford’s pardon of Nixon?

    The thing that bothers me about this kind of pardon is the concept of a pardon for all crimes known and unknown over a period of time. It seems problematic from a rule-of-law perspective, whether the beneficiary was Nixon or Hunter Biden. That said I have no idea what the US courts have said about this as a matter of constitutional interpretation.

    I’m also a little doubtful that pardoning dozens of people in this way as some have suggested is actually going to have the practical effect of insulating them from persecution if Trump really does decide to repurpose the FBI and Justice department as a tool for persecuting his enemies. If the validity of this kind of pardon is at all arguable then I think we can assume that the Trump administration would operate on the basis that they are invalid until and unless the Supreme Court tells him otherwise. And looking at the question in the abstract (as opposed to the weird upside down world we’re now going to be living in) I’m not 100% sure it’s a good thing if the Supreme Court does tell him otherwise.
  • Ruth wrote: »
    How many police officers would give a traffic ticket to their mom?

    How many police officers are honest?
  • Ruth wrote: »
    How many police officers would give a traffic ticket to their mom?

    Turns out my mom's ex-husband became a state police officer. He once pulled us over because my father was speeding. When he came to the window of the car and saw Mom sitting on the passenger side, he turned around radioed for another patrol car to assist. The ex-husband did not give a ticket, but the other patrolman did.
  • Nick Tamen wrote: »
    You seem to be mixing apples and oranges. How is pardoning a family member “dishonest”? One may think it’s an abuse of power or lacks integrity, but unless there’s some kind of undisclosed deal or something like that, refraining from pardoning family members isn’t a matter of honesty.

    Accepting some kind of office where the public entrusts you with power includes an implicit (and often explicit) promise to exercise that power fairly and equitably in service of the public good.

    Special privilege (quite literally) for your relatives is the opposite of that.
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    edited December 2024
    Nick Tamen wrote: »
    You seem to be mixing apples and oranges. How is pardoning a family member “dishonest”? One may think it’s an abuse of power or lacks integrity, but unless there’s some kind of undisclosed deal or something like that, refraining from pardoning family members isn’t a matter of honesty.

    Accepting some kind of office where the public entrusts you with power includes an implicit (and often explicit) promise to exercise that power fairly and equitably in service of the public good.
    Agreed. Violating that trust is not necessarily dishonest, though. That’s what I’m trying to get at—why you think Biden’s pardon of his son calls Biden’s honesty into question. I wouldn’t be questioning it if you said something like it calls his integrity into question.

    Special privilege (quite literally) for your relatives is the opposite of that.
    Again, the relevant question is whether a pardon would be appropriate if the facts were the same except that the person being pardoned didn’t have the surname “Biden.” And again, for the reasons @Crœsos has laid out, it seems clear to me that a pardon would be appropriate for anyone else in a similar position.

    So what you seem to be arguing is that because Hunter Biden happens to be the president’s son, it’s inappropriate to give him a pardon that would be appropriate for anyone else in a similar position. And that despite the fact that if he weren’t the president’s son, he wouldn’t be in a position to be pardoned to start with; the case never would have gone as far as trial, conviction and a prison sentence if his last name wasn’t Biden.


  • If I was Biden, I would have pardoned Hunter. Decades of public service, abandon by his party which went on to lose the presidency, Senate and House. My attitude would be a pox on all their houses. I care less about anyone's opinion of what I do for my last two months in office and then I am going to enjoy the rest of my life.
  • Ruth wrote: »
    How many police officers would give a traffic ticket to their mom?
    No idea. Certainly not me. She didn't drive
    Ruth wrote: »
    How many police officers would give a traffic ticket to their mom?

    How many police officers are honest?
    Most of them but I don't have any stats.
  • A painful question: Have any of the Shipmates personally benefited from being preferred in some fashion by a person in authority?
  • Of course, I have.
  • HarryCH wrote: »
    A painful question: Have any of the Shipmates personally benefited from being preferred in some fashion by a person in authority?

    Well, I'm a white man, so almost certainly.

    But if you mean "because I am specifically me, as opposed to being some other generic white man with my skills and background", then I don't think so.
  • Meanwhile, the POTUS-elect has unabashedly lobbied FL Governor Ron DeSantis on behalf of his own daughter-in-law, Laura Trump, that she be appointed to "Little" Marco Rubio's now vacant Senate seat.
  • HarryCH wrote: »
    A painful question: Have any of the Shipmates personally benefited from being preferred in some fashion by a person in authority?
    Yes. I have

  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    When we had a comparatively major fire some years ago, just outside the church, my daughter and I went down to see the clear-up. She has a question about some technical aspect, and I gained considerable kudos with her from the fact that I was on first name terms with the firefighter in charge (I’d conducted his wedding), and when he came over to say Hi I was able to get an answer to her question.

    I can’t think of anything more significant than that though.
  • HarryCH wrote: »
    A painful question: Have any of the Shipmates personally benefited from being preferred in some fashion by a person in authority?

    I don't think so. But I had a summer holiday job when I was a student which was excellently paid for minimum effort. After a couple of weeks I starting asking around as to the point of the job. I was told it had been created for someone's daughter, who had decided she wanted to do something else with her summer. The person then had a choice between admitting it wasn't actually a job, or doubling down and employing a random student. I had done a one week genuine work experience there, and was contacted and offered work for the summer.
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    edited December 2024
    Biden has apparently whipped out his pardon pen again, pardoning 39 individuals and commuting the sentences of 1,500 others. The exact details of the commutations aren't known at this time (the order has not been posted online yet), but those receiving the commutation are individuals who were released from prison to home confinement during COVID. My guess is that the remainder of their sentences have been commuted to home confinement.

    The press release describes this clemency grant as "the most ever in a single day". My guess is that this is the most ever in a single day for specific, named individuals. Carter's grant of clemency to all Vietnam-era draft evaders probably affected more people, but they were listed as a class rather than specifically by name.
  • Do I think he attracted more attention because he's the president's son than he would have attracted had he been some random scuzzy corrupt corporate nonentity? Yes. Do I care about that? Not all that much.

    Interesting development on some of the "attention" Hunter Biden attracted by being Joe Biden's son.
    An FBI informant accused of lying about the Biden family has cut a plea deal with special counsel David Weiss, the prosecutor who led the criminal probe into Hunter Biden.

    Alexander Smirnov is set to plead guilty to four charges, including tax evasion and obstructing justice by providing false information to the FBI, according to a court filing in California on Thursday.

    Smirnov had falsely told the FBI in 2020 that Burisma, a Ukrainian energy company, was illicitly paying off Joe Biden while he was vice president, and his son Hunter, who was on the company’s board.

    <snip>

    Smirnov’s admissions that are part of his plea make clear a major accusation of corruption between Burisma and the Bidens, which fueled conservative attacks of the now-president and his son, were false.

    “The events Defendant first reported to the Handler in June 2020 were fabrications,” the plea documents say. “Defendant transformed his routine and unextraordinary business contacts with Burisma in 2017 and later into bribery allegations against Public Official 1, the presumptive nominee of one of the two major political parties for President, after expressing bias against Public Official 1 and his candidacy.”

    The plea agreement says that Smirnov repeated his false accusations about the Bidens again in 2023, and was telling investigators by then a “new false narrative” about Hunter Biden. At that time, Weiss’ office was continuing to investigate Hunter Biden and brought charges against him on gun and tax crimes.

    Given the willingness of various factions within federal law enforcement to credulously accept false evidence against Hunter Biden from any grifter with an agenda, a blanket pardon seems prudent.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    edited December 2024
    Going back to @Ruth's comment about Biden commuting the sentences of those in federal prison commuting the sentences of those condemned to be executed, PBS did an interview with Bryan Stevenson of the Innocence Project as to whether it would be just to commute the sentences of the guys who shot the people in the church in Charleston SC or the worshipers at the Synagogue in Philidelphia. He pointed out even if the sentences were commuted, they would still be condemned to die while in prison.

    Made a lot of sense to me.
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