Potential Memorial Day Pardons

[Belsnickel]

Has anyone else seen this situation? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/18/us/trump-pardons-war-crimes.html

I have to say, this is concerning. Specifically, the situation with Gallagher. I get that the pardon power is truly without any real limits, but things like this send a clear, and disturbing message to the public, to our troops, and to other countries that we will tolerate this sort of behavior.

[*bfine32*]

Unfortunately I cannot read the list without subscribing, Is anyone on the list guilty of leaking government secrets?

[GMDino]

Quote:President Trump has indicated that he is considering pardons for several American military members accused or convicted of war crimes, including high-profile cases of murder, attempted murder and desecration of a corpse, according to two United States officials.

The officials said that the Trump administration had made expedited requests this week for paperwork needed to pardon the troops on or around Memorial Day.


One request is for Special Operations Chief Edward Gallagher of the Navy SEALs, who is scheduled to stand trial in the coming weeks on charges of shooting unarmed civilians and killing an enemy captive with a knife while deployed in Iraq.
The others are believed to include the case of a former Blackwater security contractor recently found guilty in the deadly 2007 shooting of dozens of unarmed Iraqis; the case of Maj. Mathew L. Golsteyn, the Army Green Beret accused of killing an unarmed Afghan in 2010; and the case of a group of Marine Corps snipers charged with urinating on the corpses of dead Taliban fighters.


The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said they had not seen a complete list, and did not know if other service members were included in the request for pardon paperwork.
The White House sent requests on Friday to the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, which alerted the military branches, according to one senior military official. Pardon files include background information and details on criminal charges, and in many cases include letters describing how the person in question has made amends.

The official said while assembling pardon files typically takes months, the Justice Department stressed that all files would have to be complete before Memorial Day weekend, because the President planned to pardon the men then. A second United States official confirmed the request concerning Chief Gallagher.

[[/url]Chief Gallagher’s case has been thrown into turmoil over claims of spying.]


The military branches referred questions to the Justice Department, which declined to comment on the matter.
Mr. Trump has often bypassed traditional channels in granting pardons and wielded his power freely, sometimes in politically charged cases that resonate with him personally, such as the conviction of the former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio. Earlier this month, the president pardoned former Army First Lt. Michael Behenna, who had been convicted of killing an Iraqi during an interrogation in 2008.

While the requests for pardon files are a strong sign of the president’s plans, Mr. Trump has been known to change his mind and it is not clear what the impetus was for the requests. But most of the troops who are positioned for a pardon have been championed by conservative lawmakers and media organizations, such as Fox News, which have portrayed them as being unfairly punished for trying to do their job. Many have pushed for the president to intervene. The White House declined to comment.

Pardoning several accused and convicted war criminals at once, including some who have not yet gone to trial, has not been done in recent history, legal experts said. Some worried that it could erode the legitimacy of military law and undercut good order and discipline in the ranks.


“These are all extremely complicated cases that have gone through a careful system of consideration. A freewheeling pardon undermines that whole system,” said Gary Solis, a retired military judge and armor officer who served in Vietnam. “It raises the prospect in the minds of the troops that says, ‘Whatever we do, if we can get the folks back home behind us, maybe we can get let off.’”

Chief Gallagher’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, was surprised by the news that the president could be considering a pardon, and said ideally the chief would be acquitted at trial.


“We want the opportunity to exonerate my client,” Mr. Parlatore said in an interview. “At the same time, there is always a risk in going to trial. My primary objective is to get Chief Gallagher home to his family. To that end, Chief Gallagher would welcome any involvement by the president.”


[[url=https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/23/us/navy-seals-crimes-of-war.html]Navy SEALS were warned not to speak out about Chief Gallagher.]


Other than violating military law, the cases the president is said to be considering defy easy categorization.

Navy SEALs who served with Chief Gallagher told authorities he indiscriminately shot at civilians, gunning down a young woman in a flowered hijab and an unarmed old man. They also said he stabbed a teenage captive, then bragged about it in text messages. His trial is set to start at the end of this month. If convicted, he faces life in prison. He has pleaded not guilty and denies all charges.


Major Golsteyn is charged with killing an Afghan man that he and other soldiers said had bomb-making materials. After an interrogation, the soldiers let the man go. Fearing that the man would return to making improvised explosives, which had already killed two Marines in the area, Major Golsteyn later said he killed the man.


Mr. Trump has singled both men out on Twitter, calling Major Golsteyn a “U.S. Military hero,” and praising Chief Gallagher for his service to the country.


The Blackwater contractor, Nicholas A. Slatten, is one of several Blackwater contractors charged in the killing of 17 Iraqis and the wounding of 20 more on a Baghdad street. After a number of mistrials and other delays, he is the only one who has been convicted.


The Marines charged in urinating on the corpse of a Taliban fighter were caught after a video of the act was found.
The fact that the requests were sent from the White House to the Justice Department, instead of the other way around, is a reversal of long-established practices, said Margaret Love, who served as the United States pardon attorney during the first Bush administration and part of the Clinton administration.


Long ago, presidents wielded clemency power directly, Ms. Love said, but that changed at the end of the Civil War when President Lincoln delegated review of clemency requests to his attorney general. Since then, cases have generally been vetted by Justice Department lawyers before being sent to the president.


President Trump has upended that practice, often issuing pardons with little or no notice to the Justice Department, she said, adding that the fact the department is requesting files on men like Chief Gallagher at all suggests that Attorney General William P. Barr is trying to re-exert some authority over the process.



Process aside, she said that pardoning the men would be an abrupt departure from the past.


“Presidents use pardons to send messages. They recognize when a process wasn’t just or when punishments were too extreme, like for some nonviolent drug cases,” she said. “If this president is planning to pardon a bunch of people charged with war crimes, he will use the pardon power to send a far darker message.”

It wouldn't surprise me.  DJT probably thinks the military will applaud him if he does it.  I mean he's smarter than the generals so he can decide what is "really" a war crime, right?

He also probably doesn't think very hard on these kinds of things.  Heck the guy might have written a nice letter about him! 

[BmorePat87]

Randomly walks up and stabs a prisoner to death as a medic is stabilizing them and poses with the body, bragging about the kill

Fires indiscriminately into crowds of civilians on multiple occasions

Shoots an old man going to get water and a young girl walking along a river with other girls

threatened to kill any "traitor" that testified against him


Sounds like a hero...

[Belsnickel]

(05-22-2019, 09:27 AM)bfine32 Wrote: Unfortunately I cannot read the list without subscribing, Is anyone on the list guilty of leaking government secrets?

Ah, yes. Whattaboutism in the first response.

[*bfine32*]

As to Chief Gallagher the charges sound severe, but to my understanding he has not been found guilty of anything in a court of law. Seems that would be a requirement before a pardon is granted.

[*bfine32*]

(05-22-2019, 10:05 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: Ah, yes. Whattaboutism in the first response.

As I said: I could not read the list. Dino was kind enough to share it. You wondered about the message such pardons would send to our troops and I provided you with one. They are generally not looked upon with favor. 

[Belsnickel]

(05-22-2019, 10:11 AM)bfine32 Wrote: As to Chief Gallagher the charges sound severe, but to my understanding he has not been found guilty of anything in a court of law. Seems that would be a requirement before a pardon is granted.

He can be pardoned before the trial, which would end any criminal inquiry.

(05-22-2019, 10:13 AM)bfine32 Wrote: As I said: I could not read the list. Dino was kind enough to share it. You wondered about the message such pardons would send to our troops and I provided you with one. They are generally not looked upon with favor. 

You provided one in this response, but not before. Whatever makes you feel better about yourself and your whataboutism.

[*bfine32*]

(05-22-2019, 10:20 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: 1. He can be pardoned before the trial, which would end any criminal inquiry.


2. You provided one in this response, but not before. Whatever makes you feel better about yourself and your whataboutism.

1. That sounds shady

2. Whatever makes you feel better about yourself while criticizing fellow board members. 

[Dill]

(05-22-2019, 10:20 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: He can be pardoned before the trial, which would end any criminal inquiry.

Even if he doesn't, the Commander-in-Chief publicly talking about a case, suggesting an outcome he'd like to see ahead of time, is "undue command influence" on the trial. https://www.court-martial.com/unlawful-command-influence-uci.html

Outside of Trumpworld, the implications of such pardons are deeply disturbing.

Senior military officers rebel against Trump plan to pardon troops accused of war crimes
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-pentagon-oppose-trump-pardon-murder-warcrimes-20190522-story.html

“Absent evidence of innocence or injustice, the wholesale pardon of U.S. service members accused of war crimes signals our troops and allies that we don’t take the law of armed conflict seriously,” retired Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a tweet Tuesday. He added: “Bad message. Bad precedent. Abdication of moral responsibility. Risk to us.”

[*bfine32*]

(05-22-2019, 10:30 AM)Dill Wrote: Even if he doesn't, the Commander-in-Chief publicly talking about a case, suggesting an outcome he'd like to see ahead of time, is "undue command influence" on the trial. https://www.court-martial.com/unlawful-command-influence-uci.html

The implications of such pardons are deeply disturbing.comm

Senior military officers rebel against Trump plan to pardon troops accused of war crimes
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-pentagon-oppose-trump-pardon-murder-warcrimes-20190522-story.html

“Absent evidence of innocence or injustice, the wholesale pardon of U.S. service members accused of war crimes signals our troops and allies that we don’t take the law of armed conflict seriously,” retired Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a tweet Tuesday. He added: “Bad message. Bad precedent. Abdication of moral responsibility. Risk to us.”

I agree, but it's been done before in a much more high profile case..(is that whataboutisim). I didn't like it before and I don't like it now. 

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

Gallagher sounds like a case in which a pardon would not be warranted, at all. As for the marines who urinated on a corpse, it annoyed me that they were ever charged in the first place.

[Dill]

(05-22-2019, 09:02 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I have to say, this is concerning. Specifically, the situation with Gallagher. I get that the pardon power is truly without any real limits, but things like this send a clear, and disturbing message to the public, to our troops, and to other countries that we will tolerate this sort of behavior.

"Concerning" is rather an understatement. The genesis of the pardon is also a problem. Instead of cases vetted by the DOJ which rise to the president's attention due to legal anomalies and apparent injustice, this one originates in Fox and Friends.

"Fox & Friends" co-host Pete Hegseth lobbied Trump to pardon soldiers accused of war crimes
https://www.salon.com/2019/05/21/fox-friends-co-host-pete-hegseth-lobbied-trump-to-pardon-soldiers-accused-of-war-crimes/

“God bless our Commander-in-Chief,” Hegseth gushed. “A true warfighter’s President. This would be amazing.”

Hegseth did not mention in his post, nor to his television audience, that he had repeatedly personally lobbied Trump for the pardons since as early as January, The Daily Beast reported.

Hegseth, who was previously considered a candidate to head the Department of Veterans Affairs, repeatedly had private discussions with Trump about pardoning Gallagher and others. Hegseth told the president that the process had been “very unfair” to Gallagher, according to the report, and since at least March urged Trump to pardon others as well.

Hegseth has repeatedly discussed the cases on the show and has interviewed Golsteyn and Gallagher’s brother.

“These guys make tough calls in moments most people have never been a part of in their life,” Hegseth told Gallagher’s brother Sean in February, “and then folks in suits in Washington, D.C., they throw paper at them and accuse them of things.”

"WARRIORS," not war criminals, says Hegseth.

[Dill]

(05-22-2019, 10:35 AM)bfine32 Wrote: I agree, but it's been done before in a much more high profile case..(is that whataboutisim). I didn't like it before and I don't like it now. 

Legal precedents are not "whatabouts."  

Er, wait. Did your precedent involve Hillary?

[Belsnickel]

(05-22-2019, 10:46 AM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Gallagher sounds like a case in which a pardon would not be warranted, at all. As for the marines who urinated on a corpse, it annoyed me that they were ever charged in the first place.

I think they should have been disciplined, but because of the media attention the incident received there was an effort to make an example of them. I feel like they should have been given an Article 15 at least, but they didn't deserve the treatment they got from higher ups.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(05-22-2019, 03:32 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: I think they should have been disciplined, but because of the media attention the incident received there was an effort to make an example of them. I feel like they should have been given an Article 15 at least, but they didn't deserve the treatment they got from higher ups.

I agree, but it's also the incongruity of the whole thing that bothers me.  It's like Colonel Kurtz stated in Apocalypse Now, "We train young men to drop fire on people, but we won't let them write F#*k on their airplanes, because it's obscene."  Yes I know Kurtz was insane but he made a solid as hell point there.  Riddle a guy with bullets, ok!  Urinate on his corpse, prison time!

For the record I understand why that kind of conduct is not allowed, but, again, the incongruity of the whole thing really bothers me.

[*bfine32*]

(05-22-2019, 10:58 AM)Dill Wrote: Legal precedents are not "whatabouts."  

Er, wait. Did your precedent involve Hillary?

Nah,

[oncemoreuntothejimbreech]

(05-22-2019, 10:25 AM)bfine32 Wrote: 1. That sounds shady

2. Whatever makes you feel better about yourself while criticizing fellow board members. 

I believe it was you who wrote, "When you try too hard, you usually wind up looking petty and foolish."

[Benton]

(05-22-2019, 09:02 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Nah,

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/us/bergdahl-called-dirty-rotten-traitor-by-trump-seeks-end-to-charges.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-abc-region®ion=span-abc-region&WT.nav=span-abc-region&_r=0

I don't recall Obama saying courts should do one thing or the other on Bergdahl .

[*bfine32*]

(05-22-2019, 10:30 AM)Dill Wrote: Even if he doesn't, the Commander-in-Chief publicly talking about a case, suggesting an outcome he'd like to see ahead of time, is "undue command influence" on the trial. https://www.court-martial.com/unlawful-command-influence-uci.html

Outside of Trumpworld, the implications of such pardons are deeply disturbing.

Senior military officers rebel against Trump plan to pardon troops accused of war crimes
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-pentagon-oppose-trump-pardon-murder-warcrimes-20190522-story.html

“Absent evidence of innocence or injustice, the wholesale pardon of U.S. service members accused of war crimes signals our troops and allies that we don’t take the law of armed conflict seriously,” retired Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a tweet Tuesday. He added: “Bad message. Bad precedent. Abdication of moral responsibility. Risk to us.”

(05-22-2019, 09:59 PM)Benton Wrote: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/20/us/bergdahl-called-dirty-rotten-traitor-by-trump-seeks-end-to-charges.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-abc-region®ion=span-abc-region&WT.nav=span-abc-region&_r=0

I don't recall Obama saying courts should do one thing or the other on Bergdahl .

Pretty sure the point of the post I was replying to was about "undue command influence". You didn't see Obama's action as influence or were you just saying?