Presidential Pardons - when would you call it corrupt?

[Benton]

(01-19-2021, 06:05 PM)Rotobeast Wrote: If he were to pardon himself or resign to have Pence pardon him, would the admission of guilt open him up to civil suits ?

According to burdick vs , the scotus says it requires an admission of guilt, or similar verbage. But end of the day, it would be up to (most likely) a jury to decide. And, presumably, trump's lawyers would argue he only did it to protect people from political reprisal. Which would be easy to convince at least one out of twelve considering the current political climate.

[Belsnickel]

“They all told Trump he should not pardon himself, his family or any GOP lawmakers in a prospective manner unless he was prepared to list specific crimes.”

https://t.co/YdxY5elsa9

— David Begnaud (@DavidBegnaud) January 19, 2021

[*Nately120*]

(01-19-2021, 06:45 PM)Benton Wrote: According to burdick vs , the scotus says it requires an admission of guilt, or similar verbage. But end of the day, it would be up to (most likely) a jury to decide. And, presumably, trump's lawyers would argue he only did it to protect people from political reprisal. Which would be easy to convince at least one out of twelve considering the current political climate.

I'm guilty and I'm pardoning myself.  By the way, that admission of guilt was just locker room talk. Actually, the more he pardons himself for the more power he gets because it'll just further prove that those damn liberals framed him for damn near everything and they still couldn't pin him down.

[NATI BENGALS]

I would call it corrupt when a career conman is selling them to the wealthy.

[BmorePat87]

Trump dropped 140 or so pardons at 1sm. Included are Steve Bannon, Lil Wayne, and Kodak Black. Kodak Black was in prison for weapons charges and rape...

Edit: his rape case hadn’t gone to trial by the time he was indicted on the federal weapons charges.

But he donated $50k to a Barstool Sports charity so it’s ok

[hollodero]

(01-18-2021, 10:03 PM)Dill Wrote: Two quick points: 1) "both sides do it" is rarely the basis of accurate political analysis. We hear it sometimes from one side (usually the liberal) when they want to find common policy ground and know they cannot begin by just blaming others, even if (as you recognize) one side does it more. We also hear it from one side (usually the conservative) when some incident casts doubt on party character--like a president's impeachable behavior. It then becomes a means of spreading or mitigating blame, deflecting any implication that a party's judgement as a whole might be flawed. Most of the time, it is a mirror image imposed on the surface of a political conflict, in which each side may indeed be accusing the other of the same thing, which may look very different once one looks deeper into material/social causes of division--and whether the accusations are actually true. It is rarely a useful analytical tool, how ever politically useful it might sometimes be. Rather it superimposes a pattern upon conflict which may not really be there and so distorts analysis.

2) If we are really trying to understand causes, which may be necessary to finding workable solutions, then we ought to begin by trying to understand what material/social forces have conditioned the aforementioned division. When we do that, I don't think we'll find find the two major parties have somehow became mirror images of one another, each equally willing to "ignore reality and defend the indefensible."  The divisive rhetoric from Congressional leaders, for example, was simply not there through most of the '70s and '80s. There is a before and after. It its origins can be dated, traced to  individuals, to one party, as can the incremental ratcheting up of that rhetoric, aided and abetted by new technologies and legal innovations, leading us to a point where now 74% of Republicans believe that Biden was not legitimately elected president. The other side has sometimes attempted to respond in kind, but generally without success because its constituents for the most part do not respond to that rhetoric. That is a very thin summary, but accurate enough to dispute the notion of a mirror image.

Some added notes: The "strict political duality" in the U.S. has, since the 18th century, not been "us vs them," but compromisers, pragmatists and unifiers vs those who embrace "us-vs-them."  And that is still what we have.

I don't think Trump figured out that we're "always out to argue a win for [our] own side and a loss for the other side, up to a willingness to ignore reality and defend the indefensible."  I think he just noticed that when he promised racist and xenophobic policies, a segment of the public responded quickly. When he did it more, they responded more, and he responded to them, thereby building, organizing and fixing that previously suppressed xenophobia into a formidable political force and some terrible short term policies. Along the way he discovered that some checks and balances would fail if he pushed against them hard enough. And so he pushed harder. A right wing media machine primed this audience for him two decades before his election, and he rode it into office and out all accountability, until Jan. 6.  All this has not happened because "both sides" are equally ready to "defend the indefensible."

Even if a president can still legally "do what he wants" in this environment, it is not at all clear that each side wants to elect someone who will JUST do what he wants. You yourself think rule of law is important. If people want to live under rule of law, then they must elect representatives who also think that and hold them accountable. That is one reason why so many the "D" mattered to so many people. The division in the US right now appears to be between people who agree with you about the importance of rule of law and those who want a form of law and order, which can trump rule of law.  I don't think Biden will be defended by "all means necessary" in the coming year, as Trump was over the last four. 

This was a quick way to take my comments apart :) I just was getting at that times have changed gradually, and within the last years also changed drastically. One thing that changed drastically is that there is less and less objectiviable truth, or objectifiable bad optics for that matter. This of course has much to do with people choosing their sources by their beliefs and can reaffirm pretty much everything they want. This makes dialogue increasingly difficult up to impossible, and that does much to create divisions that are brand-new.

The media world adapted, is increasingly aggressive towards the political foe, and left much decency behind that was a necessary tool to keep your century-old political system afloat. Decency and honor, those things got lost quickly. Many of your office holders lost much of both at light speed these last few years. And while sure the Trump supporting republican crowd in Congress is unmatched, quite some democrats followed that trend as well. Ripping apart state of the union speeches and such.

And the political discourse - it also devolves to people just entrenched and increasingly unable to even try to understand each other. Which also is a "both sides" issue, albeit possibly also not an "all sides do equally bad" issue. One sees it here, and in the media, and pretty much everywhere. And in such a climate, Trump is the fitting candidate, that does not have to unite, seek compromise or dialogue, like it used to be necessary, but just rely on loyalty of R voters and enthusiasm of an increasing number of deeply frustrated (and similar adjectives) people that are the Trump base. That's what I was trying to get at.

[*Nately120*]

Joe Exotic did not get pardoned. Carol Baskin wins again.

[Arturo Bandini]

Drain The Swamp !!!!!!

[*Nately120*]

Side note, Trump pardoning Steve Bannon after he defrauded so many MAMA dummies with that whole wall fund thing is just beautiful.

[GMDino]

(01-20-2021, 03:04 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Side note, Trump pardoning Steve Bannon after he defrauded so many MAMA dummies with that whole wall fund thing is just beautiful.

Bingo.

Just this and was about to post.

Trump pardoning a guy indicted by the Trump Justice Department for defrauding Trump supporters over the fake Trump wall is a fitting ending to the Trump presidency.

— Ted Boutrous (@BoutrousTed) January 20, 2021

 

[*Nately120*]

Trump also not pardoning the capitol mob was a nice act. Loyalty to Trump...pays off every time. He's off to Florida...thanks for the money to fight the fraud and have fun in a federal prison.

[Benton]

(01-20-2021, 03:23 PM)Nately120 Wrote: Trump also not pardoning the capitol mob was a nice act.  Loyalty to Trump...pays off every time.  He's off to Florida...thanks for the money to fight the fraud and have fun in a federal prison.

My guess is someone advised him that might make things worse in the likely event of civil/criminal litigation.

[*Nately120*]

(01-20-2021, 04:15 PM)Benton Wrote: My guess is someone advised him that might make things worse in the likely event of civil/criminal litigation.

Loyalty to Trump...always pays. 

[grampahol]

I have a strong feeling that congress will finally start introducing some bills to limit presidential pardon power after this latest cluster fu*.. 

[Belsnickel]

(01-21-2021, 12:57 AM)grampahol Wrote: I have a strong feeling that congress will finally start introducing some bills to limit presidential pardon power after this latest cluster fu*.. 

They look too short-term for such a thing. Plus, it would mean hamstringing their own party, which they won't abide.

[Dill]

(01-20-2021, 06:43 AM)hollodero Wrote: And the political discourse - it also devolves to people just entrenched and increasingly unable to even try to understand each other. Which also is a "both sides" issue, albeit possibly also not an "all sides do equally bad" issue. One sees it here, and in the media, and pretty much everywhere. And in such a climate, Trump is the fitting candidate, that does not have to unite, seek compromise or dialogue, like it used to be necessary, but just rely on loyalty of R voters and enthusiasm of an increasing number of deeply frustrated (and similar adjectives) people that are the Trump base. That's what I was trying to get at.

I agree that we are currently in the situation described by the bolded--with the corollary that "both sides" don't do it equally. I agree Trump was wholly relying on the loyalty of R voters in practice, though not always in theory. Sometimes he or the elements of his campaign touted how his improved economy helped minorities whose ancestors came from shithole countries.


Over the last three years a number of books have been written addressing our current political divisions. Among them are many seeking or calling for "common ground" and trying to "listen" to the other side. So far as I can tell, those authors are wholly "liberal." I am aware of no exceptions.

There are a surprising number of "conservative" books considering how the Republican party devolved into the party of Trump, which are to some degree about listening to Trump supporters, but not the other side because the authors realize that the other side is not really responsible for their own party's moral debasement. (Charlie Syke's How the Right Lost Its Mind would be an example of the latter.)

Trump never had to "seek dialogue" and the like for sure, but that was never really a formula for winning and holding power. I still think of his win as a kind of freak event, dependent more on depressing the Hillary vote than really rallying a majority of the nation. 

Biden, visibly backed by many leading "traditional" Republicans (Go Dick Cheney!), is definitely looking to "seek compromise or dialogue." Daytime Fox commentators have had some positive things to say about this--I just heard one distinguish him from "the socialists and Marxists" because he makes his religion so visible. Another thinks his pandemic policy will ultimately be good for the country, despite his canceling pipelines and re-joining the Paris Climate Agreement.

So I think we are definitely back to the norm of one side (including many old-style Republicans) consisting of pragmatic compromisers and unifiers facing of against another side led by some whose power depends upon the refusal of compromise.  

I should add that everyone has base values/ideals which he or she would be unwilling to compromise. E.g., I would not want to compromise with the Klan or Nazis on racial policies. In order to keep some contemporary Americans refusing compromise, one has to convince them that any and all compromise starts them down a slippery slope to atheist, totalitarian SOCIALISM.  Compromise is a "trick" to get us there. So of course the totalitarians want everyone to listen and "dialogue," and refusing their dialogue is necessary. This is also articulated with conservative religious beliefs, which encourage pride in remaining faithful through "persecution" at the hands of non-believers, and never changing one's mind no matter what the other side's arguments and evidence.

[CJD]

Presidential pardons are often just the most explicit and outwardly obvious expression of the privilege that the wealthy elites in this country experience. Wealthy people can often buy themselves out of legal trouble to the point where the law almost doesn't apply to them and presidential pardons are there for the rare instances when that privilege falters.

Trump used it more for cronyism, but there were some cases where it's reasonable to suspect a pardon was "purchased" through donations or endorsements.

I do appreciate when presidents use the pardon to help people who were truly imprisoned unjustly, such as the hundreds of pardons Obama gave to low level drug offenders who were victims of mandatory minimum sentences gone awry and there was that one woman, Alice Marie Johnson, Trump pardoned for a similar reason at the behest of Kim Kardashian.

I wonder if pardons should be limited to people that the President doesn't have personal relations to (such as when Bill Clinton pardoned his brother or when Trump pardoned Kushner's father), but I don't know how you'd legislate that in a way that certain cases would be excluded unjustly through happenstance (say, someone is pardoned and then a picture of them and the president together 10 years ago crops up, how do you determine if this is a bad pardon?). I think the bottom line is you just need to trust the President is a good person and wouldn't abuse the pardon system.

Unfortunately, it often is abused to extreme degrees.

[Dill]

(01-18-2021, 04:19 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: The pardon power is the one executive power that is absolute. There is no way to put constraints on that power without a constitutional amendment. There will not be enough backing to do that.

Took me a while to get back to this, but the issue is interesting.

The war powers granted by the Constitution allot military command to the president, but Congress has not left it at that, placing various constraints on the exercise of command (e.g., the War Powers Act), when presidents appear to usurp Congress' right to declare war.  That makes me wonder if, with sufficient provocation, they might find some way of limiting the pardon power as well. 

Trump pardons so far, while certainly tarnishing the office of president and its prerogatives, have not risen to that level of provocation. And Biden is not likely exhibit Trump's venality in this regard, so concern over pardon abuse will likely dissipate in the next few years.

I know that in the past courts have generally upheld the pardon power as "limitless" (e.g., Ex parte Garland, which apparently rules out any Congressional action in the style of the aforementioned War Powers Act), but it's also clear that were Trump to attempt a self pardon, that would lead to judicial review--and likely a constraint on the pardon power. 

Seems to me that while the judicial branch can and has put constraints on the presidential pardon power, sufficiently offensive pardons could be limited by the courts, especially if they appeared intended to cover impeachable conduct on the president's part. 

Now that Trump is finally out and his pardoning finished, this looks like an issue that will fade away.

[hollodero]

(01-21-2021, 12:44 PM)Dill Wrote: I agree that we are currently in the situation described by the bolded--with the corollary that "both sides" don't do it equally.

I didn't claim both sides do it equally. I participated too long in your debates to reach that conclusion. One can easily say "one side is worse" and I'd agree with that on a generalized basis - but that doesn't mean the other side are full of saints and do-rights.

(01-21-2021, 12:44 PM)Dill Wrote: Trump never had to "seek dialogue" and the like for sure, but that was never really a formula for winning and holding power. I still think of his win as a kind of freak event, dependent more on depressing the Hillary vote than really rallying a majority of the nation. 

He came quite close the second time around though. Not with a majority of the nation, sure, but that isn't necessary. 50% don't vote anyways and most states do not really matter. A few people in a few states, that's all it takes and took.
Trump barely, barely (with less than, or around, 1% behind Biden in some crucial states) lost too many moderate conservatives than he could win radicalized ones, while at the same time getting more total votes than the last time around. That is not a repudiation.

(01-21-2021, 12:44 PM)Dill Wrote: I should add that everyone has base values/ideals which he or she would be unwilling to compromise.

Well, of course. I don't even think it's about finding common ground all the time, but rather about deradicalization. Which, imho, can not be achieved as long as the same environment and the same system is in place that brought you to this point in the first place.
Imho, opposition to Biden will be fierce real soon, he will get accused of evilness and misdeeds, he will get radically opposed and blocked, there will be impeachment attempts, he will get called having dementia and being a criminal and a tool of China and taking money from everywhere and hating America and bowing to his globalist masters and then some, and all that wil not be fringe within the conservative spectrum. Those who do not participate in that will be fringe. Like they were under Trump's reign.

And things like bad optics or reality or truth will not play any part in that process - something I feel many people, eg. those that still think Trump was merely an aberration, are still not grasping fully, that it's not about any of that any longer. Case in point, corrupt pardons don't matter too. Not when a crucial mass are easily and more than willingly convinced that the election was stolen or that Russian interference or the impeachment was a hoax etc. "Compromise" does not matter, there is none to be had. One, imho, could slow the radicalization down, but that will be difficult as long as most right-leaning people hate CNN or the fredtoasts of this world more than they could ever despise one of their own for whatever. And of course also as long as many from the other side throw everyone in one of the two pots of "you're with us" or "you're a deplorable". Which, imho, happens all the time and appalls more and more of said moderates as well.

And the "pragmatic compromiser" will adapt like all the Grahams, or get primaried and thrown out, the critical mass for that is reached, just like it was reached in the primaries Trump won. Just look at all those senators or house members or conservative thinkers that were thought to be that constructive and compromising type. They all left or were thrown out (except for Romney for whatever reason) and can now comment on CNN, to no avail.

[Belsnickel]

(01-21-2021, 02:59 PM)Dill Wrote: Took me a while to get back to this, but the issue is interesting.

The war powers granted by the Constitution allot military command to the president, but Congress has not left it at that, placing various constraints on the exercise of command (e.g., the War Powers Act), when presidents appear to usurp Congress' right to declare war.  That makes me wonder if, with sufficient provocation, they might find some way of limiting the pardon power as well. 

Trump pardons so far, while certainly tarnishing the office of president and its prerogatives, have not risen to that level of provocation. And Biden is not likely exhibit Trump's venality in this regard, so concern over pardon abuse will likely dissipate in the next few years.

I know that in the past courts have generally upheld the pardon power as "limitless" (e.g., Ex parte Garland, which apparently rules out any Congressional action in the style of the aforementioned War Powers Act), but it's also clear that were Trump to attempt a self pardon, that would lead to judicial review--and likely a constraint on the pardon power. 

Seems to me that while the judicial branch can and has put constraints on the presidential pardon power, sufficiently offensive pardons could be limited by the courts, especially if they appeared intended to cover impeachable conduct on the president's part. 

Now that Trump is finally out and his pardoning finished, this looks like an issue that will fade away.

There is a big difference between the role of POTUS as CiC and the pardon power. The Constitution lays out a balanced system for the military by giving Congress the purse strings. Congress had the authority to limit the president's use of the military because they decide how to fund it. No such check exists on the pardon power, though. It isn't something that requires funding, which is the primary method of checking executive power that Congress has and while there is some judicial review, we've already discussed how the courts have held the power.