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Pardons

Tuesday's Opening Arguments podcast will go over all the pardons. I don't imagine it will cover every pardon individually in detail, but host Andrew Torrez has read every single one in preperation.
 
BobTheCoward said:
Yes. They should have all been prosecuted.
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No, many draft dodgers had conscientious and reasonable objections to fighting in Vietnam. It spawned the 'flower power' movement. I read one account of MY LAY IN MAI LAI by a typical GI 'patriot', 'Heck man, we were all six feet tall, the gooks were only four foot six - not a fair fight'.

So, IMV a pardon for the Vietnam draft dodgers was an ethical and sound one.
 
Are these pardons generic ‘this person is pardoned for his crimes’, or more specific ‘this person is pardoned for crime x, y, z)?

Knowing Trump it would be too funny if something crucial was forgotten in the pardon and the end result would still be prison.
 
Vixen said:
No, many draft dodgers had conscientious and reasonable objections to fighting in Vietnam. It spawned the 'flower power' movement. I read one account of MY LAY IN MAI LAI by a typical GI 'patriot', 'Heck man, we were all six feet tall, the gooks were only four foot six - not a fair fight'.

So, IMV a pardon for the Vietnam draft dodgers was an ethical and sound one.
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What is the point of doing the right thing against an unjust law if you are just going to get out of the punishment?

The punishment is the point to the choice you made.
 
I think Trump’s pardoning was interrupted and knocked-off course by two events, one being told he couldn’t pardon himself and him losing the election and his betrayal by the criminals of the insurrection (by looking low class) and the fallout from that - apparently staff being warned about interacting with him.

Wouldn’t be surprised if the final pardons were all drawn up prior to those events so the paperwork had already been done.
 
BobTheCoward said:
What is the point of doing the right thing against an unjust law if you are just going to get out of the punishment?
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The point is to have done the right thing. And if the prospect of punishing someone for doing the right thing is enough to convince the state to rescind both the unjust law and the punishment it mandates, then the moral victory is undiminished.

Dave
 
Dave Rogers said:
The point is to have done the right thing. And if the prospect of punishing someone for doing the right thing is enough to convince the state to rescind both the unjust law and the punishment it mandates, then the moral victory is undiminished.

Dave
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That seems like a massive diminishment.
 
Vixen said:
No, many draft dodgers had conscientious and reasonable objections to fighting in Vietnam. It spawned the 'flower power' movement. I read one account of MY LAY IN MAI LAI by a typical GI 'patriot', 'Heck man, we were all six feet tall, the gooks were only four foot six - not a fair fight'.

So, IMV a pardon for the Vietnam draft dodgers was an ethical and sound one.
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No argument with that although it shouldn't be at the discretion of a President, Governor, Prime Minister, or King. It should be something resulting from legal argument within the legal system.

Something highlighting the unfairness and stupidity of pardons, is that one person may be set free and another stay behind bars, when they have committed the same crime.
 
Thor 2 said:
Something highlighting the unfairness and stupidity of pardons, is that one person may be set free and another stay behind bars, when they have committed the same crime.
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Let's assume for a second the president granting the pardons is acting with integrity when they pardon or commute sentences, and there are reasons to think a pardon is a good idea....

Yes even in that case you will get situations where one person goes to jail while another goes free... But if (for whatever reason) both people should have gone free, then keeping both in jail (because there is no ability to pardon anymore) seems kind of foolish.



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So the newest... I don't know whether to call it a conspiracy theory or not, floating around is the idea that Trump might have done... SECRET PARDONS! *Music sting*
 
JoeMorgue said:
So the newest... I don't know whether to call it a conspiracy theory or not, floating around is the idea that Trump might have done... SECRET PARDONS! *Music sting*
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The idea of secret pardons have already been mentioned upthread - secret pardons being those where neither the public nor congress have been informed (but presumably the justice department has).

Michael Cohen thinks he has:

"I kind of think I figured it out," he said to MSNBC host Alex Witt. "I think Donald Trump actually has given himself the pardon. I think he also has pocket pardons for his children and for Rudy and it's already stashed somewhere that, if and when they do get indicted and that there's a criminal conviction, federal criminal conviction brought against him, that he already has the pardons in hand."
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https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...mp-secret-pardons-michael-cohen-b1792085.html

A Washington Post opinion piece thinks that secret pardons wouldn't work.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/01/20/trump-secret-pardons-validity/

I wouldn't put it past him to do such a thing. I also wouldn't put it past him to do it so ineptly that it doesn't work.
 
I don't think there's any secret pardons, not because I don't think they'd work, but because I don't think Trump is capable of keeping them secret. He would have blabbed.

Which doesn't mesh with my other thought, that there is no way in hell Trump would leave office without pardoning himself. It would have been the best and bigliest pardon anyone has ever received.

I can only conclude there was a minor mutiny of his office drones at the end, where they gave him the paperwork to do the pardons for himself and unsurprisingly it never got done.
 
SteveAitch said:
I came across a reference to this on another board - I don't think it's been mentioned here - are such prosecutions likely?
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To anyone who hasn't read the referenced article...

Basically, it was suggesting that some of the people who received pardons from Trump at the last minute could still be prosecuted by the DoJ, because of the way the pardons were written.

For example, Manafort was pardoned specifically for crimes he was convicted of (instead of a blanket "all possible crimes".) However, some of the things he was initially charged with resulted in a hung jury... Because he was never convicted on several bank fraud charges, he could be retried on those. (And, because of elements of earlier plea agreements as well as the pardon, conviction might be easier this time around.) Another example is Bannon, who was pardoned for "Offences charged"... But there were other potential crimes that were overlooked (such as wire fraud), because prosecutors sometimes want to avoid "piling on" charges because it can overwhelm juries. Now that he's been pardoned on the main crimes, prosecutors can start looking into these other crimes.

I hope that the DOJ does start looking at these people that were pardoned to see if there are ways they can be convicted. However, I am skeptical that it will end up going anywhere... it depends on 1) the Biden administration taking a hard-line stance (which I am not convinced they will), 2) the charges actually being successful (there are enough MAGAchuds around that jury pools could be tainted.)
 
Segnosaur said:
Let's assume for a second the president granting the pardons is acting with integrity when they pardon or commute sentences, and there are reasons to think a pardon is a good idea....

Yes even in that case you will get situations where one person goes to jail while another goes free... But if (for whatever reason) both people should have gone free, then keeping both in jail (because there is no ability to pardon anymore) seems kind of foolish.



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Let's assume that a law is unjust and many folk are being punished for breaking said law.

I am suggesting that a bill should be generated to rescind that law. This passes through the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representatives, and then stamped by the president.

In consequence all who have been convicted of breaking that law are pardoned by the courts. This is the way it should work in my opinion.
 
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