One of the nicest things Biden has done for Trump was his flurry of pardons/commutations over the last few weeks.
If y'all haven't been upset by Biden's pardons/commutations of terrorists and murders, as well as his constitutionally questionable preemptive pardons (especially when he promised he's never do such a thing) as well as his pardons for family members, then y'all really can't be that mad at Trump's pardons on day one. Especially as some of those folks had been significantly over punished by Biden.
Biden has set a precedent regarding pardons, and gifted Trump the political cover to pretty much do what he wants.
I'd have preferred a bit more of a selective approach to the pardons, but ...
These pardons are also the gift that keeps on giving. Accepting a preemptive pardon comes along with a guilty plea to whatever you were pardoned from, and it comes along with the inability to exercise one's 5th amendment rights when compelled to testify.
I guess it doesn't surprise me when Biden's actions backfire.
2 comments:
Consistent with my arguments in an earlier discussion, I hope that Trump, nor any other future presidents, abuse the pardon power in the manner Biden has. Biden has gone well beyond the two driving principles for having that power in the first place. To preemptively pardon anyone on the basis of what might happen is just another manifestation of guilty until proven innocent. By that I mean that Biden pretends that all those pardoned would be unjustly targeted by Trump and his DOJ in the manner Biden and his people targeted Trump and his supporters. That is, of course, "let's prevent Trump from doing to us what we did to him" as if that's something Trump is likely to try. No. I believe there are actually legit reasons for going after Biden and his kind, but still don't know that Trump would spend the time, except perhaps on the most obviously egregious cases. Recall that he could have gone after Hillary for her blatant negligence in handling classified docs. Existing law would have made it a slam dunk, as no "intent" is required to find one guilty.
As I've studied the matter, I'm more convinced that these blanket preemptive pardons are not constitutional and that their use should be litigated.
I personally believe that it might be appropriate to preemptively pardon someone for a specific action that they took DP, which might be illegal but was in the service of a specific policy (small loophole).
As I've said before, for a president to spend time going after their predecessor is something that will eventually spiral out of control and become more and more vindictive. Obviously, if we're talking rape or murder, that's different.
The point of the post is not to rehash the pardon power, but that Biden's plethora of pardons, gives Trump some political cover as he pardons people early in his term.
The legitimacy of the practice isn't the point. Especially as it hasn't been litigated.
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