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Anthony Levandowski Pardoned
- boolean 6y ago> Mr. Levandowski has paid a significant price for his actions and plans to devote his talents to advance the public good. As a thief, he should be in prison. He hasn't paid any price. He's still a millionaire, will probably start another company and raise billions in next 3 years.
- Cookingboy 6y ago>paid a significant price Is that price a large sum of money to a particular SuperPAC in the near future?
- gogopuppygogo 6y agoYou can take performance fees for raising money for a pac and not be licensed. Great way to make large sums of money if you have skills to raise money.
- ocdtrekkie 6y agoNot only this, but Mr. Levandowski has made it clear he thinks his car failing to cause the first self-driving fatality would mean they were behind. The man believes manslaughter is the cost of doing business for innovation. He should be in prison for much more than he got.
- hulitu 6y ago> The man believes manslaughter is the cost of doing business for innovation. He should be in prison for much more than he got. Evil scientist Boo Evil scientist Boo
- Veen 6y agoAlthough it might be tempting, you can’t really send people to prison for disagreeing with your ethics.
- bryanrasmussen 6y agomuch imprisonment is based on just this, even if an action is required to send you on the road to prison your ethics are used as indicator of whether you should actually go there or not.
- KSteffensen 6y agoI truly hope that most laws have some basis in ethics where getting people killed is unethical.
- user-the-name 6y agoReckless endangerment is a thing, you know.
- WalterBright 6y agoThe first death in a powered airplane was where one of the Wrights crashed carrying a passenger, and he died. Should the airplane have never been invented and the Wrights jailed for trying?
- n4r9 6y agoThere's a difference between accepting the costs of progress and actively wanting to be indirectly responsible for death.
- WalterBright 6y ago>> The man believes manslaughter is the cost of doing business for innovation > There's a difference between accepting the costs of progress I'm not seeing the essential difference here. P.S. I know nothing about Levandowski, his beliefs, or his statements. Just commenting on what the parent wrote.
- n4r9 6y agoI'm also only commenting on what the parent wrote to be fair. My point is that being disappointed not to be involved in a death - as that comment suggests - is a level of callousness that goes well beyond accepting the cost of progress.
- WalterBright 6y agoSince I don't know the man, I prefer to be charitable and am willing to assume he was just being inept in his choice of phrasing rather than assuming he is evil. I worked on the stab trim gearbox design for the Boeing 757. That gearbox is "flight critical", meaning total failure of it means a crash. I'm very proud that the stab trim system has never caused an accident in the service history of the 757. (Of course, the design was an iteration on the highly successful 747 equivalent, not anything revolutionary.)
- 6y ago
- maxlamb 6y agoSource? That is pretty horrifying if true
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago> Last summer, after a man died in a Tesla that was using the car’s Autopilot system, which allows for autonomous driving on highways, Levandowski told several Uber engineers that they were not pushing aggressively enough. “I’m pissed we didn’t have the first death,” Levandowski said, according to a person familiar with the conversation. (Levandowski denies saying this.) https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/05/inside-uber-lawsuits-travis-kalanick.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/05/inside-uber-lawsuits...
- MrMorden 6y agoHe'll commit more felonies because criminals can't stop themselves from criming.
- almost_usual 6y agoI guess that’s one way to strike back at Google.
- refurb 6y agoI’m thinking that’s a big driver? Google must be pissed. But correct me if I’m wrong this has no impact on civil suits? So he’s still on the hook for any damages.
- unityByFreedom 6y ago"Getting away with it" like this isn't something anyone else is likely to repeat so I doubt they're pissed.
- slg 6y ago>This pardon is strongly supported by James Ramsey, Peter Thiel, Miles Ehrlich, Amy Craig, Michael Ovitz, Palmer Luckey, Ryan Petersen, Ken Goldberg, Mike Jensen, Nate Schimmel, Trae Stephens, Blake Masters, and James Proud, among others. I guess it pays to have rich friends.
- rijoja 6y ago... or maybe they are competent and knows how to advance the public good.
- chandra381 6y agoHow does Anthony Lewandowski being pardoned advance any public good? I would argue it does the exact opposite.
- jrockway 6y agoI guess it kind of "sticks it" to Google, who Trump thinks is "so biased toward the Dems it is ridiculous!" I have no idea if there is such a thing as a "revenge pardon", but I guess it's a thing now. (Incidentally, I wanted to use an exact Trump quote in that first paragraph, and I found it here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/19/upshot/trump-complete-insult-list.html#google https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/19/upshot/trump-...)
- 6y ago
- sharkweek 6y agoI'm going to go around the interesting tech angle here and comment on how many people on this list have been pardoned for petty drug crimes. *Corvain Cooper – President Trump commuted the sentence of Mr. Corvain Cooper. Mr. Cooper is a 41 year-old father of two girls who has served more than 7 years of a life sentence for his non-violent participation in a conspiracy to distribute marijuana.* Life sentence for "conspiracy to distribute marijuana" - Unbelievable. There are dozens of similar examples on this list.
- slg 6y agoIt is honorable to pardon or commute the sentence of people in this situation. It seems Trump has only done it for a few dozen people. I can't help wonder why specifically these people deserve this and the hundreds of thousands of other people still in prison for similar charges don't deserve it. If he truly believed these laws were too harsh, he could have worked to change the laws as president.
- wombatpm 6y agoAs one does not simply ‘walk’ into Mordor, Trump does not ‘work’ to do anything not in his immediate self interest
- cannaceo 6y agoIt was a grassroots effort and, in the end, lobbied through the right channels. He caught a lucky break. Now that Corvain is getting release he'll be lobbying for the release of other non-violent cannabis offenders. It will take time but we'll get all non-violent cannabis offenders released.
- koheripbal 6y agoMost pardon's are recommended to the President by the Justice department after reviewing cases. Currently, they have a mandate to go over all large sentences of non-violent drug offenders.
- cannaceo 6y agoDidn't think I'd seen Corvain mentioned on HN. He's actually a great guy and a hell of an entrepreneur. Without trying to take any credit for his release my team was involved in the process of raising awareness of his incarceration for the last year and got deeply involved in bringing his cannabis brand to the California market. We've been early-celebrating all week about his pending release. I'll also add that his crime was trafficking 37 tons. He wasn't the seller or buyer.
- paxys 6y ago> Stephen K. Bannon – President Trump granted a full pardon to Stephen Bannon. Prosecutors pursued Mr. Bannon with charges related to fraud stemming from his involvement in a political project. Mr. Bannon has been an important leader in the conservative movement and is known for his political acumen. This one is hilarious. The "political project" was raising money for a border wall via crowdfunding and putting it into his own pocket. He scammed the most hardcore Trump supporters, and got pardoned by Trump for it.
- jmcguckin 6y agoYou should recite the facts correctly. Supposedly, Bannon represented to the public that 100% of donated funds were going to build the wall. In fact, prosecuters allege that ‘hundreds of thousands’ were diverted to pay Banon’s personal bills. That’s out of 25 million raised.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- chandra381 6y agoHe still stole and he's still a criminal. What are you trying to prove here
- jmcguckin 6y agoThe earlier comment implied that Bannon stole all the monies raised, when in fact, where talking about what - 10%? - diverted? There's no question that 100% of the monies did not go to the construction of the wall. From a practical standpoint, a non-profit that manages to run with a 10% overhead is very unusual. Most non-profits spend most of their money (70%+) on marketing and administration.
- paxys 6y agoWhat part of what I said was incorrect? > Bannon and another defendant, Brian Kolfage, allegedly promised donors that the campaign, which raised more than $25 million, was "a volunteer organization" and that "100% of the funds raised ... will be used in the execution of our mission and purpose," according to the indictment. > Instead, according to prosecutors, Bannon, through a nonprofit under his control, allegedly used more than $1 million from We Build the Wall to "secretly" pay Kolfage and cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in Bannon's personal expenses. https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/19/politics/steve-bannon-pardoned-by-trump/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/19/politics/steve-bannon-pardone...
- contemporary343 6y agoThis is all so hilariously corrupt. I'm not sure I can even muster anger for this, just laughter. (I'll reserve the anger for the pandemic and this administration's callous, frankly criminal handling of it). (So Levandowski and Jared are going to launch a venture fund soon, right?)
- dvaun 6y agoDon't forget to have the additionally-pardoned Michael Liberty join the efforts to attract investors. Over $50 million defrauded [0][2] from investors, and it wasn't his first rodeo with the SEC[1]. [0]: https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2018/lr24092.htm https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2018/lr24092.htm [1]: https://www.pressherald.com/2016/11/30/sec-charges-ex-maine-developer-liberty-hid-funds-to-slash-size-of-settlement-fine/ https://www.pressherald.com/2016/11/30/sec-charges-ex-maine-... [2]: https://www.pressherald.com/2018/04/02/liberty-in-sec-crosshairs-again/ https://www.pressherald.com/2018/04/02/liberty-in-sec-crossh...
- salawat 6y ago...is a Presidential pardon final come the next Administration? Or has that not really been tested in court?
- wahern 6y agoA pardon requires delivery and acceptance. (Actually, I think delivery is incomplete without acceptance.) Theoretically an incoming president could recall the pardon if it hasn't been delivered. Not sure what may constitute as delivery; or acceptance, for that matter. I don't think the manner of delivery or acceptance has been tested, let alone enumerated. If it's as simple as a phone call, then presumably nothing could be done. I think a more interesting question is whether there's a specificity requirement. AFAIU, that hasn't been answered, either.
- marmaduke 6y agoThere was an even more interesting question raised on r/NeutralPolitics about whether the pardon has to even be made public. It seems there's an interpretation of the law where the pardon only becomes public when the recipient makes use of it in a public court.
- carlivar 6y agoLevandowski but not Snowden or Assange. Sigh.
- ttyprintk 6y agoI don’t know what the current going rate is; we’ll see if Joe Exotic met it. Supporters of Snowden and Assange have only a few hours to get the cash together.
- jl2718 6y agoInteresting perspective. What else besides cash would you suspect to be influential?
- ttyprintk 6y agoWell, in hindsight none of them provided enough transactional basis. Mr. Exotic once got 19% of the vote for governor of Florida. Seemed like a natural ally in a swing state. Earlier in Trumps presidency, one explanation for a Snowden pardon is that he would appear on stage at a Trump rally. But, it’s not clear what Assange would be pardoned for. He might be in better shape without the guilt conveyed by a pardon.
- hulitu 6y ago> Levandowski but not Snowden or Assange. Sigh. Snowden and Assange have no value in the market economy. Lewandowski, on the other side, has some interesting skills
- btilly 6y agoMost of these are people accused of various drug crimes (many nonviolent). As much as I hate Trump, I support that. The worst one was this: Paul Erickson – President Trump has issued a full pardon to Paul Erikson. This pardon is supported by Kellyanne Conway. Mr. Erickson’s conviction was based off the Russian collusion hoax. After finding no grounds to charge him with any crimes with respect to connections with Russia, he was charged with a minor financial crime. Although the Department of Justice sought a lesser sentence, Mr. Erickson was sentenced to 7 years’ imprisonment—nearly double the Department of Justice’s recommended maximum sentence. This pardon helps right the wrongs of what has been revealed to be perhaps the greatest witch hunt in American History. Yeah, BS. Trump deserved to lose his Presidency then and there. I also didn't like the special treatment that Stephen Bannon received. There is another person who deserves to rot in hell. But my guess is that more than 2/3 of these commutations I support. And it has nothing to do with who commuted them.
- pldr1234 6y agoJust to note - they specifically added those other commutations to elicit your exact reaction: "Some look shady, but it's mostly good".
- cure 6y agoI think you're assuming they are more competent/smarter than they really are.
- btilly 6y agoIt does not take a lot of brains to say, "Every outgoing President does this, you should do the same." And he didn't particularly abuse the power. The record for one day of pardons/commutations is 330, set by Barack Obama on his last day of office. I believe that the record before that was set by Bill Clinton.
- btilly 6y agoI am aware of that. But I was expecting Trump to issue a blank commutation for all "patriots" involved in any way in the Capitol riot. With the purpose of making it harder for legal consequences of the indictment to reach him. For a previous example, Bush Sr commuted the sentence of everyone involved in the Iran-Contra affair which prevented that investigation from potentially reaching him. (Given excerpts of his diary released after he was in office, it seems likely that the investigation would have been able to nail Bush in time.)
- visarga 6y agoThe one who's awaiting his own trial can still give pardons other people?
- danans 6y agoHe's not yet been indicted criminally, and per DOJ rules he can't be until noon on Jan 20. His facing a Senate trial for impeachment doesn't remove the pardon power. That also expires at noon on Jan 20.
- khuey 6y agoHim facing an impeachment trial does remove the pardon power, but only for things related to the impeachment.
- reducesuffering 6y agoSo when we do get rid of presidential pardons? We've seen "an American president commutes the sentence of a person convicted by a jury of lying to shield that very president." ~Mitt Romney And we've seen pardons put up for sale.[0] Is the US a nation of laws and due process or a Banana Republic where anyone can be acquitted of anything? [0]https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/us/politics/trump-pardons.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/us/politics/trump-pardons...
- jayd16 6y agoOr we could hold politicians accountable for failing to hold the president accountable through the systems that exist.
- lovecg 6y agoPeople who elected these politicians evidently approve of their performance.
- gogopuppygogo 6y agoMaybe we should focus on fixing the broken justice system. There are many more people unjustly served than justly these days.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- theshrike79 6y ago> So when we do get rid of presidential pardons? Not an American, but I just learned a few days ago that a good deal of presidential pardons are used to give citizenship rights back to people who have already served their sentence - sometimes decades ago. After the pardon they can actually vote and hold public office. Maybe you should, you know, stop taking away people's rights after they're served their court-appointed sentence?
- 6y ago
- villgax 6y agoWay to go Peter Thiel & his lobbying money
- brunoTbear 6y agoNice to see Peter Thiel get one last jab in against common decency before Trump is out of office. Does anyone think Lewandowski’s conduct is acceptable or defensible? He defrauded everyone involved in Le Affaire Uber.
- thro4234324 6y agoTrump really is quite shameless. Meanwhile, the US is illegally pursuing Assange, and is penalizing Snowden for following the very same values that the US ostensibly holds. The alt-media is calling Trumpers as the new "Liberty movt.", yet they call for American hegemony on Asia and elsewhere, and their policy directions are equally counter-indicative. Liberty my ass.
- wrnr 6y agoWhy so negative, a little bit of clemency even if people are guilty will do a great deal to help heal the nation. This list reads like an indictment of the justice system, life sentences for non violent drug offences, yikes. I'm glad for everyone, welcome back.
- avmich 6y ago> will do a great deal to help heal the nation A counterpoint: Abraham Lincoln had some strong opinions about the events like on Jan. 6, and his opinions were not guided by an idea of "unity." Healing may involve some unpleasant medicine.
- wrnr 6y agoI'm guided by the principle for universal love and forgiveness, it is time to leave the past behind, who cares what a dead person would thinks about something he never experienced. You are afraid and grasping at an illusion to keep up the self image of the victim, a powerful image yes, wash the hate from your heart, open the chacra of fear to drain the pool of resentment and let the light enter your soul. I will pray for you my child and I want you to know that I love your for all that you are irregardless of what you did.
- tsimionescu 6y agoEven in the kindest philosophies, forgiveness is conditioned on some kind of regret for the crime (if indeed a crime did happen). Almost none of the people on this list are repentant for their actions - if anything, many are defiant - and I see no reason to forgive them. It may be a kindness to them, but there is also a problem of kindness for their victims.
- cycomanic 6y agoHealing can not happen without some form of holding the perpetrators to account. Otherwise, society has not shown that the behaviour was unacceptable and the perpetrators are not seeing any consequences for their actions. To give an example, hardly anyone would be able to forgive someone that has e.g. stolen your car, and continues to drive by your house with it and showing no remorse for taking it. It's also ironic that the demands for unity and forgiveness are now coming from a side who has made law&order a central part of their platform, in a country with one of the most broken judicial systems and one of the highest incarceration rates in the world.
- chandra381 6y agoTrump pardons former Uber executive Anthony Levandowski on the recommendation of a panel that includes Peter Thiel and Palmer Luckey.. (EDIT: Palmer Luckey) -> who famously caught on camera flashing a white supremacy sign in a photo with the conspiracy theorist Chuck Johnson and Steve Bannon (who was also pardoned today)- just hilarious levels of corruption all around
- blurp_ 6y agoYou've been bamboozled. Look up "Operation O-KKK". Next you're gonna tell me drinking milk is racist.
- Maken 6y agoWho said deep state?
- omeze 6y agodo you have any evidence for these? I googled and couldnt find any photos of Thiel
- chandra381 6y agohttps://twitter.com/slpng_giants/status/922563981826441216 https://twitter.com/slpng_giants/status/922563981826441216 Here's the photo of Palmer Luckey with Bannon. He claims in this tweet that he was flashing the sign "ironically" as a hoax in this reply: https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/922575384817950726 https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/922575384817950726
- audiometry 6y agoAlso in Trump's last hurrah is pardoning Kwame Kilpatrick. https://www.crimetownshow.com/ https://www.crimetownshow.com/ I have no idea how he fits in the profile of Trump's other pardons. Maybe just resonates with Trump as another shameless, corrupt politician.
- jmeister 6y agoIt’s his way of getting back at Detroit/Michigan for not voting for him?
- pengaru 6y agoNo Shkreli?
- syntaxing 6y agoI see these series of pardons but I don’t get how it works logistically in terms of federal vs state. Let’s say Anthony Levandowski was guilty for California charges, what would that mean?
- nostromo 6y agoThe president has no authority to pardon state or local convictions, only federal.
- harrisonjackson 6y agoI didn't realize how many pardons are handed out by presidents. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_or_granted_clemency_by_the_president_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_or_gra... Without passing any judgement on the validity of the pardons the sheer number of them surprised me. Trump - 94 as of Dec 23, 2020 (going up obvs) Obama - 1,927 Bush - 200 Clinton - 459 Bush Sr - 77 ... The most interesting one to me was President Ford pardoning President Nixon. TIL.
- mschuster91 6y ago> The most interesting one to me was President Ford pardoning President Nixon. TIL. Done in the name and hope of "national healing". There were even talks about Biden pardoning Trump in order to prevent the precedent of a new administration pursuing an outgoing administration by legal overreach... was utter madness IMO even before the attempted putsch by his supporters, but now it's untenable. Personally, as a half German and half Croat I can only say one thing when I look at the histories of my home countries: for any form of healing to succeed, criminal actions by any government must be dealt with transparently and impartially by the appropriate institutions in a speedy manner, otherwise the only thing that will breed is resentment. The Nazi regime crimes were dealt with by the Nuremberg trials and the supporters were assessed under de-nazification, the result was that every German could see that high crimes did not go unpunished and that our neighbor countries could trust us again. Contrast this to the post-Independence Wars Balkans, where half the war criminals of all sides were not prosecuted at all as they died and not much research happened into what they did, and of the other half the majority was protected by their respective ethnic's governments for sometimes decades. The result? Ugly nationalism and hatred are as alive as ever in the region.
- epicureanideal 6y agoDisappointing list.
- amatecha 6y agoIssued on January 20th, 2021.... Didn't Joe Biden just win the popular vote with 51.3% on... November 3rd, 2020, over two months ago? Why does the US political system wait months to enact the peoples' will? I don't understand this at all.
- refurb 6y agoIs this a serious question? This is what most systems do right? Hold an election and then the newly elected sit at some later point in time. Or are you suggesting the second we know the winner the previous president should be booted out?
- amatecha 6y agoYeah, it's a serious question. In the 2015 Canadian General Election[0] the new Prime Minister and cabinet were sworn in two weeks later (though others seem to be often about a month later). I recently saw someone talking about their country swearing in the new party the actual next day(!), though I can't seem to find what country that was. Two months seems crazy to me. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Canadian_federal_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Canadian_federal_election
- kenneth 6y agoI believe, in many parliamentary systems the parliament is dissolved first after which government becomes a caretaker government and cannot enact major new policy changes. After an election is held, new members of parliament are elected and must form a governing coalition that has a majority of the members (sometimes with one party, sometimes with multiple parties) can select a new prime minister and start governing in earnest. Sometimes, they cannot come to an agreement on a governing coalition and they continue without a government for a while until they can. Belgium is infamous for having gone years without a real government that can enact policy due to their failure to establish a majority coalition. This is however very unusual. Over the past couple years I'm strongly starting to believe that this is a better system of government than the US republican[1] model. [1] by republican, I mean of a republic, not the GOP
- 6y ago
- khazhoux 6y agoI'm disappointed in Michael Ovitz, who I've thought well of before now. Why would he stoop to this? Lewandowski was clearly very much in the wrong. Justice was in no way miscarried by his conviction.
- chandra381 6y agoI don't know if you've read Mike Isaac's book on Uber? Michael Ovitz very famously screwed over Travis Kalanick when he invested in Travis' first startup.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- koonsolo 6y agoA democratic system should have separation of powers [1]. This clearly is a part where politics has power where it shouldn't have. I know the intend behind this 'pardoning' idea, but both in theory and practice this seems very bad. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers#Comparison_between_tripartite_and_bipartite_national_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers#Compariso...
- gigatexal 6y agoThe Trump saga lasted 4 years though it will probably take the rest of my lifetime for the US to heal from Trump and all the acolytes his administration emboldened; from the radical right, to enabling grifters, to draconian and in humane immigration policies (kids in cages, wtf?!?), and a whole lack and mistrust of science, not to mention the rise of QAnon and just the overall tarnishing of any semblance of American leadership abroad (because he is such a joke and his administration, too).
- logicchains 6y ago>kids in cages, wtf?!?) I'm sure you've heard this before, but Obama built the cages.
- dragonwriter 6y ago> I'm sure you've heard this before, but Obama built the cages. I'm sure you've heard this before, but Obama implemented policies to limit the necessity for their use, while the Trump Administration deliberately maximized their use.
- techplex 6y agoSource?
- croon 6y agoUnder Obama: If you commit a crime while having entered the country, you are charged in criminal court, meaning you are put in jail awaiting trial. Your kids can't be put in jail with you, thus they are taken care of separately. If you don't commit a crime, you are charged in civil court and not put in jail awaiting trial, so your kids aren't taken from you. Under Trump: Charge everyone in criminal court [0], take away everyone's kids, despite evidence that it doesn't deter [1], because we are evil vindictive (inferred from facts) [expletive] (assumed). [0] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/09/27/far-more-immigration-cases-are-being-prosecuted-criminally-under-trump-administration/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/09/27/far-more-im... [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/border-arrest-data-suggest-trumps-push-to-split-migrant-families-had-little-deterrent-effect/2018/08/08/0f452f0e-9a85-11e8-b55e-5002300ef004_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/borde...
- blkhawk 6y agoIs there an annotated list of this? I am pretty sure I cannot trust whatever is on that website describing the people pardoned.
- Terretta 6y agoLook, all you need to know is the glorious philanthropy! The “/s” aside, if granting a pardon, perhaps it’s fair not to go into depth under these names on the badness in their past, as part of the pardon concept is getting beyond that to move forward. Talking up their “good” supports that too.
- mastermojo 6y agoMy knee jerk reaction to this is also to be upset, but if I try to view his sentence from a perspective of rehabilitation vs punitive action ... His original sentence (6 months ago) was 18 months. I don't know if the extra 12 months here changes anything.
- kenneth 6y agoSeems the comments here are mostly negative — saying his pardon is an example of corruption and that he should be in jail. Personally, I think that the ability for gigantic corporations' ability to not only sue their former employees or influence justice to get them thrown in jail by the government is a much bigger problem. And generally I feel like prison sentences for white-collar and non-violent crime is in almost all cases excessive.
- tsimionescu 6y agoIn general you may be right, but stealing code from one employer to give to your next, and explicitly being paid for this and advancing your career, is not a good example. His actions were clearly wrong, and this is just an example of the way white collar crime, even when it causes massive damages, is not practically punished as badly as blue collar crime.
- gorgoiler 6y agoI’m not really interested in seeing Levandowski sent to jail either. People like him are a menace to society and shouldn’t be allowed to operate companies or deploy capital. Society blesses individuals with the privilege to form a company and in exchange those company officers are expected to make a net positive contribution to society. Jobs, investment, progress. If you fail to do that — through stealing, fraud, corruption — the least you should expect is to never be allowed to run a company ever again.
- hypervisorxxx 6y agoI'm glad to see kodack black pardoned. He's a super genuine artist. His music changed my life. His crime was lying how many white boys have lied in court and served less than 46months in prison. He truly turned his life around for many years now and it reflects in his music.
- DataWorker 6y agoThis really undermines trust.
- bluelu 6y agoAccording to https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/19/former-google-engineer-anthony-levandowski-among-list-of-last-minute-trump-pardons/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/19/former-google-engineer-ant... "Instead, Alsup sentenced Lewandowski to 18 months, but delayed his prison time until the pandemic was under control. Levandowski also agreed to pay $756,499.22 in restitution to Waymo and a fine of $95,000." So he didn't even spend a single minute in prison. Wow
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- refurb 6y agoI mean serious criminals are being released from prison in CA due to Covid so I’m not sure he’s getting special treatment in that aspect.
- 0goel0 6y agoWhat's not serious about stealing and selling trade secrets, jeopardizing life-saving R&D, blatantly disrespecting the law, and walking away with hundreds of millions of dollars expecting not to be caught?
- tomerico 6y agoHe declared bankruptcy, hence walked out much poorer than he started. At the end of the day it was IP theft, which for regular people creates more competition and can accelerate the "life-saving R&D". IP laws exist for a good reason, but it's hard to say that he has done serious damage to society.
- blackguardx 6y agoHe started a church and it is alleged that he funneled a lot of money into it. I think he is doing alright.
- 0goel0 6y ago
- WalterBright 6y agoIt's important to note the reason the President has the power to pardon anyone for any reason is it's one of the checks and balances, the Constitution is full of them. It's meant as a check to blunt overzealous prosecutions. Note that the President does not have the corresponding power to convict anyone. An interesting set of pardons was when Andrew Johnson pardoned all the rebels in the Confederacy, including Jefferson Davis. As far as I know, the only Confederate officers convicted and hanged were the ones running the POW camps. The crime was the brutal way they ran them, not rebellion.
- ric2b 6y ago> it's one of the checks and balances On the judicial, so it would be great if it was also subject to Congressional approval. It would still fulfill its purpose.
- saalweachter 6y agoAs much as I disagree with some pardons, I think the negative effects of looping in Congress would outweigh the positive. Sometimes pardons are politically unpopular even when they are right or justly merciful. Pardoning someone who embarrassed the government, for instance -- I can easily imagine a majority of Congress choosing to deny Chelsea Manning's commutation. It's a bit of a parallel to the "better a hundred guilty go free, than one innocent suffer" philosophy that is supposed to rule the court system -- I'd rather the pardon be flawed in being too generous than too stingy with its mercy.
- orblivion 6y agoWhat if the president pardoned literally... everybody. I wonder what would happen. Maybe he got drunk and wrote something down and handed it to somebody. It's such a simple action, nobody can stop it, he can't take it back when he comes to his senses. Would the system even respond to it? Would they just open all the federal prisons?
- 6y ago
- godmode2019 6y agoGeorge hotz said that Anthony Lewandowski was a real leader and the problem with real leaders is they do first and ask questions later. I don't know Anthony Lewandowski but I agree with the sentiment. Disruption is disrupting, and tends to be illegal. Its pretty hard to stay in the right side of the law, if you think you have not done anything this is because you are not big enough for someone to try find something.
- tsimionescu 6y agoEven if it were true that True Disruption => Illegality (it isn't), it does not follow that doing illegal things makes you a genius disruptor. Levandowski's crime was not his disruption, it was stealing code from his former employer for his own personal gain.
- nelsonmandela 6y agoHeartbreaking to see how long some of these people were locked up for their crimes. Some of them just don't match up. I wish it was an ongoing thing a president did every night before bed - get presented with a curated list of deserving prisoners and a rubberstamp. Far better than a splurge at the end of term.
- coldtea 6y ago>Anthony Levandowski, 40, was sentenced in August to 18 months in prison after pleading guilty in March. He was not in custody but a judge had said he could enter custody once the COVID-19 pandemic subsided. That's the part that caught my eye, not Trump's pardon. So that's how rich people are treated by the court system...
- mayankkaizen 6y agoLegal system for rich and justice system for poor.
- koheripbal 6y agoThis is how all non-violent criminals are treated. Many many prisoners were even released in the early days of the pandemic.
- coldtea 6y ago>This is how all non-violent criminals are treated. Not, all. Some are shot on the spot, despite being non-violent, unarmed, or even a kid playing. Others get life for "three strikes" (non violent).
- koheripbal 6y agoAnecdotes are not useful in deciding policy, and trends do not show an unusual number of people of color being shot. Also, three strikes laws apply to carrier criminals that commit repeated felonies, which in most states require at least one of those felonies to be violent and severely so. https://freebeacon.com/issues/study-no-racial-difference-police-shootings-compared-crime-rates/ https://freebeacon.com/issues/study-no-racial-difference-pol... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-strikes_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-strikes_law
- yannis7 6y agocurious if this is a direct challenge to Google by people like Thiel who have had a historic beef with them [0] - according to the "Super Pumped" book [1], it was Larry Page who personally ordered the litigation against Levandowski - and he was pretty decisive about it. [0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-15/thiel-urges-u-s-probe-of-google-s-seemingly-treasonous-acts https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-15/thiel-urg... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Pumped https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Pumped
- me_me_me 6y agoThe fact that even fox news was onboard with pardoning Julian Assange and then he pardons Levandowski is... well ironic is an understatement. I am failing to find a word that encapsulates my feelings.
- thinkingemote 6y agoI'm not entirely sure that it was possible to pardon Assange as he hasn't been convicted with anything yet? As in , I thought the extradition request was to be sent to USA for a trial.
- adventured 6y agoYou can pardon people before they're convicted of anything. Trump pardoned Steve Bannon for example and he has not yet been convicted (he has been charged). Assange has been charged with various things by the Feds, which is what Trump would pardon. The floated theory went that Trump could plausibly pardon himself as well, for any likely future charges.
- astrange 6y agoIt's questionable if you can pardon yourself or your coconspirators, and you specifically can't pardon yourself for things you were impeached for. It's not questionable if you can pardon things that haven't been charged yet. You can. The pardon power is absolute, greater than laws that define specific crimes, and doesn't require accepting guilt or whatever.
- vharuck 6y ago>It's not questionable if you can pardon things that haven't been charged yet. You can. For a specific example, Jimmy Carter pardoned everyone who dodged the draft for Vietnam[1]. This showed that pardons could both apply to actions which hadn't been charged and categories of people. I think one of the only limits on the pardon power is that it can only apply to past behavior. [1] https://www.justice.gov/pardon/vietnam-war-era-pardon-instructions https://www.justice.gov/pardon/vietnam-war-era-pardon-instru...
- koolba 6y agoThe actual title is "Statement from the Press Secretary Regarding Executive Grants of Clemency". Took a second to realize that the editorialized title is referring to Anthony Levandowski[1] (of Waymo / Google / Uber). Upon first read I just saw the last name and thought it was related to his former campaign chair Corey Lewandowski[2]! [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Levandowski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Levandowski [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corey_Lewandowski https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corey_Lewandowski
- Ericson2314 6y agoCame here to say the same.
- avs733 6y agoMy partner and I were talking about this and honestly wondered if there had been either a mistake in reporting or a mistake in the actual process. The input of Thiel made it more clear.
- wdb 6y agoLooks like the US government supports stealing trade secrets. You would nearly avoid doing business in the US
- hehehaha 6y agoI really feel for all the prosecutors who worked so hard to catch these criminals.
- xutopia 6y agoLaw and order unless they're my friends or that I can make 2 million with it.
- User23 6y agoThe pardon power is enshrined in the highest law of the land and is thus lawful and orderly. There is no contradiction here.
- cletus 6y agoI think it's really important for society as a whole that there exists the rule of law and not the rule of law for the poor only. This is just another blatant example of where being rich and having connections puts you above the law. Sadly this isn't an isolated case. Take Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort. Both plead guilty and both were somehow granted home detention due to the pandemic What Levandowski did was egregious. You walk out the door of a company. You take nothing. That's it. You don't own nor are you entitled to any of that work product. It's pretty simple. I'm not surprised to see Peter Thiel on that list. His politics are pretty appealing. I don't know most of the other names on that list who supported the pardon but that's not a list I'd want to be associated with, personally.
- throwaway5752 6y agoIt's not just egregious, it's soley to punish Google, which the president had a well publicized vendetta against.
- gwbas1c 6y ago(Joke) What, no pardon for Joe Exotic? How are we going to survive the lockdown without more of his antics on Netflix?
- throwaway22442 6y agoGood news for his current self driving company, Pronto.ai.
- m3kw9 6y agoDoes he still have to pay the fines?
- cs702 6y agoI wonder how much it cost to buy this pardon.
- arthurcolle 6y agoApparently only 2 million - https://www.businessinsider.com/giuliani-associate-reportedly-trump-pardon-costs-2-million-nyt-2021-1?international=true&r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/giuliani-associate-reportedl...
- curiousgal 6y agoIf this is true, then Trump has made what? At least 100 million dollars? I hate the man but I can't help but respect him on some level for gaming the system so well!
- arthurcolle 6y agoPretty sure Giuliani is just pocketing the money since Trump stopped paying him his legal fees and Rudy probably just wanted to come up with a new vertical.
- myth_buster 6y agoRelevant: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/us/politics/trump-pardons.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/us/politics/trump-pardons...
- dgellow 6y agoNo Assange, no Snowden. What a fool I am, I seriously envisaged that could happen... Instead it’s just more and more corruption.
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- knuthsat 6y agoThe fact that all a POTUS does after presidency is enrich oneself, it's quite clear where the motives are. The moment when POTUS is unable to profit off of his presidency is the moment where these things wouldn't happen. POTUS becoming a multimillionaire after presidency is just a sad display of moral corruption. Edit: Not talking about Trump, just in general about POTUS. It's my impression that in the last 50 years all of them benefited from the public, exerting their influence after losing the binds of the POTUS position to enrich themselves. Shows quite a lack of moral character in all of them.
- mattst88 6y agoHave you heard of Jimmy Carter?
- rchaud 6y agoWould this be an example of the exception proving the rule? It still seems like an accident of history that Americans sent Jimmy Carter to the highest office in the land. For as much as they claim to want a regular Joe/Joe-ette as President (the mirage of the unpretentious 'I can have a beer with him' candidate) they seem to vote for people that are the polar opposite.
- rat87 6y agoTruman is an even better example Before they passed a presidential pension bill Truman was basically broke, living of his army pension
- 6y ago
- plumeria 6y agoAny updates on the case of Ross Ulbricht [0]? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht#Possibility_of_presidential_pardon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Ulbricht#Possibility_of_p...
- x86_64Ubuntu 6y agoProbably not. Assange and Snowden didn't get pardons so I wouldn't expect Ulbricht to get one.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- paul7986 6y agoGoogle steals intellectual property itself https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929 . No surprise one of it's own stole IP from them (where'd he learned to do such) and in the end they get what they give!
- VikingCoder 6y agoIs that how it works? Multiple wrongs make a right?
- paul7986 6y agokarma .... which is how it should be no? You do bad ..no matter what you do it will come back at you!
- VikingCoder 6y agoI'm confused how you can watch the actions of human people, and ascribe the outcomes to "karma."
- paul7986 6y agoDefinition of Karma .. which im sure you may already know... "Karma means action, work, or deed. The term also refers to the spiritual principle of cause and effect, often descriptively called the principle of karma, wherein intent and actions of an individual influence the future of that individual: good intent and good deeds contribute to good karma and happier rebirths, while bad intent and bad deeds contribute to bad karma and bad rebirths." You can choose to always do good actions or do bad actions against others for the sake of greed/power/etc. Everyone has a choice of how to live and it's pretty clear what's the right way to live especially karma will be bat down your door soon, next year or years from now. I guess you are here defending Google's actions and this engineer's actions that both actions are good?
- VikingCoder 6y ago
- Bakary 6y agoI have to say there is quite a lot to learn from Levandowski.[0] I am not a fan of corruption but it's undeniable that he played whatever cards he had in life and played them hard. He'll probably be a shadowy billionaire quite soon. One quote stood out to me at the very end of the article: “The only thing that matters is the future,” he told me after the civil trial was settled. “I don’t even know why we study history. It’s entertaining, I guess—the dinosaurs and the Neanderthals and the Industrial Revolution, and stuff like that. But what already happened doesn’t really matter. You don’t need to know that history to build on what they made. In technology, all that matters is tomorrow.” I've always been obsessed by history but always struggled with this same sentiment: that I was escaping reality and my responsibility to try interesting things by plunging into the past. [0]https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/did-uber-steal-googles-intellectual-property https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/did-uber-steal... edit: to clarify my thoughts given the sudden replies: I don't mean to say I argue for a wholesale casting off of the past. Clearly, I understand the trivial observation that such a view of history has naive aspects, but that's not at all what I am interested in. For me and most other people here that enjoy history and such things, ignoring history would be impossible anyway because the draw is too great. I'm merely putting out a reminder that all our inner or outer debates about the finer points of politics or history or other such topics are often a way to escape seeing what we can do in the present. Looking at people like Levandowski, you might see yet another arrogant techie that has a blinkered view of the world, (and that is more or less true) but at the same time they are out there doing bold things and living life on the edge for better or for worse. They essentially act like the historical figures we read about, although I am not implying that he is some important figure as of yet (though who knows in the future) just that he shows the same zest for life. I'm essentially speaking for those whose main problem is the opposite of Levandowski: too much intellectual masturbation, too much thought as entertainment, and too little meaningful application of whatever lessons you may or may not have learned. You may harp on about how history matters, but how many of you have actually been presented with choices that mattered beyond the parameters of your own life?
- xiphias2 6y agoI believe that the most useful parts of the history are the parts that are not taught in history classes. Especially monetary history and past enterpreneurs, inventors and scientists. Not history written by winners of wars. Here’s an example: https://nakamotoinstitute.org/shelling-out/ https://nakamotoinstitute.org/shelling-out/
- Permit 6y agoI haven’t seen it asked so I’ll go: Why? I never imagined Trump and Levandowski being connected in any fashion. Does anyone have any insight into why Trump would pardon him?
- momothereal 6y agoYou don't have to be high-profile or the President's buddy to receive an executive pardon (you can realize this by going through the article's list). Anyone* can petition and receive a pardon. *: state offenses are handled by governors or a state pardon board, not the President
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- simonebrunozzi 6y ago> Mr. Levandowski has paid a significant price for his actions and plans to devote his talents to advance the public good. What a laugh. Significant price? How so?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- rjsw 6y agoI thought the price was $2M.
- cush 6y agoThat's the going rate for Trump pardons
- darig 6y agoThat's what Giuliani is charging... he probably gets them wholesale at a rate.
- simonebrunozzi 6y agoBallpark, yes. I was being sarcastic. It's a gentle slap of the hand for him. Nothing more.
- gundmc 6y agoI think OP was referring to the rumors that Trump was shopping pardons around for $2M.
- throw7 6y agojohn kiriakou said he was seen by trump on tucker carlson and requested jared look into him. jared reached out and part of his pardon "application" was 1/4 of the single page dedicated to how being pardoned would help get trump reelected.
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- chad_strategic 6y agoAside from Assange, Sownden and all the rich criminals. I find a small joy/comfort in knowing the non violent drug dealers/users got a pardon from a president... well you can fill in the rest. (US drug laws need to change!) Otherwise, I'm sick to my stomach.
- NelsonMinar 6y agoIt's weird to see the Republican party embrace intellectual property theft. Levandowski stole from his employer and his colleagues at Google to enrich himself at Uber. Why would that possibly be worth a pardon?
- franklampard 6y agoCorruption
- apozem 6y agoAdam Serwer, an excellent writer, explained it: [1] > Law and order, for this president, simply means that he and his ideological allies are above the law, while others, such as [George] Floyd, are merely subject to it. Lewandowski's pardon request was endorsed by Peter Thiel, a huge Trump backer, so he gets to be above the law. Simple. [1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/chauvin-did-what-trump-asked-him-do/612574/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/06/chauvin-di...
- sleepybrett 6y agoI saw reporting that Thiel (and Palmer Luckey) also received a pardon. Anyone have a link to that, I'd like to see specifically what he was pardoned for...
- hn_throwaway_99 6y agoThat's not correct. The reporting was that Thiel and Luckey lobbied Trump to get a pardon for Levandowski.
- thesausageking 6y agoThey're not justifying it. Thiel was a big supporter of Trump and lobbied to get Levandowski a pardon, so Trump is returning the favor.
- tsycho 6y ago
- boringg 6y agoPaid a lot of money for that pardon I reckon even though he was clearly a criminal. The trump admin is such a sham. So glad that they are out of power - hopefully forever for the sake of the Us.
- tartoran 6y agoThat's what I was thinking too but it is possible he'd be pardoned by any other president for the right amount. I'd just think Trump would be the easiest to obtain a paid pardon from.
- tartoran 6y agoThat's what I was thinking too but it is possible he'd be pardoned by any other president for the right amount. I'd just think Trump would be the easiest to obtain a paid pardon from. (cash-for-pardon)
- medium_burrito 6y agoAs opposed to Mark Rich, who was a much bigger piece of shit?
- akhilcacharya 6y agoYou're right, Steve Bannon is the better equivalent Marc Rich, except probably worse.
- lokar 6y agoI read some reporting that the going rate was only $20k, 10 up front and 10 after.
- perfmode 6y agolink?
- lokar 6y agohttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/us/politics/trump-pardons.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/us/politics/trump-pardons... Sorry, it was 100k, 50 up front: "A onetime top adviser to the Trump campaign was paid $50,000 to help seek a pardon for John Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. officer convicted of illegally disclosing classified information, and agreed to a $50,000 bonus if the president granted it, according to a copy of an agreement." And this is not to trump, but rather to his groupies to talk to him on your behalf. At least on paper. Still, probably a good value if you actually get it.
- shadowgovt 6y agoI'm no fan of Levandowski's, but it did always seem to me that criminal penalties (including incarceration) for corporate espionage was a co-option of the criminal machinery of government for what should always have been a civil court affair. That having been said, the law is the law and I'm no fan of using the pardon to free some corporate spies while others with fewer political connections are bound by it.
- totalZero 6y agoNo better way to create positive sentiments about yourself than to generate a swath of people indebted to you for their unexpected amnesty.
- franklampard 6y agoCorruption
- noisy_boy 6y agoWhats up with sprinkling of "xyz is an upstanding citizen and father to n beautiful children." ? They are clearly not an upstanding citizen - otherwise they wouldn't require a presidential pardon. Being father to children is not an achievement and any two consenting healthy adult man and woman can produce them irrespective of their standing in society. And beauty of children is a criteria for pardon now? What if the children were ugly - "clearly he doesn't deserve a pardon, look at his children!" ?! What utter bullshit.
- devmunchies 6y ago>They are clearly not an upstanding citizen - otherwise they wouldn't require a presidential pardon so snowden isn't an upstanding citizen either? law abiding citizen != upstanding citizen
- noisy_boy 6y agoGood point - I stand corrected on that front.
- sn_master 6y ago>They are clearly not an upstanding citizen Your sole argument here is that they were convicted by a court for violating the law. Are you saying everyone convicted by the criminal justice system is a bad human being? Because the pardon is by definition an admission of guilt, it doesn't exonerate them from what they did.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- qwerty456127 6y agoThis! Always baffled me. This probably is something from the colonial age when the population was tiny, conditions were harsh, labor hard, medicine nonexistent so producing a fellow colonist was considered an extremely valuable act, also requiring genuine dedication and courage.
- pbhjpbhj 6y ago
- wnevets 6y agoand it only cost $2 Million [1]. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/giuliani-associate-reportedly-trump-pardon-costs-2-million-nyt-2021-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/giuliani-associate-reportedl...
- sn_master 6y agoPlease do not propagate unproven rumors. Most of that 73 person list are people who clearly don't have anywhere near those amounts.
- wnevets 6y agoIts not a rumor, its an outright accusation by former CIA operative John Kiriakou
- sn_master 6y agoCIA operatives don't lie for political gain purposes?
- wnevets 6y agoYou're absolutely right, trading pardons for cash would be completely out of character for the previous administration. Anthony Levandowski's conviction was obviously a miscarriage of justice and its a good thing it was corrected at the very last minute.
- sn_master 6y agoYour response shows the effect of the mainstream media which intentionally denied all the positive things Trump and his administration has done to the country.
- wnevets 6y agoI don't what form of media you consume that would cause you to dismiss an entire profession as liars for political gain.
- tommoor 6y ago20 of the pardons on that list are for people that were convicted of fraud, I'm sure he feels a certain empathy/kinship with these folks.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ehsankia 6y agoWell this is strange, this was up until a few minutes ago but it now 404s. Whitehouse took the page down (coincidentally at the same time Biden was sworn in). EDIT: Well whitehouse.gov itself was switched to Biden's page, so I assume the page may have been lost in the migration.
- diveanon 6y agoTime to do away with presidential pardons.
- divbzero 6y agoHTTP/1.1 404 Not Found Content-Type: text/html Last-Modified: Wed, 20 Jan 2021 03:48:59 GMT
- jrochkind1 6y agoHmm. This is currently 404'ing. Did the whitehouse remove it? Like... post-transfer-of-power? That seems weird. https://web.archive.org/web/20210120111121/https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-regarding-executive-grants-clemency-012021/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210120111121/https://www.white...
- jonwachob91 6y agoHappens every time we get a new president. Nothing unusual about it. Everything from Trumps whitehouse.gov site is now located at https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov
- dave5104 6y agoYep, the site gets wiped in a new administration. The page linked is now hosted here: https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-regarding-executive-grants-clemency-012021/ https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/st...
- jplevine 6y agoArchived URL from the White House: https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-regarding-executive-grants-clemency-012021/ https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/st...
- cairoshikobon 6y agoDid they wipe out the entire old site? The link isn't working anymore and everything looks different.
- joncrane 6y agoI believe up until noon the website was "whitehouse.gov" and now that he's no longer POTUS it's trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov
- zarkov99 6y agoDoes anyone have some honest insight on why?
- chrisjc 6y agoAn FU to Google? Just to clarify what I mean... YouTube has banned Trump's channel.
- joncrane 6y agoI believe Trump's policy was that anyone that contributed something on the order of $1-2 million to whatever he's calling his slush fund these days (Re-election campaign? Legal defense fund?) is eligible for pardon.
- buzzert 6y agoPlaying devil's advocate here; if you take many steps back and try to look at what's best for the country, you might want to look at citizens with great potential who are currently under lock and key. I don't think anyone is saying Levandowski is innocent (I saw somewhere else in the comments that a pardon is by definition an admission of guilt), but if he's as brilliant of an engineer as some people make him out to be, it would be best for the country if he was back at work instead of in prison.
- zarkov99 6y agoI can see the abstract logic in there, but it is a really hard to believe that could be Trump's reasoning.
- benzible 6y agoApparently Trump screwed up many of the pardons [1] > The pardon for Paul Manafort (on Dec. 23, 2020), is illustrative. By its own terms, the pardon covers only the crimes “for his conviction” on specific charges and not any other crimes (charged or uncharged). [...] Manafort pleaded to a superseding information containing two conspiracy charges, while the entire underlying indictment — containing numerous crimes from money laundering, to witness tampering, to violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act — now remains open to prosecution as there was no conviction for those charges. Not sure if this applies to Levandowski - I haven't seen the text of his pardon. Update: Levandowski's pardon [2] covers "those offenses against the United States individually enumerated and set before me for my consideration." Manafort's pardon [3] lists specific convictions with docket numbers. IANAL so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ [1] https://www.justsecurity.org/74241/the-gaps-in-trumps-pardons-how-the-biden-administration-can-still-pursue-justice/ https://www.justsecurity.org/74241/the-gaps-in-trumps-pardon... [2] https://www.justice.gov/file/1357121/download https://www.justice.gov/file/1357121/download [3] https://www.justice.gov/file/1349071/download https://www.justice.gov/file/1349071/download
- kevincox 6y agoThe link is now a 404. > Anthony Levandowski – President Trump granted a full pardon to Anthony Levandowski. This pardon is strongly supported by James Ramsey, Peter Thiel, Miles Ehrlich, Amy Craig, Michael Ovitz, Palmer Luckey, Ryan Petersen, Ken Goldberg, Mike Jensen, Nate Schimmel, Trae Stephens, Blake Masters, and James Proud, among others. Mr. Levandowski is an American entrepreneur who led Google’s efforts to create self-driving technology. Mr. Levandowski pled guilty to a single criminal count arising from civil litigation. Notably, his sentencing judge called him a “brilliant, groundbreaking engineer that our country needs.” Mr. Levandowski has paid a significant price for his actions and plans to devote his talents to advance the public good. http://web.archive.org/web/20210120111121/https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-regarding-executive-grants-clemency-012021/ http://web.archive.org/web/20210120111121/https://www.whiteh... https://archive.is/H8vD1#selection-435.0-437.714 https://archive.is/H8vD1#selection-435.0-437.714
- asnyder 6y agoInterestingly enough as I understand it, if the pardons haven't been delivered and executed yet they can still be withdrawn. But it might be too late already depending on the execution of them.
- nojvek 6y agoAt this point presidential pardons are being handed out almost everyday. It seems Trump wanted some cash and he sold pardons to the highest bidder. I mean it’s a good way to make money and influence. Also shows that US is corrupt to the top seat.
- stephen82 6y agoTrump: Hey Tony, you know...they are kicking me out and I'm going broke; I need a favor from you. Anthony: what can I do for you mr. President? Trump: I will pardon you in one condition. Antony: what that would be? Trump: I will need some "financial assistance" from you. Antony: ...say no more!
- cratermoon 6y agoPardons should be strictly limited. Pardoning criminals who used their positions of power, wealth, and influence to do financial and legal harm like breach of contract or fraud is de facto corrupt.
- credit_guy 6y agoIt's important to point out that the President's pardon does not apply to civil cases, only to criminal ones. Given this, I find this pardon to be ok. Say what you want about Lewandowski, maybe he was the biggest scumbag, maybe he's worthless as a scientist and does not know the derivative of x squared, maybe (most likely) he stole millions of lines of cutting edge code from Google. But he did not physically harm anyone. He did not even cause monetary harm like Bernie Madoff. It's very doubtful he even caused any psychological harm to anyone. Does he deserve to be sentenced as a criminal? Well, we all know IP is taken seriously in the US. We know cases as Sergey Aleynkov [1] and Aaron Swartz [2], cases that we consider despicable, where corporations or prosecutors pursued with an absolutely terrifying vengeance the minor transgressions of some unlucky but quite harmless members of our society. I for one think Lewandowski (and other people like him) does not deserve the ordeal suffered by Aleynkov or Swarz. If I were in the jury, I would give serious consideration to jury nullification. Don't get me wrong. In terms of civil penalties, I say let him be shirtless. Let him drive a Yugo, if the allegations against him turn out to be true. Google gave him a $100 million bonus, and he took some code and ran to the competition. Confiscate everything he's got. He doesn't deserve it. But don't put him in prison. Trump did many, many bad things. But pardoning Lewandowski was a good thing. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Aleynikov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Aleynikov [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz
- sanp 6y agoWonder how much he paid for it?
- app4soft 6y ago> https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-regarding-executive-grants-clemency-012021/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-pr... > 404 Page Not Found Any backups/cache on this article? UPD: HN topic link seems update now.