6 ms·

So pardons are for sale to the wealthy or well-connected. Maybe this has always been the case, but to see it so blatant... The power of pardon simply further r

So pardons are for sale to the wealthy or well-connected. Maybe this has always been the case, but to see it so blatant... The power of pardon simply further reduces the trust and legitimacy of the executive branch. At least for humans it should be revoked, I think we can still trust the presidency with the power to pardon turkeys.

deleted 6y ago
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oji0hub 6y ago
Buying your freedom is as old as prisons. E.g. I just saw someone post this book although the post disappeared (?): Pardongate: How Bill & Hillary Clinton and Their Brothers Profited from Pardons
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
  - smt88 6y ago
    Do you have a source on Reagan and Carter pardoning people who gave them money? The issue isn't Trump issuing a lot of pardons. It's the corrupt (though legal) influence market that is essentially rewarding him financially for doing it. It's really frustrating that criminal consequences are moot if you find a way to get this president's attention or loyalty.
- a_bonobo 6y ago
  I don't know, that book looks a bit dodgy - released 6-ish months ago, OK publisher, 6 reviews on Amazon, the co-author seems to be a long-time Clinton enemy (https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/bensmith/man-who-saw-trump-coming https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/bensmith/man-who-saw-tr...) The Wikipedia article is probably a better overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_pardon_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_pardon_controvers...
- matthewdgreen 6y ago
  My understanding is that there was a criminal investigation of Clinton's Marc Rich pardon that concluded without finding any evidence of criminality. I'm not raising this as a defense of his making that pardon, but rather, to point out that a President selling pardons is and has long been considered a serious crime. The Clinton precedent is a clear illustration. Saying "hey, some book alleges Clinton got paid for a pardon, therefore it's common practice" sounds nice, but ignores the fact that suspicion around Clinton's Marc Rich pardon triggered an extensive criminal investigation that concluded he did not, in fact, get paid for it.
  - 0goel0 6y ago
    Meanwhile https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/us/politics/trump-pardons.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/us/politics/trump-pardons... "The brisk market for pardons reflects the access peddling that has defined Mr. Trump’s presidency as well as his unorthodox approach to exercising unchecked presidential clemency powers. Pardons and commutations are intended to show mercy to deserving recipients, but Mr. Trump has used many of them to reward personal or political allies."
    - TameAntelope 6y ago
      That's about buying access to Trump so people can make their case for a pardon, which is substantively different.
      - oji0hub 6y ago
        Person gives person B money. Person B gives person A a pardon. We can say that A paid for access, made a voluntary contribution, lightened their walled, lent out money that didn't have to be repaid, etc. In practice, these are just ways of phrasing "bribe" differently.
        TameAntelope 6y ago
        That's not what the NYT is reporting, the NYT is reporting that Person A gives person B money, person B provides access for Person A to talk to Person C about giving Person A a pardon. The pardoner, Person C, does not get any money. That is an important distinction. I'm not saying Trump isn't accepting payments for pardons, I'm saying the NYT article linked above isn't reporting that. They're reporting on lobbying efforts, which don't appear to be illegal. People pay for the President's time quite frequently. What's interesting about this story is that the folks with access are trying directly to solicit from convicts. I think that's fairly new or at least newsworthy.
daniel-s 6y ago
The reason why it exists is important for a democracy. It protects the outgoing administration from political persecution after they leave, promoting peaceful transitions of power and is a safety valve for when the state becomes powerful and goes after people that it shouldn't, which happens all the time. Unfortunately it is also used by all presidents to pardon their buddies.
- mcrae 6y ago
  > It protects the outgoing administration from political persecution Aren’t pardons generally given post-conviction? How can it be a tool to protect against an incoming administration if the victim has been convicted under the current one? Unless you mean that in the future, when the outgoing’s party is back in power they can issue pardons. That doesn’t seem to be consistent with the trend that many pardons are issued on a President’s last day in office (and not his first).
  - StavrosK 6y ago
    Maybe it would be enough to change the law so a president can only issue pardons in his first year or two each term.
    - mc32 6y ago
      Governors too, I imagine.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    Famously, Ford pardoned Nixon prior to any charges, never mind conviction.
- koolba 6y ago
  > The reason why it exists is important for a democracy. It protects the outgoing administration from political persecution after they leave, promoting peaceful transitions of power and is a safety valve for when the state becomes powerful and goes after people that it shouldn't, which happens all the time. That's not why it exists. Pardon power exists so the President has a way to declare peace on behalf of the government with an individual. It has nothing to do with transfer of power. It's to ensure that the President has an out to call off the wolves of the rest of the government and put a matter behind us. > Unfortunately it is also used by all presidents to pardon their buddies. Which is still less corrupt than pardoning your cocaine trafficking, drunk driving brother: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Clinton_Jr.#Conviction_and_pardon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Clinton_Jr.#Conviction_a...
gadders 6y ago
He's pardoned fewer people than all recent presidents except HW Bush: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/C330/production/_116586994_optimised-pres_pardons-nc.png https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/C330/production/...
- croon 6y ago
  Maybe the targets are more relevant than the number. 3000 minor drug offenses or 5 mob cronies.
  - mythrwy 6y ago
    Look at his pardon list from last night. It includes a large number of oversentenced drug offenders including a number of people serving life sentences for marijuana trafficking.
  - gadders 6y ago
    Go here and search for "drug" or "amphetamines". Quite a few non-violent drug offenders with stupid sentences getting pardoned: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-regarding-executive-grants-clemency-012021/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-pr... EG: 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.
    - croon 6y ago
      I have, and I know. The existence of those does not indicate anything about the existence of the other type.
      - gadders 6y ago
        I've found the drug users. You highlight the mob cronies.
pc86 6y ago
Whether an individual pardon is good or bad certainly depends on how you feel about the crime committed by the pardoned, and whether we want to admit it or not, at least a little bit on the party of the President who pardons them. Even if you could objectively measure the damage done by any individual pardon (you can't), the good in aggregate outweighs the bad, especially of any one case that we disagree with but 10,000 equally reasonable and intelligent people may think is great.
mc32 6y ago
Trump has been among the stingiest pardoners. I also have no idea behind the refusal to pardon Assange other than politics. DoJ must have made it clear not to pardon Assange for whatever reason.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  He's been the stingiest in terms of giving them out for people who deserve them on account of being ill-served by the criminal justice system, but he's been the most liberal in terms of bailing out his co-conspirators and politically connected elite.
  - mc32 6y ago
    Do we have a list of the “quality” of all presidential pardons? It may be that proportionally some presidents show certain “favoritism” while others less. But given some pardon in the thousands it’s hard to say without further study that in absolute numbers one self serves more than another except by using biased heuristics.
  - Chris2048 6y ago
    Do you feel Michael Flynn was well served by the criminal justice system?
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  Trump was never Assange's friend, and Assange was foolish to assume the enemy of his enemy would be his friend. Given the way Trump operates in general, there's nothing in the long term that benefits him about having a whistleblower running around free, even if that whistleblower did significant political damage to his opponent one time.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
> The power of pardon simply further reduces the trust and legitimacy of the executive branch. The presidency is a mythologized and over-important role. It should be trusted less.
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
Here's the list. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-regarding-executive-grants-clemency-012021/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-pr... Just browsing the names and convictions it looks like a pretty decent mix of people genuinely deserving and people who have very powerful people advocating for them. Looks like most of the crimes in the list are drug or fraud related. I haven't gone down the whole thing but the guy who got LWOP for weed (presumably huge quantities of it) caught my eye.
Chris2048 6y ago
Did Levandowski pay Trump?
DougN7 6y ago
Is there any proof this pardon was purchased, or is it just assumed? Honest question.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

oji0hub 6y ago

Buying your freedom is as old as prisons. E.g. I just saw someone post this book although the post disappeared (?): Pardongate: How Bill & Hillary Clinton and Their Brothers Profited from Pardons

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
- smt88 6y ago
  Do you have a source on Reagan and Carter pardoning people who gave them money? The issue isn't Trump issuing a lot of pardons. It's the corrupt (though legal) influence market that is essentially rewarding him financially for doing it. It's really frustrating that criminal consequences are moot if you find a way to get this president's attention or loyalty.
a_bonobo 6y ago
I don't know, that book looks a bit dodgy - released 6-ish months ago, OK publisher, 6 reviews on Amazon, the co-author seems to be a long-time Clinton enemy (https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/bensmith/man-who-saw-trump-coming https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/bensmith/man-who-saw-tr...) The Wikipedia article is probably a better overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_pardon_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_pardon_controvers...
matthewdgreen 6y ago
My understanding is that there was a criminal investigation of Clinton's Marc Rich pardon that concluded without finding any evidence of criminality. I'm not raising this as a defense of his making that pardon, but rather, to point out that a President selling pardons is and has long been considered a serious crime. The Clinton precedent is a clear illustration. Saying "hey, some book alleges Clinton got paid for a pardon, therefore it's common practice" sounds nice, but ignores the fact that suspicion around Clinton's Marc Rich pardon triggered an extensive criminal investigation that concluded he did not, in fact, get paid for it.
- 0goel0 6y ago
  Meanwhile https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/us/politics/trump-pardons.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/17/us/politics/trump-pardons... "The brisk market for pardons reflects the access peddling that has defined Mr. Trump’s presidency as well as his unorthodox approach to exercising unchecked presidential clemency powers. Pardons and commutations are intended to show mercy to deserving recipients, but Mr. Trump has used many of them to reward personal or political allies."
  - TameAntelope 6y ago
    That's about buying access to Trump so people can make their case for a pardon, which is substantively different.
    - oji0hub 6y ago
      Person gives person B money. Person B gives person A a pardon. We can say that A paid for access, made a voluntary contribution, lightened their walled, lent out money that didn't have to be repaid, etc. In practice, these are just ways of phrasing "bribe" differently.
      - TameAntelope 6y ago
        That's not what the NYT is reporting, the NYT is reporting that Person A gives person B money, person B provides access for Person A to talk to Person C about giving Person A a pardon. The pardoner, Person C, does not get any money. That is an important distinction. I'm not saying Trump isn't accepting payments for pardons, I'm saying the NYT article linked above isn't reporting that. They're reporting on lobbying efforts, which don't appear to be illegal. People pay for the President's time quite frequently. What's interesting about this story is that the folks with access are trying directly to solicit from convicts. I think that's fairly new or at least newsworthy.

daniel-s 6y ago

The reason why it exists is important for a democracy. It protects the outgoing administration from political persecution after they leave, promoting peaceful transitions of power and is a safety valve for when the state becomes powerful and goes after people that it shouldn't, which happens all the time. Unfortunately it is also used by all presidents to pardon their buddies.

mcrae 6y ago
> It protects the outgoing administration from political persecution Aren’t pardons generally given post-conviction? How can it be a tool to protect against an incoming administration if the victim has been convicted under the current one? Unless you mean that in the future, when the outgoing’s party is back in power they can issue pardons. That doesn’t seem to be consistent with the trend that many pardons are issued on a President’s last day in office (and not his first).
- StavrosK 6y ago
  Maybe it would be enough to change the law so a president can only issue pardons in his first year or two each term.
  - mc32 6y ago
    Governors too, I imagine.
- maxerickson 6y ago
  Famously, Ford pardoned Nixon prior to any charges, never mind conviction.
koolba 6y ago
> The reason why it exists is important for a democracy. It protects the outgoing administration from political persecution after they leave, promoting peaceful transitions of power and is a safety valve for when the state becomes powerful and goes after people that it shouldn't, which happens all the time. That's not why it exists. Pardon power exists so the President has a way to declare peace on behalf of the government with an individual. It has nothing to do with transfer of power. It's to ensure that the President has an out to call off the wolves of the rest of the government and put a matter behind us. > Unfortunately it is also used by all presidents to pardon their buddies. Which is still less corrupt than pardoning your cocaine trafficking, drunk driving brother: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Clinton_Jr.#Conviction_and_pardon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Clinton_Jr.#Conviction_a...

gadders 6y ago

He's pardoned fewer people than all recent presidents except HW Bush: https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/C330/production/_116586994_optimised-pres_pardons-nc.png https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/C330/production/...

croon 6y ago
Maybe the targets are more relevant than the number. 3000 minor drug offenses or 5 mob cronies.
- mythrwy 6y ago
  Look at his pardon list from last night. It includes a large number of oversentenced drug offenders including a number of people serving life sentences for marijuana trafficking.
- gadders 6y ago
  Go here and search for "drug" or "amphetamines". Quite a few non-violent drug offenders with stupid sentences getting pardoned: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-regarding-executive-grants-clemency-012021/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-pr... EG: 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.
  - croon 6y ago
    I have, and I know. The existence of those does not indicate anything about the existence of the other type.
    - gadders 6y ago
      I've found the drug users. You highlight the mob cronies.

pc86 6y ago

Whether an individual pardon is good or bad certainly depends on how you feel about the crime committed by the pardoned, and whether we want to admit it or not, at least a little bit on the party of the President who pardons them. Even if you could objectively measure the damage done by any individual pardon (you can't), the good in aggregate outweighs the bad, especially of any one case that we disagree with but 10,000 equally reasonable and intelligent people may think is great.

mc32 6y ago

Trump has been among the stingiest pardoners. I also have no idea behind the refusal to pardon Assange other than politics. DoJ must have made it clear not to pardon Assange for whatever reason.

CydeWeys 6y ago
He's been the stingiest in terms of giving them out for people who deserve them on account of being ill-served by the criminal justice system, but he's been the most liberal in terms of bailing out his co-conspirators and politically connected elite.
- mc32 6y ago
  Do we have a list of the “quality” of all presidential pardons? It may be that proportionally some presidents show certain “favoritism” while others less. But given some pardon in the thousands it’s hard to say without further study that in absolute numbers one self serves more than another except by using biased heuristics.
- Chris2048 6y ago
  Do you feel Michael Flynn was well served by the criminal justice system?
shadowgovt 6y ago
Trump was never Assange's friend, and Assange was foolish to assume the enemy of his enemy would be his friend. Given the way Trump operates in general, there's nothing in the long term that benefits him about having a whistleblower running around free, even if that whistleblower did significant political damage to his opponent one time.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

gnusty_gnurc 6y ago

> The power of pardon simply further reduces the trust and legitimacy of the executive branch. The presidency is a mythologized and over-important role. It should be trusted less.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

Here's the list. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-press-secretary-regarding-executive-grants-clemency-012021/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-pr... Just browsing the names and convictions it looks like a pretty decent mix of people genuinely deserving and people who have very powerful people advocating for them. Looks like most of the crimes in the list are drug or fraud related. I haven't gone down the whole thing but the guy who got LWOP for weed (presumably huge quantities of it) caught my eye.

Chris2048 6y ago

Did Levandowski pay Trump?

DougN7 6y ago

Is there any proof this pardon was purchased, or is it just assumed? Honest question.