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Mr. Trump helpfully pointed out another flaw: a president can pardon whoever they want, including themselves. So it's apparently legal for Mr. Biden to send a t

Mr. Trump helpfully pointed out another flaw: a president can pardon whoever they want, including themselves. So it's apparently legal for Mr. Biden to send a team to assassinate all his political rivals and then just pardon them.

chuckadams 3y ago
Legal thinking these days is that self-pardons are meaningless, but the fact remains that the party will march so much in lockstep that there are no consequences anyway.
- aspenmayer 3y ago
  Nixon apparently considered pardoning himself: The Pardon of President Nixon: Annotated https://daily.jstor.org/the-pardon-of-president-nixon-annotated/ https://daily.jstor.org/the-pardon-of-president-nixon-annota... > Nixon had considered pardoning himself while in office[0], and sought a legal opinion considering the constitutionality of doing so (his lawyers believed that it was constitutional). However, three days before his resignation, the Justice Department issued its own opinion to the contrary: “Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the President cannot pardon himself.”[1] [0] Pardon Me?: The Constitutional Case against Presidential Self-Pardons https://www.jstor.org/stable/797310 https://www.jstor.org/stable/797310 [1] https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinions/1974/08/31/op-olc-supp-v001-p0370_0.pdf https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinions/197... In the context of Trump: Explaining the presidential self-pardon debate https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/explaining-the-presidential-self-pardon-debate https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/explaining-the-president... > On Monday, June 4, 2018, President Donald Trump said on Twitter that, “As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong?”[2] His comments echoed those made by Rudy Giuliani, his attorney, on Sunday. > Here is a brief explanation of the President’s clemency powers, some past cases, and a theoretical look at a Nixon-era question: Can a President pardon himself or herself? [2] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1003616210922147841 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/10036162109221478...
aspenmayer 3y ago
Not so according to the Justice Department. https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinions/1974/08/31/op-olc-supp-v001-p0370_0.pdf https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinions/197... I elaborate on this in a reply to your interlocutor downthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40383391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40383391
- cyberax 3y ago
  That doesn't really change much. The president can kill the members of the opposing party, and then just pardon the assassins. Who's then going to sue him?
  - aspenmayer 2y ago
    Nation state level threats are kind of a final boss irl and in the cybersecurity realm, so I’m not sure what you want me to say. That’s a problem for Citizen Lab, Google Project Zero, and natsec but if someone individually is at risk of this happening, they need a lawyer and an insurance policy, and possibly private security, but tbh they have bigger problems like being on a naughty list. I honestly don’t think this something you can expect to move the needle on for the >99% of people who don’t have this problem. What do you think a defense against this would even look like? To attempt to do so sounds almost absurd because it’s just such a remote possibility.
    - cyberax 2y ago
      > What do you think a defense against this would even look like? To attempt to do so sounds almost absurd because it’s just such a remote possibility. Stronger constitutional limits. For example, pardons should not be a thing that could be done unilaterally. Ideally, they shouldn't be a thing at all. At the same time, the Constitution needs to be a bit more malleable. The Amendment process is notoriously hard, and the US Senate structure is uniquely unamendable.

chuckadams 3y ago

Legal thinking these days is that self-pardons are meaningless, but the fact remains that the party will march so much in lockstep that there are no consequences anyway.

aspenmayer 3y ago
Nixon apparently considered pardoning himself: The Pardon of President Nixon: Annotated https://daily.jstor.org/the-pardon-of-president-nixon-annotated/ https://daily.jstor.org/the-pardon-of-president-nixon-annota... > Nixon had considered pardoning himself while in office[0], and sought a legal opinion considering the constitutionality of doing so (his lawyers believed that it was constitutional). However, three days before his resignation, the Justice Department issued its own opinion to the contrary: “Under the fundamental rule that no one may be a judge in his own case, the President cannot pardon himself.”[1] [0] Pardon Me?: The Constitutional Case against Presidential Self-Pardons https://www.jstor.org/stable/797310 https://www.jstor.org/stable/797310 [1] https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinions/1974/08/31/op-olc-supp-v001-p0370_0.pdf https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinions/197... In the context of Trump: Explaining the presidential self-pardon debate https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/explaining-the-presidential-self-pardon-debate https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/explaining-the-president... > On Monday, June 4, 2018, President Donald Trump said on Twitter that, “As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself, but why would I do that when I have done nothing wrong?”[2] His comments echoed those made by Rudy Giuliani, his attorney, on Sunday. > Here is a brief explanation of the President’s clemency powers, some past cases, and a theoretical look at a Nixon-era question: Can a President pardon himself or herself? [2] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1003616210922147841 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/10036162109221478...

aspenmayer 3y ago

Not so according to the Justice Department. https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinions/1974/08/31/op-olc-supp-v001-p0370_0.pdf https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/opinions/197... I elaborate on this in a reply to your interlocutor downthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40383391 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40383391

cyberax 3y ago
That doesn't really change much. The president can kill the members of the opposing party, and then just pardon the assassins. Who's then going to sue him?
- aspenmayer 2y ago
  Nation state level threats are kind of a final boss irl and in the cybersecurity realm, so I’m not sure what you want me to say. That’s a problem for Citizen Lab, Google Project Zero, and natsec but if someone individually is at risk of this happening, they need a lawyer and an insurance policy, and possibly private security, but tbh they have bigger problems like being on a naughty list. I honestly don’t think this something you can expect to move the needle on for the >99% of people who don’t have this problem. What do you think a defense against this would even look like? To attempt to do so sounds almost absurd because it’s just such a remote possibility.
  - cyberax 2y ago
    > What do you think a defense against this would even look like? To attempt to do so sounds almost absurd because it’s just such a remote possibility. Stronger constitutional limits. For example, pardons should not be a thing that could be done unilaterally. Ideally, they shouldn't be a thing at all. At the same time, the Constitution needs to be a bit more malleable. The Amendment process is notoriously hard, and the US Senate structure is uniquely unamendable.