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The pardon power has been so abused these past few administrations that it's clear there should be constitutional changes in the pardon power, either congressio
by kbd 11mo ago
The pardon power has been so abused these past few administrations that it's clear there should be constitutional changes in the pardon power, either congressional review, or strip it altogether.
- dboreham 11mo agoAgree. It seems to have (never had?) any positive benefit.
- guywithahat 11mo agoI mean there are lots of people arrested on effectively political charges, and it's good to be able to reflect on it years later and get them out of jail. I'm not convinced Changpeng Zhao's charges would have ever been brought against him if the Biden admin didn't go so hard against crypto, I'm happy to see him pardoned. Hopefully next Trump can get whistle blowers like John Kiriachou
- strangattractor 11mo agoDoesn't necessarily have to be left up to the whims of one person though.
- guywithahat 11mo agoWhy not? A large portion of the punishment is just going through the court system. For a significant amount of time all you can do is stress about your next court date, you can't get work and burn through your savings. In his case he has already paid tens of millions in his money and the company paid billions. He spent four months in jail, and has spent years out of work. By the time a pardon comes the persons life is usually already in deep distress, and whatever they were working on is likely already over. I don't see why it's such a tragedy to let some people get pardoned who maybe don't deserve it.
- stevage 11mo agoTrump essentially defines all convictions that he doesn't agree with as political charges though.
- cogman10 11mo agoIDK, I think Carter's pardon of draft dodgers was a pretty good use of the pardon power. The problem seems to be that we have unjust laws and punishments. We should have some way to apply mercy in that case. For example, I (hope to) see a future where people jailed for MJ related crimes get a mass pardon.
- ahtihn 11mo ago> The problem seems to be that we have unjust laws and punishments. We should have some way to apply mercy in that case. The solution is to fix that and make it retroactive. Remove the unjust law and release anyone who was convicted for violating it. A pardon is just a bad, unfair bandaid fix.
- soraminazuki 11mo agoChelsea Manning. Prosecuting her and other whistleblowers instead of the officials they blew the whistle on was a mockery of justice. Though that wasn't the stated reason for the commutation, it was long overdue.
- AniseAbyss 11mo ago[dead]
- FuriouslyAdrift 11mo agoObama commuted the sentences of 1,715 individuals and issued 212 pardons for non-violent fedral drug convictions.
- adgjlsfhk1 11mo ago[flagged]
- returningfory2 11mo agoNope, Biden pardoning his son was also widely condemned across the political spectrum as an abuse of the pardon power.
- taurath 11mo agoTruly don’t understand the equivalence here.
- dylan604 11mo agoReally? What ever positive opinions I had left of Biden went out the window with that decision.
- Capricorn2481 11mo agoIt would be weird if he didn't? He pardoned his entire family, as Trump made it clear he was aiming to harass Biden's entire family for revenge. And the way he's been acting this presidency has only confirmed that's not beneath him. The decision is a lot more respectable than "this guy gave me a bribe." They are worlds apart. And some may be theoretically willing to roll the dice on that for their family, but it reads naive.
- pavlov 11mo agoDoesn’t it affect your opinion in any way that Trump’s DOJ has been used exactly like his harshest critics last year said it would?
- dylan604 11mo agoIt's not binary. I can not respect both decisions. Just because I don't respect Trump does not mean I must respect Biden's decision or vice versa. Current POTUS is absolutely vile. The previous guy was put in a position and a decision was made that I did not agree with, but over all, no he wasn't using the federal money to directly line his pocket as compensation for being investigated for things he actually did.
- dylan604 11mo agoWhich congress do you want doing that review? The past several congresses have been unqualified to do any sort of constitutional reviewing in my opinion.
- collingreen 11mo agoIf we can't figure out how to get a Congress that most people believe in then I worry that is the beginning of the end for this government. Hopefully we get to try from scratch a third time if that happens but I worry that collapse will be too tempting for Russia or China to not step in. Maybe we can be lucky and get conquered by Canada first in that case? What a weird thing to think...
- stonogo 11mo agoApproval ratings for Congress, barring a post-9/11 spike, have been under 30% for most of my life. By this standard I'd say we're in the middle of the end.
- amanaplanacanal 11mo agoFor the most part, folks like their own Congress people though. They just don't like the others.
- JauntTrooper 11mo agoGerrymandering is at the heart of the rot.
- nullocator 11mo agoThe Senate is not subject to garrymandering and if we fixed the issues with the House (literally via any mechanism) the Senate would immediately go back to being the vehicle used to prevent the will of the people (see the Senate under Mitch McConnell any time the House was under Democrat control) Until the Dem party fixes their brand and wins back some of the Senate seats they used to control in the 90s and early 2000s there will be no positive progress.
- mig39 11mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism Sounds reasonable. This is ok for Trump to do because of Hunter Biden.
- Conscat 11mo agoThe Hunter Biden pardon was necessary because it was clear that despite his admission of guilt, he was not going to receive a fair punishment. The Republican party leadership was very open in expressing their intentions for him, and had _already_ circumvented the judicial system to give him cruel and unusual punishment.
- account42 11mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- collingreen 11mo agoWould be nice if Trump only pardoned people who the incoming administration explicitly said they would target, after years of constant harassment and misinformation. I think I would support those pardons even though I think Trump and his family and his cronies are acting the way really bad people act. Taking the above scenario as license to sell pardons for person gain is such a stretch it looks like bad faith to me.
- IAmGraydon 11mo agoThe power to pardon needs to be removed all together. All it does is show that the President overrides the department of justice. How anyone ever thought this should be a thing, I have no idea.
- munk-a 11mo agoI think a congressional pardon power to allow national leniency on previously accepted sentences that are now viewed as unjust might be worth holding onto. It being such a casual presidential power has made it ripe for corruption for a long time but I would weigh that with civil rights era pardons for sham trials - I think we do still need a national sanity check relief valve for local injustices. And the dysfunction of congress probably works in our favor here since pardons should be exceptional - not routine. A routine pardon is just a demonstration of the justice department failing at a systemic level.
- tshaddox 11mo ago> I think a congressional pardon power to allow national leniency on previously accepted sentences that are now viewed as unjust might be worth holding onto. That sounds like a perfectly reasonable thing to do. For the branch of government in charge of making and changing laws.
- HaZeust 11mo agoIt sounds more fit for the branch of government in charge of enforcing the laws. Specifically, with laws that are made by the branches responsible for making/changing them, which would be ridiculous on their face. If the branch responsible for making and changing laws was also responsible for the reversion of enforcing those laws - effectively what a pardon is - then there's absolutely no check on gratuitous law being passed.
- tshaddox 11mo ago> If the branch responsible for making and changing laws was also responsible for the reversion of enforcing those laws - effectively what a pardon is - then there's absolutely no check on gratuitous law being passed. I mean, it is a normal thing for a legislature to remove and amend old laws. That's not "a check," but it's a normal part of what it means to be a legislature. You're not just appending new laws, you're maintaining the entire set of laws. And as for checks, judicial review is the obvious one.
- napierzaza 11mo ago[dead]
- JumpCrisscross 11mo ago> pardon power has been so abused these past few administrations that it's clear there should be constitutional changes in the pardon power, either congressional review, or strip it altogether Strip it. I also started on the line of Congressional review (or pardons only activating on the consent of the Senate). But I concluded the entire power is out of place. If the courts overreach, address it through legislation. Congress can annul sentences through law, no special pardon power needed. If a law is unfair or being applied unfairly, moreover, it should be fixed comprehensively. There isn’t a place for one-man pardons in a republic. Even the imperium-obsessed Romans didn’t give their dictators, much less consuls, automatic pardon power. Caesar had to get special legislation to overrule the law. Biden abused pardon power. So has Trump. Both parties have good reason for passing an amendment through the Congress. This is probably in my top 3 Constitutional amendment we need in our time. (Multi-member Congressional seats, popular election of the President and changing “the executive Power shall be vested in a President” to “the President shall execute the laws of the United States.”)
- lapcat 11mo ago> The pardon power has been so abused these past few administrations Past few? How about Ford pardoning Nixon? Or George H.W. Bush pardoning a bunch of Iran-Contra conspirators, thus covering his own ass?
- Arainach 11mo agoBoth of those were very bad, but nothing compared to the raw corruption in Trump's pardons.
- lapcat 11mo agoThe word "nothing" is completely inappropriate in describing Watergate and Iran-Contra, among the worst political scandals in American history, both involving gross abuse of executive power. I certainly don't see how the pardon of Changpeng Zhao is worse than the pardon of President Richard Nixon or Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Crimes committed in office by the highest officials in the US government are a whole different level than crimes committed by some corporate CEO.
- Arainach 11mo agoFord at least had the misguided excuse of wanting to put the scandal behind and focus on the future. Trump's pardons include hundreds of literal insurrectionists, promises to pardon in exchange for not testifying against him (witness tampering), and other blatant corruption. He fired the head of the OPA and installed a political hack to speedrun awful pardon choices and made a mockery of the process in a far more corrupt and damaging manner than anyone before him, and it's not even close.
- lapcat 11mo ago> Ford at least had the misguided excuse of wanting to put the scandal behind and focus on the future. I'm more concerned with the effects of the pardons on the country and on democracy than I am with judging the rectitude of the pardoner. Allowing the President to escape the law set a terrible precedent with obvious repercussions into the present. I'm not trying to defend Trump. My point is that the stage was set for Trump. Abuses of executive power, of which I've given two egregious examples—Watergate and Iran-Contra—have been swept under the rug for far too long. To always "put the scandal behind and focus on the future" is to encourage future misbehavior. I would note that in stark contrast, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has just gone to prison.
- AniseAbyss 11mo ago[dead]
- actionfromafar 11mo agoThe way this is going, the President won’t need using any pardon powers, because the judges will all ask the President what the judgement should be in advance. And the prosecutors will ask who to prosecute. Finally only fair justice!
- mktemp-d 11mo agoYour forget to insert the part where the President asks the convicted defendant if they want to finance their pardon with Klarna or Affirm in the Presidential Library's checkout page
- ugh123 11mo agoFinanced through purchases of the President's own crypto coin
- 1oooqooq 11mo agoif they were going to pardon everyone, at least this save costs. i guess doge was really saving us money after all /s
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- selcuka 11mo agoThis is currently how it works in some countries that are supposed to be (and were) democratic. Sadly the US is moving in the same direction.
- nine_zeros 11mo ago*has moved
- blooalien 11mo agonine_zeros> "*has moved" ... and is continuing to move further still ...
- davidw 11mo agoIt has. But the breadth and depth of how they're being used by this one in particular is really far, far worse than other recent ones of both parties.
- davidguetta 11mo agoWide pardoning with autopen was both heavy and illegal
- hypeatei 11mo agoTrump has his executive orders explained to him right before he signs them. Yesterday he was asked about this pardon and barely knew what was going on: “I believe we’re talking about the same person, because I do pardon a lot of people. I don’t know. He was recommended by a lot of people,” Trump said.[0] The Biden autopen-shadow-government conspiracies are hilarious, though. Every accusation is a confession with MAGAs. 0: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/3861521/trump-pardon-changpeng-zhao-binance-founder/ https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/3861521/...
- ajross 11mo ago> these past few administrations I remain amazed at how, again and again, no matter how specific and unique an abuse by the Trump administration is, it is always, invariably, Really Joe Biden's Fault. Like, the frame has been adopted by the MAGA base, but also the cranky left. The media does it too. Here on HN bothsidesism is a shibboleth that denotes "I'm a Serious Commenter and not a Partisan Hack". But it leads to ridiculous whoppers like this, and ends up in practice excusing what amounts to the most corrupt regime in this country in over a century, if not ever. No, this is just bad, on its own, absent any discussion about what someone else did. There was no equivalent pardon of a perpetrator of an impactful crime in a previous administration I can think of. I'm genuinely curious what you think you're citing?
- torgoguys 11mo ago>But it leads to ridiculous whoppers like this, and ends up in practice excusing what amounts to the most corrupt regime in this country in over a century, if not ever. Amen. Preach it, brother! >No, this is just bad, on its own, absent any discussion about what someone else did. There was no equivalent pardon of a perpetrator of an impactful crime in a previous administration I can think of. I'm genuinely curious what you think you're citing? I don't know what the poster was referring to, but I AM mad at Biden for pardoning his family. It's a molehill of an issue compared to the current administration though.
- zeven7 11mo agoI would be very mad at Biden pardoning his family if the next president was going to be Bush. With all of Trump's calls for retribution, and actions in that direction since the election, it is hard to blame Biden for trying to shield his son from unjust exercises of the law, while Trump was publicly touting him as one of his biggest enemies.
- HaZeust 11mo agoI was less mad that Biden pardoned his family, when Trump did it first for Kushner in Dec. 2020. The precedent was already there.
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- goodluckchuck 11mo agoNo, government is the greatest threat to liberty. If the guy in charge of prosecuting feels the need to not just not prosecute, but actively protect someone from the state, then we really really don’t want (who? his unelected subordinates?) prosecuting people. It’s supposed to be an “err on the side of” failing to prosecute criminals. The whole point is yes… sometimes we want criminals to get away with crime, because it’s better than the alternatives. What is the alternative? One of them is the public vote for a leader, the state destroys that leader (or his allies, etc) and then what? Do we think the public just says “Oh, well, I guess we didn’t pick the right guy?”
- aaronbrethorst 11mo ago"boooooth siiiiiiides" screamed the reactionary centrist.
- davidguetta 11mo agoYes.
- sojournerc 11mo agoBiden pardoned his son for clear crimes, yes!
- aaronbrethorst 11mo agoThat’s a relief, I would’ve been worried about his mental capacity if he had pardoned Hunter for not committing a crime.
- sojournerc 11mo agoUsually a pardon is for a conviction with some level of ambiguity or prosecutorial misconduct. Hunter himself admits to the privilege of being pardoned. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5568271-hunter-biden-father-pardon/ https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5568271-hunter-b...
- HaZeust 11mo agoTrump did it first with Kushner. https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardons-granted-president-donald-j-trump-2017-2021 https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardons-granted-president-don...
- apstls 11mo agoGenuinely curious: what were the abuses by the Biden and Obama administrations?
- TiredOfLife 11mo agoBiden promised not to pardon his son and then pardoned his son. And not simply pardoned. Pardoned also for crimes not yet discovered
- jaapz 11mo agoWasn't that because there was a high chance of trump going after biden's son when he was in power, making up whatever charges he needed just as a power play?
- davidguetta 11mo agono one should be above the law. Also it's not like the democrat did not weaponize the justice to put trump in jail for 4 consecutive years.
- ethbr1 11mo ago> Also it's not like the democrat did not weaponize the justice to put trump in jail for 4 consecutive years. Trump went to jail? News to me.
- hypeatei 11mo agoNo one at the top faced consequences for January 6th because Merrick Garland slow-rolled everything. How was the DOJ weaponized by Biden?
- Pxtl 11mo agoHe only pardoned his son after Trump was elected, because Trump made it clear that he was going radicalize the DOJ to do extremely punitive things to his enemies. And that's exactly what has happened. Up until the election he seemed very willing to let Hunter face the music. Every decent father would've done the same thing.
- alfiedotwtf 11mo agoWhile you’re changing the constitution, include: - double dissolution to sack the government - make the election a public holiday
- vessenes 11mo agoThat might be true, but CZ is a good candidate for a pardon. Did you know before Gensler went after him at the SEC he asked CZ for a job and was rejected?
- ethbr1 11mo agoWhat does that have to do with anything? Executive branch leaders can have both individual lives and public responsibilities. If anything, it's better he was rejected for the job, as getting it would have provided an incentive to bury the prosecution.
- mlrtime 11mo agoI agree it is a good pardon, the past administration + SEC were not laying a foundation of up to date commodity/currency/securities laws, they were enforcing by prosecution. This is not a way to run a country.
- vessenes 11mo agoTo be rejected for a job and then pursue a criminal complaint against the person who rejected you has a lot to do with things like rule of law and corruption.
- ratelimitsteve 11mo agohonestly? I think between this and hunter biden you could probably drum up some bipartisan support as long as you don't let either side find out that they accidentally agree with the other. I'm of a mind that the power of the pardon is one of many (many, many, many) ways that the so-called "egalitarian" founding fathers made sure to preserve the power of the aristocracy over that of the people. After all, a conviction has to come from a jury, and that means that a pardon is by definition the powerful elite overruling the people.
- Steven420 11mo agoI'm waiting to see if he pardons the diddler
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- president_zippy 11mo agoDespite abuses of it, there are still too many reasons to need it, like when President Franklin Pierce pardoned an abolitionist for harboring fugitive slaves, or when George Washington pardoned Revolutionary War vets involved in the Whiskey Rebellion. Better yet, there are a ton of cases since the 1980s prosecutors exploiting technicalities and mandatory minimum sentencing laws to get nonviolent drug offenders imprisoned for 10+ years on simple possession (not to to sell drugs, not PWID, just possession).