Nobody Cares: PRS

[Cindy Claveau]

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Of course not, but this gives him opportunity to become even more unhinged than he already was.

In what way does this give Trump the "opportunity to become even more unhinged than he already was"? Considering the appointments he's made, or tried to make, so far, that's a very high bar.

What, specifically, do you fear Trump might think himself justified in doing now that Biden has pardoned Hunter that otherwise he might have felt constrained from doing?

 

[Veritable Quandry]

In many relevant contexts my philosophy is "You can only reason with reasonable people."

 

[Cindy Claveau]

In what way does this give Trump the "opportunity to become even more unhinged than he already was"? Considering the appointments he's made, or tried to make, so far, that's a very high bar.

What, specifically, do you fear Trump might think himself justified in doing now that Biden has pardoned Hunter that otherwise he might have felt constrained from doing?

Just my personal take, partly born out of paranoia: There are no limits to what he is capable of doing. None. And SCOTUS just dropped every last guardrail on a Trump Presidency. Including the use of US regular troops to quell any domestic disturbances. That's already having a chilling effect on dissent before he even takes office. (See also Joe & Mika on MSNBC.)

He works under his own permission structure, which differs from the structure of every other politician. He's purely transactional - if it benefits him or his lackeys financially, he would commit war crimes like this was the '30s. In a heartbeat. That includes rounding up gays, trans people, blacks and hispanics for concentration camps.

I hesitate to guess because most of my worst nightmares could now actually become true. And it could get way worse.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Of course not, but this gives him opportunity to become even more unhinged than he already was.

It was obvious there was no bottom in 2016.

 

[Myradyl Muse]

Just my personal take, partly born out of paranoia: There are no limits to what he is capable of doing. None. And SCOTUS just dropped every last guardrail on a Trump Presidency. Including the use of US regular troops to quell any domestic disturbances. That's already having a chilling effect on dissent before he even takes office. (See also Joe & Mika on MSNBC.)

He works under his own permission structure, which differs from the structure of every other politician. He's purely transactional - if it benefits him or his lackeys financially, he would commit war crimes like this was the '30s. In a heartbeat. That includes rounding up gays, trans people, blacks and hispanics for concentration camps.

I hesitate to guess because most of my worst nightmares could now actually become true. And it could get way worse.

And if he can get away with it (tongue in cheek I know), he and his lackies would round up women for baby + pleasure-on-demand factories, aka Handmaid's Tale. IMHO, even the few women he hires for fancy posts are often akin to Stepford Wives.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

It's perfectly possible to make a principled argument that, regardless of what Donald Trump or anyone else does, elected politicians shouldn't interfere with the judicial process by issuing pardons or exercising clemency other than in the most unusual circumstances. Though if you accept that politicians shouldn't tamper with the regular judicial process you might then find it difficult to argue that the president, or a governor, should interfere with the judicial process by exercising the prerogative of mercy and commuting a sentence of death to one of life imprisonment.

However, while I can see the force of "whether or not Trump has done it, it's wrong, Trump shouldn't have done what he did, and neither Biden nor anyone else should emulate him," I really don't think "this sets a dangerous precedent" holds water.

The whole US criminal justice system looks, to this outsider, shot through with corruption, particularly when wealthy and influential men are concerned, and that corruption didn't start with Trump. He's just a lot less discrete about it than his predecessors.

 

[Soen Eber]

I am upset the pardon came before sentencing, however, and his son could show great courage in rejecting the pardon. However, from what I heard on NPR (our sort-of-like BBC News), there was a very real fear the Trump controlled Justice department could have kept him in court defending one spurious charge after another -Trump is well known for doubling down on making his enemies lives miserable to the extremities of what is possible

 

[Soen Eber]

In many relevant contexts my philosophy is "You can only reason with reasonable people."

That goes back to Aristotle, where an argument requires an assumption of logos, pathos, and ethos being represented in the other arguer, at least two of which severely lacking in Trump.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

As Jared Polis, the democratic governor of Colorado put it: "While as a father I certainly understand President Joe Biden’s natural desire to help his son by pardoning him, I am disappointed that he put his family ahead of the country. This is a bad precedent that could be abused by later Presidents and will sadly tarnish his reputation."

Biden now gave Trump a great excuse to go wild on pardons.

The pardon power has ALREADY been abused by Trump during his first term, and there's no reason to believe he won't already abuse it again during this coming term. Joe Biden stepped in to prevent Trump's DOJ from abusing his son, as they certainly were going to do, because Trump's presidency is all about retribution.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

Of course not, but this gives him opportunity to become even more unhinged than he already was.

Is that even possible?

Nevermind. Yeah, it is. And I highly doubt Joe pardoning his son was going to be the match that lights that powder keg.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

The pardon power has ALREADY been abused by Trump during his first term, and there's no reason to believe he won't already abuse it again during this coming term. Joe Biden stepped in to prevent Trump's DOJ from abusing his son, as they certainly were going to do, because Trump's presidency is all about retribution.

Carter and Peter Yarrow for the cringe.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Rogue state dealing in barbaric weapons

 

[Free]

Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)

A key asymmetry of this era of American politics and how it’s covered is that Trump is expected to do bad and corrupt things, so when he does it barely qualifies as news. But Dems are expected to be beyond reproach, so anything that seems even slightly suspect is a huge scandal.

bsky.app

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

European Federation of Journalists to stop posting content on X

The EFJ represents over 295,000 journalists in 44 countries.

www.thelondoneconomic.com

 

[detrius]

And if he can get away with it (tongue in cheek I know), he and his lackies would round up women for baby + pleasure-on-demand factories, aka Handmaid's Tale. IMHO, even the few women he hires for fancy posts are often akin to Stepford Wives.

The Stepford wives (robots, actually) at least were capable home appliances.

Trump has a habit of selecting and elevating grossly incompetent women into positions of power, like the judge who presided over his documents case or his female lawyer in the fraud case.

He obviously feels threatened by competent women, so that's one reason for doing so.

But another reason is that by giving power to a bunch of loyalist airheads, he is undermining the work and effort of women who actually earned their positions. His message is that you don't have to struggle and work hard to find success in life as a woman, just find a sugar daddy who'll give it to you if you ask with a pretty smile on your face.

It's nauseating and repugnant.

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

I've found an interesting piece of information by Tom Bingham, former UK Senior Law Lord and well known lawyer.

He's asking a simple question: where does the power of pardon come from? It turns out that the founding fathers of the US copied that from the UK. So the provenance is British law. And British law is more sophisticated about it than US law.

He quotes Chief Justice Marshall from 1835: "As this power had been exercised from time immemorial by the executive of that nation whose language is our language, and to whose judicial institutions ours bear a close resemblance; we adopt their principles respecting the operation and effect of a pardon, and look into their books for the rules prescribing the manner in which it is to be used by the person who would avail himself of it."

There is one difference: the British pardon denies grant of pardon before impeachment but permits it afterwards by law since 1701, the US constitution allows granting of a pardon in any case of impeachment.

According to him the PM pardoning himself would be pretty much impossible due to how pardons were done in the British past.

By the time of the American revolution the British pardon was already quite well regulated and had limits.

To quote Bingham:
"By the time of the American Revolution, four features of the royal prerogative of pardon deserve mention. First, the reigning monarch, George III, exercised the power personally and conscientiously. He is recorded as writing in 1766:

I have examined the case of the unhappy Convicts lately transmitted from Scotland; as to the Young Man I am very willing to Shew mercy, as to the Woman, I cannot see it quite in the same light, but think it may not be improper to send to the proper Office in Scotland for a Report with regard to the Woman, as I am ever desirous to be perfectly convinc’d there is no room for mitigating the rigour of the Law, before it takes its course.

Second, while the royal power of pardon was very wide, it was not unlimited. A pardon could not be pleaded in bar of impeachment, and the Habeas Corpus Amendment Act 1679 had earlier imposed a further restriction: when Parliament in that Act prohibited the sending of prisoners to places where the writ of habeas corpus did not run – a provision which made sure there could henceforth be no British Guantánamo – it also provided that no pardon could be relied on to defeat a charge under the Act. It was further accepted that a pardon could not be granted to defeat the private right of a third party. Thus, as Holdsworth puts it in his History of English Law, ‘he could not, by the exercise of his power to pardon, prejudice the right of an injured person to prosecute a criminal appeal; nor could he pardon the commission of a nuisance; nor could he grant a market which would injure the market already granted to another.’
Third, it was accepted that a commutation of sentence could be offered subject to a condition which the defendant was free to accept or not. The most usual condition was that the defendant be transported overseas and not executed, a condition to which most defendants, unsurprisingly, consented. This was a practice adopted before transportation was recognised by statute as an available sentence in 1717. More unusually, a condemned man was pardoned in 1730 on condition that he allow one Cheselden, a celebrated surgeon, to perforate his eardrum in order to study the effect on his hearing.
Fourth, it was accepted that even a full pardon did not do more than free a guilty person from the legal consequences of his illegal act. It did not give rise to a fiction that the person had committed no offence. As Chief Justice Vaughan put it in 1674: ‘A pardon frees from the punishment due for a thing unlawfully done.’"

And after the USA were founded, first the pardon in the Constitution was interpreted pretty much like the Brits did:
"Consistent with the authority I’ve already cited, the Americans after independence interpreted Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution very much in accord with English principles. It was held that a pardon exempted from punishment but did not expunge guilt, and that acceptance of a pardon carried with it an imputation of guilt. It was established that the president could commute a sentence of death on condition that the defendant served a sentence of life imprisonment."

But starting with 1866 the SC changed that tone:
"The power thus conferred is unlimited, with the exception stated [impeachment]. It extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken, or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment. This power of the president is not subject to legislative control. Congress can neither limit the effect of his pardon, nor exclude from its exercise any class of offenders. The benign prerogative of mercy reposed in him cannot be fettered by any legislative restrictions. "

 

[Bartholomew Gallacher]

So since then the modern interpretation of doing it became the majority meaning.

His ending on the question "Why pardon?":
"Pardon is next justified as a means of correcting miscarriages of justice. It is, however, for the courts and not the executive to correct miscarriages of justice, as British legislation recognises. Pardon is then justified as a means of recognising a prisoner’s reformation. But this is the function of parole. It is an argument against long sentences imposed without the possibility of parole, but not an argument for giving an unfettered dispensing power to the executive. Reference is made to cases in which prosecutions have been initiated, long after the offence, of persons who (one infers) have led blameless lives in the meantime. Sir James Stephen cites a case in which a man was prosecuted in 1863 for stealing a leaf from a parish register in 1803. But he goes on to record that the grand jury threw out the bill, as one would hope; nowadays, an application alleging abuse of process would be made.
A more persuasive ground of justification is that based on a change in exterior circumstances. There have been many occasions in British and American history in which it has been judged desirable, in the interests of social harmony and reconciliation, to offer conditional forgiveness to those convicted of certain crimes: as after the 1745 rebellion in this country, during and after the American Civil War, and, most recently, in relation to the Troubles in Northern Ireland. There is, I would readily accept, a role for such amnesties. But they should be granted on terms carefully considered and defined in statute, as was done in Northern Ireland, and not at the undirected discretion of the executive. Lastly, pardon is justified as a means of inducing criminals to testify against their accomplices. It is sometimes necessary or expedient to procure such testimony. But there is no need for a pardon: all that is needed is a clear undertaking by the prosecuting authority not to prosecute, which the courts will enforce.
I see very little scope for the royal prerogative of mercy in Britain today. Even the early release of prisoners to relieve problems of prison overcrowding is governed by statute, as it should be. The contrast between our law and that of the United States, as they now respectively stand, appears to be stark. The contrast prompts three comparative reflections.
First, the American approach to the presidential pardon power, as expounded even in the most recent cases, highlights the tenacity with which the courts have adhered to an originalist view of the Constitution. There is no trace in this context of the ‘living instrument’, ‘living tree’ approach to constitutional interpretation, allowing for organic development over time. Clause 1 of Section 2 of Article II of the Constitution means, subject to the impeachment variation, what the royal prerogative of pardon meant in England in 1787, and nothing less.
Second, the comparison highlights the literalness with which American lawyers tend to interpret their constitution. The view that the president can lawfully exercise the power to pardon himself depends on the absence, in the text, of anything to suggest that he may not. If, however, to revert to my earlier example, Blair had procured an exercise of the royal prerogative to pardon him for selling honours, the suggestion that this was a lawful exercise of power would be laughed out of court. So it would if the pardon had, formally, been procured by another minister. It was not suggested in M v. Home Office (1992) that the home secretary, if convicted and punished for contempt, could rely on the royal prerogative to pardon himself.
Third, and perhaps anomalously, the British law on this subject would seem to be much closer than the American to the ideals that inspired the American Revolution. The colonists then rejected what they saw as the overweening, unaccountable, all but absolute, power of the English king, replacing it with a republican democracy governed by law. Yet whereas here the royal prerogative of pardon has virtually withered away, the presidential power survives apparently intact. A president may no doubt be subject to political constraints, and he is potentially subject to impeachment, a fate which befell Governor Walton of Oklahoma, guilty of wrongful and corrupt misuse of the pardon power, in 1923. But the risk of impeachment must depend on the political composition of the legislature; an exercise of the pardon power may be abusive but nonetheless politically popular; and impeachment in the United States involves removal and disqualification from holding office, somewhat ineffective deterrents to a president nearing the end of his term. The anomaly remains that an unfettered power directly bearing on the administration of justice should be entrusted to the executive, even at the highest level, with no obligation to give reasons and, it would seem, no possibility of effective legal challenge."

So in other words he thinks the power of pardon in the US is a bad copy of the British one and an anomaly, because there is no way of legal challenge.

Tom Bingham · At the White House’s Whim: the Power of Pardon

www.lrb.co.uk

 

[Noodles]

The Stepford wives (robots, actually) at least were capable home appliances.

Trump has a habit of selecting and elevating grossly incompetent women into positions of power, like the judge who presided over his documents case or his female lawyer in the fraud case.

He obviously feels threatened by competent women, so that's one reason for doing so.

But another reason is that by giving power to a bunch of loyalist airheads, he is undermining the work and effort of women who actually earned their positions. His message is that you don't have to struggle and work hard to find success in life as a woman, just find a sugar daddy who'll give it to you if you ask with a pretty smile on your face.

It's nauseating and repugnant.

I just want to say, this is a pretty good take and its not one Inhave seen before.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

So in other words he thinks the power of pardon in the US is a bad copy of the British one and an anomaly, because there is no way of legal challenge.

Tom Bingham · At the White House’s Whim: the Power of Pardon

www.lrb.co.uk

Tom Bingham was the Senior Law Lord until he retired in 2008. He was previously Master of the Rolls and Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales. He died in September 2010.

Much of the US Constitution and system of government seems pretty grotesque to me as a Brit, and doubtless to most other Europeans and non-Americans, too. It was, after all, drafted by a group of C18th savants and land-owners, primarily English and many of whom owned enslaved people, using the models with which they were most familiar (the English parliamentary system and their understanding of the Roman Republic), so it's hardly surprising that, some 270 years later, it looks rather outdated and unfit for purpose.

If someone nowadays were drafting a constitution for a liberal, democratic, federal republic they'd look to Germany for a model rather than the US, not least because the Grundgesetz was written some 200 years after the US constitution, by people were able to look to the US and elsewhere to see what worked and what didn't.

But that's not the point. The US has its own particular constitution and history, and we all of us have to live in the world as it is, not as we'd like it to be. Changing the US Constitution is a very difficult process and, particular at the moment, would probably result in something even worse than what they currently have.