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Trump is abusing the Presidential pardon power
So It Goes
We keep moving...Registered User regular
We keep moving...Registered User regular
Let's talk about it here.
Trump just announced that he is going to pardon Dinesh D’Souza, who was previously convicted of making illegal campaign contributions in 2014.
Now, if I were a cynical person, I might imagine that this is a way of signaling that he plans to pardon others who have made illegal campaign contributions, as long as they don't flip and give up more treason related evidence on Trump himself.
But I'm sure there is a perfectly legitimate reason for doing this.
Fencingsax wrote: »
The main reason given in the federalist papers was that sentences under the law could be harsh and pardons allowed "exceptions in the case of unfortunate guilt."
I can't see this as not sending a clear message:
DarkPrimus wrote: »
So It Goes on
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I sincerely don't even know what can be done about this.
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The founding fathers clearly outlined abuse of the pardon for personal or political reasons as a sufficient reason for impeachment.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
Commuting Blagojevich would also signal that being a corrupt politician is okay.
Because her crime was lying to the feds.
Switch - SW-7373-3669-3011
Fuck Joe Manchin
Smokescreen? Can’t be accused of playing politics if someone isn’t a politician, “that’s fake news” style situation?
Edit: llpala is probably right.
This isn't even "hey if you help republicans..."
This is literally, "if you do rich white people crime, Trump will let you off the hook. "
Blagojevich was a Democrat
oh
but it's a signal to his team that they can just do what he did
Daniel Dale is a political reporter for the Toronto Star.
Yup, it's him helping someone he personally knows.
Oh FUCK OFF!
Switch - SW-7373-3669-3011
Fuck Joe Manchin
It does double duty to attempt to normalize their graft. The Nixon crew tried to do the same thing, normalizing their dirty tricks during Watergate.
It's charades.
Can't say it out loud so you ape the act.
Trump supporter like Arpaio? Pardoned
Broke election law like Souza? Pardoned
Lied to the FBI like Stewart? Pardoned
Corrupt politician like Blagojevich? Pardoned
Its like setting out eligibility for the shitbird scholarship.
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It would be really depressing if this was the reason.
That is just amazingly brazen corruption.
It's not flagrant abuse of power, it's just partisanship.
The pardon power is a holdover from monarchical powers under common law imported in by the founders. It's only check is congress. Except why would Congress check the power of someone within their own party?
Like so many US institutions it is incapable of surviving any contact with organized coherent political organizations.
Here's what he said in 2011:
I don't know what offends me more - the corruption, or how stupid it all is.
Except Trump has the authority to retroactively change people's sentences for crimes he is being investigated for, which may affect the precedent applied to himself and his associates. It's about creating an environment where a pardon for corruption is no big deal, and then when Cohen or Flynn gets pardoned the attitude is "eh, if Marth Stewart got pardoned for it why not this guy".
Yeah, this all strikes me not entirely about sending signals and more so about Trump being a petty moron with no respect for the powers he has or restraint when wielding any power he has ever had.
There is no process here. No review. He's simply deciding in a fit of pique that he doesn't like what happened to X person so he's going to let them get away with it.
He's got no better reason than that to do this.
I can has cheezburger, yes?
Also does he not know what Blagojevich did?
If someone is unjustly imprisoned, then the law is wrong and must be changed and them freed through that. If they are not, then they should not simply be able to walk free.
This power in the hands of an active, political figure is really quite abuseable, as seen in the cases above.
Basically "for my friends anything, for my enemies the law."
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Not even the law, as his friends can do anything they want to his enemies and it'd be ok by him.
He knows, but thinks that it's business as usual:
Yamiche Alcindor is a reporter for PBS.
That's the explanation - in his mind, blatant corruption is how our government works.
Trump is basically showcasing why the pardon power being so broad and so unchecked is insane.
Like so many things, it's always been broken, he's just crass enough to bring that into the spotlight.
We truly live in interesting times.
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"This power can be abused" is a poor argument for removing the power of pardon. The answer is to hold abuse accountable.
He's a true believing Fox News viewer. Of course he views the government that way.
Hell, it's not even partisan. That's standard anti-current-government populism for ya. It's the same kind of thing backing Congress' low approval ratings.