Since when do pardons protect you from future crimes?
this post was submitted on 20 Jan 2025
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politics
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In the US it's just basically untested, but it probably wouldn't hold up but you can still write it on the paper 🤷♂️
With the Trump appointed supreme court it definitely won't hold up, but maybe it could delay whatever meaningless charges he can come up with long enough for another election. If we're lucky enough to have another real election that is at least.
I don't think they are preemptive pardons in the sense that they are pardons for future crimes. They are pardons for unspecified past crimes that have not yet been charged. That is not unheard of. For example, Carted issued blanket pardons for everyone who dodged the draft during the Vietnam war whether they had been charged or not.
Where it is untested is if he tried to pardon himself. That has never been tested in the courts and is generally considered invalid on the premise that you cannot be the judge in your own trial.
So basically it just sets the statue of limitations of everything to 0?
So if we find out one of these people raped someone at some point before this pardon, there will be no justice?
Giving his family the last train car out of germany before the third reich shuts down the border.
They may want do just that. Do anyone believe Trump will honor these pardons. Also are they even valid if they haven't been charged with a crime.
It’s not about whether or not he honors them. The effectiveness of those preemptive pardons can be adjudicated by the SC. But there’s a couple of considerations on that front:
- will the SC concur that blanket pardons in advance of any charges are actually allowed?
- will Trump want to challenge that, since it would potentially kneecap any effort he makes later in that regard?
But also:
- will Trump or the SC give a shit about the blatant hypocrisy and double standard if they do strike down this sort of thing from Biden, but let Trump do it? (IMO probably not)
- if the SC gives a shit but Trump doesn’t, what’s to stop him using leverage and/or stochastic terrorism to help accelerate the conclusion of one or more justices’ tenure so he can slip someone more agreeable in?
- will the judicial branch even exist in an independent fashion in 4 years?
TL;DR: who fuckin knows at this point
Also are they even valid if they haven't been charged with a crime.
Accepting the pardon actually requires admitting to the crime. So yes, the pardon is valid because the person has to go “yes I did this thing, and accept that I’m being pardoned for it.” You can’t selectively accept only the latter half of the pardon. And that admission and subsequent pardon means the state can’t charge them in the future, because they already admitted to it and were pardoned for it despite that admission of guilt.
But to your earlier point, there’s not much stopping Trump from trying to go after them anyways; The SCOTUS certainly won’t get in his way.
There’s also some period between issuing the pardon and accepting it where a pardon can be rescinded. I would think Biden already had all these people accept their pardons in advance though…
Their validity has never been constitutionally challenged. It's not really been done much in the past, the notable example being Nixon and no one challenged that.
An outgoing president needing to pardon his family pre-emptively because the incoming president is threatening them is well along the path to fascism.
Good job electing Trump you fucking morons. I hope that the consequences of your own actions hurt you more than they hurt the rest of the world.
Sadly we would have embraced fascism whether voters elected Trump or Harris/Biden, as we've seen with the sentiment towards Palestinians.
With the former, it's fascism. With the latter, it's fascism-lite.
Ultimately, we're going to reach a chilling point that will probably demand a WWIII. When that comes has probably now been accelerated due to Trump winning.
Sanders was our key to fighting fascism. Sadly Obama, Clinton, and Biden all kneecapped him in favor of billionaires and the status quo while claiming no responsibility for the seeds they sewed.
FWIW, as an American, I really hope you're right. Because there is serious potential for us to fuck up the entire rest of the world for a very, very long time.
The US fucked up the world a long time ago, we're all entering the find out phase now.
Good job electing Trump you fucking morons.
I'd like to thank the Gaza single issue voters and bLuEMagA mouth breathers, good job guys!
To be honest, there is a lot of blame to be cast on the Dem leadership as well as the voters. They managed to run one of the most uninspiring campaigns of all time.
Gaza was either not big enough to affect the result, or big enough where your candidate should have acknowledged it. You can’t have it both ways.
But muh scapegoat :(
... well along the path to fascism.
Oh, we're already there.
To be fair they didn’t actually elect trump, the election was clearly rigged
Yep. The traitor even said so last night, by dementia accident.
I don’t understand why folks downvote comments pointing this out to be honest. Like bro, the man literally fucking said it out loud what more do you want. He’s quoted as saying a) Elon musk in some way stuffed the electronic ballots in PA and b) he (ie trump) wouldn’t be president if the election had not been rigged what more do you want bro serious question I’m fucking interested
Honestly, masterful plan by the traitor's handlers. They made sure that we couldn't complain about a rigged 2024 election because of the bullshit they spread about the non-rigged 2020 one.
I guess the Nazis win.
Perfectly normal country
Sad. In "The Land of the Free" you should never have to do this. We are well and truly fucked if this tribalism isn't put down. Cutting into our education has done irreparable damage.
I hope everyone gets what they voted for.
Including those who didn't vote
I wasn’t aware that James Biden had won the Masters tournament