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Comment by contemporary343 | Hacker News Reader

This is all so hilariously corrupt. I'm not sure I can even muster anger for this, just laughter. (I'll reserve the anger for the pandemic and this administration's callous, frankly criminal handling of it).

(So Levandowski and Jared are going to launch a venture fund soon, right?)

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Don't forget to have the additionally-pardoned Michael Liberty join the efforts to attract investors. Over $50 million defrauded [0][2] from investors, and it wasn't his first rodeo with the SEC[1].

[0]: https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2018/lr24092.htm

[1]: https://www.pressherald.com/2016/11/30/sec-charges-ex-maine-...

[2]: https://www.pressherald.com/2018/04/02/liberty-in-sec-crossh...

...is a Presidential pardon final come the next Administration? Or has that not really been tested in court?

A pardon requires delivery and acceptance. (Actually, I think delivery is incomplete without acceptance.) Theoretically an incoming president could recall the pardon if it hasn't been delivered. Not sure what may constitute as delivery; or acceptance, for that matter. I don't think the manner of delivery or acceptance has been tested, let alone enumerated. If it's as simple as a phone call, then presumably nothing could be done.

I think a more interesting question is whether there's a specificity requirement. AFAIU, that hasn't been answered, either.

There was an even more interesting question raised on r/NeutralPolitics about whether the pardon has to even be made public. It seems there's an interpretation of the law where the pardon only becomes public when the recipient makes use of it in a public court.

Also talk of putting it on the secret computer for national security until use.

Is that before or after the coifing of the sacrificial goat?

Why would it need to be public? The Constitution does not stipulate that limitation.

This is literally all it says...

> he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

Because "pardon" is not defined anywhere so the nation has to decide what it means.

This is not mentioned anywhere in the text of the pardon power of the Constitution.

What gives you the impression pardons are limited to those that are "delivered" and/or "accepted". How would that even be legally demonstrated to a court.

What gives you the impression pardons are limited to those that are "delivered" and/or "accepted".

The Supreme Court apparently ruled that way in a case a long time ago and that precedence has never been challenged (or come up again for that matter)

See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9IRZ9FzWEA

But realistically if they tried to revoke a pardon today it would certainly go to the Supreme Court again and they would almost certainly rule the other way.

A Youtube video of someone's opinion is not a reliable source.

Looking up Grants revocation of Johnson's pardons - it's hard to find details, but it does seem like a Federal judge took issue that they were not delivered prior to the new president revoking them.

Given that there's no such limitation in the Constitution, I wonder if it would hold up to SCOTUS. ...and maybe that's why they announce them publicly these days.

There's a short from Legal Eagle about it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9IRZ9FzWEA

There's also a difference between state and federal charges - even if they've been pardoned, they can still be charged for related crimes.

One thing to note - they cannot be charged with the SAME exact crime in state court (that would run afoul of double-jeopardy).

As you said, though it's not clear, it need to be a different (though potentially related) crime.

This is not true -- double jeopardy applies to the same jurisdiction. You can certainly be charged in state and federal court for the same crime.

Actually, you are correct.

https://www.wklaw.com/double-jeopardy-federal/

Of course, there's still the limitation that the State would need to find it's own law that the accused violated - they have no jurisdiction over Federal law (and vice-versa).

Still... it doesn't sit quite right with me. If someone is acquitted by a jury in, let's say, Rhode Island for murder. It doesn't seem right that the Federal government could step in and hold an entirely new trial thereafter. Seems to fly in the face of what Double-Jeopardy is supposed to prevent.

Isn't that exactly why federal hate-crime legislation exists? To allow a do-over in federal court if juries in some jurisdictions ignore crimes against some victims?

And for that matter, even if acquitted in a criminal trial, someone can be found guilty in a civil trial (with a lower standard of evidence). See, famously, OJ Simpson.

I suppose, but for that you cannot be sued merely for committing a crime - you need to prove tangible personal direct damages.

...and that can happen regardless of criminal conviction.

https://davidallengreen.com/2021/01/can-a-presidential-pardo... discusses — in 1869 one got rescinded because the original was never delivered (but according to the post that isn't binding).

Not to "both sides" this too much, because I do feel like there's a new, special level of corruption and self-dealing on display with this administration, but it's not uncommon for these guys to use pardons for personal gain or the benefits of their friends. For a little context and flavor, remember that Clinton pardoned some real winners on his last day too, including some guy who paid $200k to Hillary Clinton's brother for the pardon [0], Bill Clinton's own brother (codename: "headache" [3]) and a Democratic party loyalist who was convicted of child porn and sexual assault with a minor [2].

p.s. - if you wonder why the Clintons are especially hated in some circles, and if you wonder why people are so quick to believe those Q conspiracy theories, the kernels of truth exist and originate in simple corruption like this

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almon_Glenn_Braswell#Unsubstan...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_McDougal#Whitewater_affa...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Reynolds

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Clinton,_Jr.#Conviction_...

Not to agree too much with a both-sidsing of Trump corruption, but in fact I agree here.

This pardon was... really pretty conventional. It's of a non-violent crime and a comparatively compartmentalized one that doesn't impact the nation as a whole. Incentivising industrial espionage isn't "not bad", but it's not that bad.

This is routine Washington stuff, really. The genuinely corrupt pardons, of his family and associates (and potentially himself) for crimes committed during the administration don't seem to have materialized[1]. The list from yesterday is very long, but really pretty unsurprising.

[1] But there is still an hour and a half left. A pardon can be scrawled on a napkin in 30 seconds and then shown to the media to deliver it. There's no formality requirement in the constitution. If he does it before noon then it counts.

If you're going to both sides this you should at least mention Clinton's most corrupt pardon (Marc Rich).

I would say that it is uncommon for presidents to abuse the pardon power like this, it's just not completely unheard of. It's also worth noting that Trump multiplied the total number of corrupt presidential pardons in US history by something like 10 in his time in office. The scale is hard to fully grasp.

As of November 2020, Trump utilized both pardons and clemencies much less than any president in modern history according to Pew Research [1][2].

He granted clemency to 143 more last night which places him closer in line to Bush and G.W. Bush, but there's no way your data here would include that (and that still places him at a very low number), so I'm wondering where you're getting this data, and how you qualify "corrupt."

If we look at a handful of Bill Clinton's corrupt pardons on his last day in office alone as mentioned in the gp comment above:

(1) Susan McDougal who went to jail for contempt of court for him, (2) Braswell who paid Hillary $200k for the pardon, (3) his brother Roger Clinton Jr, (4) Democrat Mel Reynolds who was granted clemency after being found guilty of sexual abuse of a minor.

Thus, Trump must have had at least 40? Where is the source?

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/24/so-far-trum... [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FT_20...

Pardons have an interesting characteristic in that you can be both angry at unnecessarily harsh punishment (therefore, be happy with it being undone) but also be angry at the corruption that leads to the pardon (therefore, be angry at it being undone.)

The most interesting pardons are the no name ones. Pardoned restaurant chain fraud for an italian not even charged in NY. Sounds like mafia related crime to me.

The other no name money laundering criminals are all related to either his gambling businesses or his place of living in Florida.

He's basically pardoning people he's been doing crimes with for a long time and then if course some big names.

I'm happy to see some rappers pardoned though tbh. Their music has influenced my life, they've done great deal of good outside of music and none of them were in the can for things like harming women or animals etc.

Many pardons are recommended to the President by the Justice department for various reasons. A lot are for non-violent drug crimes that someone in the department felt was too harsh/etc...

It's not like they are all Trump's friends. But obviously conspiracy theories will prevail, sadly.

The "conspiracy theories" were in Trump's pardon documents, like the "Russia hoax".

You must have missed the declass on the origins of the Russia hoax, where Steele admitted that he intentionally leaked information and engaged in info-laundering because he saw Trump as being potentially damaging to UK/US relations.

And where he admits that he leaked info in order to counter the effect of Hillary's emails on the 2016 election. So, literal foreign interference in an election.

You may have also missed the declass that showed Fiona Hill perjured herself when she stated she had no idea who Christopher Steele was- yet actually met with him while he was compiling his dossier.

Nobody was convicted on the basis of Steele's dossier.

>Many pardons are recommended to the President by the Justice department for various reasons

Most Trump's pardons bypassed DOJ.

https://www.lawfareblog.com/trumps-circumvention-justice-dep...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/most-clemency-...

IMO it was Lil Wayne's verse criticising Bush that earned him the pardon:

"I gotta bring the hood back after Katrina / Weezy F Baby now the F is for FEMA"

They were pardoned because they paid Trump campaign favors, putting his corrupt administration and their own self interest over the good of a nation in crisis. That's far worse than their original crimes.

There were some deserving pardons here...

"The CAN-DO Foundation thanks President Trump for providing a second chance to numerous deserving individuals through the use of his Executive Clemency powers. Many defendants that receive draconian sentences are individuals who exercised their Sixth Amendment right to a trial and suffered the trial penalty phase by receiving harsh mandatory sentences many times greater than if they had taken a plea. These sentences were often based primarily on the testimony of other co-conspirators who received sentence reductions once they testified and were in many cases far more culpable. Executive clemency represented the last hope for many of these individuals to have a second chance at life since (with limited exceptions) there is no federal parole."

https://www.candoclemency.com/can-do-thanks-president-trump-...

My second thought on this was "I wonder how much he paid".

It was criminal to enable pharma to fast track development of vaccines, in half the most optimistic forecasts of how long that would take? It was criminal to invoke the defense production act to make ventilators -- far more than we needed? Building those field hospitals (that were never needed)... the ships?

That's my kind of criminal, if so.

It was deeply irresponsible to play into political divisions rather than promoting mask use. It was deeply irresponsible to undermine states’ efforts to mitigate spread, to the point of encouraging “lock her up” chants about Gretchen Whitmer that encouraged a kidnapping plot.

He did a few things right, but let’s not pretend the last year hasn’t been mostly political theatre rather than leadership and one man could have led with a different tone.

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