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Comment by CyberRabbi | Hacker News Reader

He pardoned a literal spy who was convicted of espionage of state secrets but he did not pardon Assange. Incredible.

> He pardoned a literal spy who was convicted of espionage of state secrets but he did not pardon Assange. Incredible.

Assange and Snowden remain unpopular with Senate Republicans, and my understanding is that he was told pardoning them would hurt his chances of avoiding a Senate conviction in his second impeachment.

He was also recently steered away from pardoning himself, his family, and some Republicans that may have helped the capitol rioters (and he apparently got the message), but who knows if he'll change his mind in the next couple hours.

> He was also recently steered away from pardoning himself

Is pardoning oneself legally possible?

EDIT: Seems possible but never tested.

> The Constitution provides little guidance on the issue of a potential presidential selfpardon. Only one sentence is dedicated to pardons: “The President . . . shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” Looking to historical precedent and case law likewise provides no dispositive answer. No president has ever issued a self-pardon, and very few Supreme Court cases have addressed any aspect of the president’s pardon power.

-- https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3587921

Even if he could, I don't think he would want to. It would mean admitting guilt and opening himself to give testimony on the crimes in prosecuting others as well as emboldening civil lawsuits. Also, since its an ex-President and leader of a political party there is no way to punish him without it being political, which means the next President is likely to pardon him anyways for expediency.

Andrew Johnson pardoned Jefferson Davis after the Civil War. Nuff said

I was under impression that the self-pardon story was part of the information warfare campaign. Is there any proof to the story?

> I was under impression that the self-pardon story was part of the information warfare campaign. Is there any proof to the that?

Part of the what?

Information Warfare

Just so you know, this isn't reddit, and joke replies are discouraged.

I was looking for clarification about what "the information warfare campaign" was. I'm guessing it's some kind of post-hoc rationalization for a lot of Trump's bizarre statements and other distractions, but I'm not sure.

I’m sorry, my bad. You asked that question as if he/she (will just cal her/him X) is talking about the Big Foot so I couldn’t help myself.

As for the information warfare part. The media on opposite sides tend to sensationalize their titles to manipulate the discourse for their benefit.

In X’s comment, we can summarize information warfare as lies. So X thought that “Trump is going to pardon himself” titles are part of the informational warfare and Trump won’t actually do that. But now that X saw this HN thread, X said “was he even going to do that? Do we actually have a proof that he intends to do that? Or was it just a lie to shape public opinion further” Like the time Pelosi asks US generals if they keep Trump in check so that he can’t launch nuclear weapons. [0] Implying to the public that Trump is so crazy he can start a nuclear war. These type of things, shape public opinion over time. It is the same with Fox News shaping conservatives’ opinions about Biden. Or the NYT shopping global issues from a pool for Americans to get concerned with. It is standard propaganda and has been happening for decades.

That’s why I think X’s skepticism is healthy and warranted.

[0] https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-politics-nancy-pelos...

"As has been stated by numerous legal scholars, I have the absolute right to PARDON myself" -- Donald Trump

https://web.archive.org/web/20180604233027/https://twitter.c...

So he had no interest in pardoning himself because he did nothing wrong.

The funny part of this thread is that while there was hope Trump would pardon Assange, in comparison there is little to no hope that Biden will pardon Assange. I wonder why that is.

Probably due to Biden being the one who tried to get Edward Snowden extradited to the US.

Because Trump doesn't give a shit or care about anyone but himself so theoretically he could be persuaded to do something if he thought it might piss people off

I think people on the right and the left are perhaps skipping over just how much McConnell was manipulating the admin not just over the last four years, but esp since Jan 6th.

I am fairly confident that even if Trump had specifically wanted to pardon Assange or Snowden he could not have.

Edit: lol, this will have been the most successful lie by the media and GOP... getting people to believe the GOP and Trump were friends. They never wanted him. McConnnell picked Sessions and Barr both who did little for Trump. McConnnell picked the 3 Supreme Court justices, and the federal judges who when given the chance refused trumps election fraud cases, McConnnell dropped the mask the second it was clear Trump no longer had power. Ffs, they stuck him with Reince Preibus at first.

This is the thing I’ll never understand about GOP-Haters... not understanding Trump was fighting them too. Literally everyone had to pretend that wasn’t the case including Trump if he wanted to get anything done at all.

What evidence is there of McConnel having access to Trump after Jan 6? I have the impression that their relationship cooled. McConnel stated that Tump “provoked” the mob on the senate floor.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/19/politics/mitch-mcconnell-riot...

"Tell him we'll convict in the Senate if he fucks around" is access, even if it's not direct face-to-face.

Mcconnell does not leak, those quotes coming out in public were pressure campaigns. It's unknown obviously what was directly said to him.

Well for one; McConnell could have gone through with an impeachment vote had Trump started to burn things down on his way out the door.

Do you think the House pushed through breakneck-speed impeachment vote, breaking almost all of the rules about witnesses, testimony, procedure all for fun? No, that was calculated to keep Trump in line I think.

Removing all platforms from him, looming impeachment or other threats, publicly denouncing him after four years of pretending to be MAGA...

Now, I don’t have a CNN article to make my case. So maybe you are right.

What you're saying here is contradictory. Sure the GOP hates Trump, and Trump also hates the GOP. And that's exactly why Trump didn't give a damn to GOP criticism of his pardons.

McConnell has no influence. That's why Stone, Kushner, and Bannon are on the list among others.

Trump decided not to pardon Snowden and Assange. Full stop.

> McConnell has no influence. That's why Stone, Kushner, and Bannon are on the list among others.

Hang on, if you’re certain about it being entirely trumps decision not to pardon Snowden or Assange... can we at least have a citation that McConnell cared at all about Stone Kushner or Bannon?

You declaring that those names put together are in any way equal to the weight of Snowden -or- Assange?

I never suggested Trump did want to. I suggested he could not.

Not quite. Trump knows they're more or less okay with him pardoning Bannon - it pisses them off, but at the end of the day it's water under the bridge. Whereas Assange getting pardoned would absolutely infuriate the "deep state" to an extent that's hard to describe.

Trump should have pardoned Assange, it's the only thing that would actually have taken a (small) chunk out of the "deep state" for real. Instead, as many of us saw coming, Trump's rhetoric about "draining the swamp" and "fighting the deep state" was always empty bluster.

Now Assange will die in prison (there's not a snowball's chance in hell that Biden pardons him, to state the obvious).

If you were waiting until now for trump to prove that he was a righteous man who keeps up on his promises then you willfully avoiding reading the story that repeats ad nauseum for the man's entire existence.

What a senselessly uncharitable comment. Blockcipher said "as many of us saw coming"; clearly Trump's nature is not a recent realization for them.

Hence the "if you were" - if you weren't, feel free to ignore this comment.

This is an amazingly ridiculous take especially on Sessions and Barr

Sessions did everything he could for Trump just did the right thing once to avoid legal jeopardy for himself by recusing himself. In exchange he got nothing but abuse, I mean Sessions is a nasty little goblin so I don't feel to sorry for him but that's what loyalty to Trump gets you

Barr did cross ethical lines anday have broken laws in making the justice department Trump's personal defense lawyers instead of the semi independent agency it's supposed to be.

https://abovethelaw.com/2020/12/the-temptation-and-corruptio...

Barr was the ultimate lacky Attorney General. But because he declined to support overturning the results of the election illegally, he's not Trump's loyal toady?

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