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Comment by parineum | Hacker News Reader

Sometimes I wonder if people talking about corruption in the US have ever been to a country that is as corrupt as they say the US is.

Pardons are not being openly sold. There is absolutely not great stuff going on with them but, really, the major difference I see is that it's happening during the administration, rather than in the last few hours.

The US is moving the wrong direction when it comes to corruption but let's not act like we're bottom of the barrel ir that this slide just started in 2024 (or 2016, if you'd like).

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So far Trum pardons have wiped out over $1 billion in decided and sought fines [1]. There are pardons for the likes of Geore Santos (convincted for a whole host of crimes) for no other reason than he was a reliable Republican vote. clearly sending the message that if you are loyal, you can commit crimes and you will be pardoned. There's also the Teenessee House Speaker convicted for corruption [2] and the Binance founder [3] who allegedly aided in Trump's rug pull (sorry, "crypto offering").

Now this sort of thing isn't new. Famously on Clinton's last day in office he pardoned Marc Rich [4], who was convicted (before fleeing the country) on breaking sanctions by trading with Iran. It was widely rumored his ex-wife, Denise Rich, who had a lot of access to the Clinton's brokered a deal.

But what changed is the disastrous Trump v. United STates [5] decision last year that granted almost absolute presidential immunity. Now there's not the slightest fear of repercussions so the whole operation has gone into overdrive and it's so incredibly brazen.

I stand by my original claim: the TP-Link ban isn't technical. It's political. And I would bet all th emoney in my pockets that if the CEO had "donated" $1 million to the inauguration (like all the Tech CEOs did including Bezos and Cook) we'd likely have a very different outcome.

[1]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/8/fact-checking-claims...

[2]: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-pardons-...

[3]: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-pardons-convicted-bin...

[4]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/clintons-pardon-of-marc-ri...

[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_v._United_States

As of today, you can add Guiliani's pardon to your list, together with a few other admistrative enablers of 6th Jan 2020 https://apnews.com/article/rudy-giuliani-donald-trump-pardon...

> But what changed is the disastrous Trump v. United STates [5] decision last year that granted almost absolute presidential immunity. Now there's not the slightest fear of repercussions so the whole operation has gone into overdrive and it's so incredibly brazen.

That really has nothing to do with it. The pardon power and it's discretion is well established to rest solely in the hands of the President. There can be no consequences for pardons otherwise, the Clinton things you mention would have led to something.

As far a fines go, if the 2B savings under DOGE was nothing, 1B of lost fines (which would probably have never been collected anyway due to negligence or bankruptcy) is nothing as well.

So the claim is that corruption only started in DC with Trump becoming President?

Did I read the last sentence correctly?

No, I'm saying that the slide didn't start with Trump. I also don't think much of what Trump is doing is much, if at all, worse than his predecessors but he has zero shame about it.

Since he's in the news and it's on my mind, I'm not sure the Cheney and the whole Iraq/Haliburton situation has been topped since then. Then there's ever member of Congress suddenly becoming a multimillionaire after they get into office.

The only norm Trump is breaking is that he doesn't care to sweep it under the rug

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