Biden pardons his family in final minutes in office
Biden pardons his family in final minutes in office
No further info in the article as it's breaking news. NBC broke into the inauguration to announce it.
Biden pardoned his entire family and their spouses as Trump directly threatened all of them.
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:
But also:
TL;DR: who fuckin knows at this point
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.
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.
"The Repbulicans under Trump will end Democracy! Vote for us!"
"How about you use your legal powers to prevent a threat to Democracy? How about you run on a popular platform?"
"Yeah no, we don't do that. Also we got Dick Cheney on board. Look at all the ghosts of Iraqi kids he murdered glooming behind him. Aren't they cute? Also we will enact more policies for the good billionaires. #Vibes."
Yeah dude, Biden had to pardon his entire family but it is Trump's fault 🙄. Just like Hunter.
Thanks mate. You made a comment so stupid that you made me even stupider.
Of course this highly thought through take comes from a world account.
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.
Since when do pardons protect you from future crimes?
They don't, but that's not the point. Trump has suggested that various members of Biden's family and inner circle I have done wrong and should be prosecuted. This is preemptively heading that off, ensuring that there cannot be a witch hunt.
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.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/71/333/
The power of pardon conferred by the Constitution upon the President is unlimited except in cases of impeachment. It extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment. The power is not subject to legislative control.
I don't think Trump would try it since he probably wants to use it on himself as well, but then again SCOTUS could be on some "rules for me, but not for thee" shit with it and it wouldn't matter anyhow.
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?
Or more recently (and I suppose in the same wheelhouse as the topic at hand), Hunter Biden's pardon was a blanket pardon for any potential crimes that may have been committed on January 1, 2014 through December 1, 2024. It wasn't just for what he had specifically been charged with at the time.
I really have a hard time with this position that there’s a “peaceful transfer of power” yet there’s a fear in the outgoing administration expecting retribution.
If he was this fearful of the incoming administration he should have packed the Oval Office with C4.
And like these pre-emptive pardons will mean shit if Trump is as bad as they think.
Exactly. He dgaf the law. In typical despot way, he’ll just make something up to charge them with.
The next few years will need a shitload of popcorn lmao
Years? I give it a month... 25% tarrifs start 2/1.
I hope everyone gets what they voted for.
Including those who didn't vote
But non-voters didn't get what they wanted, or if they did, it was a flip of the coin! MAGA freaks are horrible, but at least they believe in something enough to fill out a fucking ballot...
A non-vote, when fascism is on the ballot, is a vote for fascism.
I didn't say what they wanted.
I hope they get what they VOTED FOR. There's a difference.
I think sitting in a corner and hoping for things is a good use of your time.
Ditto
I don't care, and frankly don't blame him.
People in Guantanamo are rotting away but Bidens family must be protected.
Both things can be true
I wasn’t aware that James Biden had won the Masters tournament
Fuck off, Biden. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Pardons for you and your family and nothing for us, huh?
By the way, accepting a presidential pardon is an admission of guilt. It's why some people refuse them - it damages their ability to argue innocence in court cases.
Funny how Biden thinks the felon in chief gives a shit about some magic words. If he wants to punish him, he will, and nobody can stop him now.
One last twist of the knife on your way out the door. Slick move sleepy Joe.
Let's not pretend like Trump won't be pardoning his family of any and all crimes as well.
I don't think it's quite the same thing when someone singles out your family and everyone that has "wronged them" politically, and threatens to hang them legally, and maybe even literally.
Trump has already done that at the end of his previous term.
The difference is that Trumps family are actually criminals. This is protecting family from blatant partisan witch hunts.
"It's different when we do it. We HAD to do it.".
Abuse of power is abuse of power. The Democrats can't say they are the party of the just and fair when they are doing the exact same shit they condemn the right for doing.
The Democrats will continue to lose if they try and play dodgeball with the Teflon Don. Nothing has stuck or ever will stick to that man and it's almost entirely thanks to the Democrats in the first place. They should have chosen to eat it on the nose and double down on them being the party that doesn't try and break rules for personal gain. At least then they would have a legitimate leg to stand on. But they didn't. They tried to play Trumps game. And they lost. And they will continue to lose.
I want to believe they will have learned anything from 2016-2024, but only time will tell. I suspect that when 2028 rolls around we will find out that the Democrats have still learned absolutely nothing. Based on my discussions with my left leaning friends and family its really not looking good for them in 2028.
One last twist of the knife on your way out the door.
What? How does this harm you in any way? You're aware that twisting the knife is something extremely painful and damaging, right?
I hope you get what you voted for.
Maybe if the DNC hadnt physically locked the people they needed votes from out of the Democratic convention they would have gotten those people votes. Its a crazy idea, I know. They didnt even need to stop the geocide they were enabling, they just had to make a plausible plan to value the suffering they were creating, and that was too much for their aipac donors to bear. Theres a lesson in there someplace, when you finger pointing centrists figure it out, let us know.
I didn't get what I voted for. But I'm not delusional like the majority of the Democrats are apparently.
The first vote I could vote for was Obamas second term ( I was just a tad too young to vote for him the first time around) and I did so happily. Then is 2016 I voted for Hillary and was disappointed like many of you when Trump won.
For the 2020 election I went registered as an independent because I no longer identified as a Democrat. I still have left leaning bias on the majority of issues but I could not identify with the Democrats anymore. I still voted for them, but I wasn't happy about it. Like many that cycle I viewed Biden as the lesser of two evils.
Now we get to 2024. I live in California. California was going blue no matter what. But I voted third party because I could not bring myself to vote for Kamala and the current Democratic party again. Just like I cannot bring myself to vote for the King Cheeto himself. My vote was simply a vote of protest for the current leaders of the Democratic party. They need to see that if they don't change their approach going forward they are going to lose Democratic strong holds like California as well. This past election was one of the closest California has had in awhile. Clearly I am not the only person in my state disillusioned with how my old party has been doing things.
I really really want them to put forward someone genuinely good in 2028, but I fear they learned all the wrong lessons for the last 10 years. Only time will tell I guess.
He also tried pardoning himself before leaving office.
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.
Oh, we're already there.
I'd like to thank the Gaza single issue voters and bLuEMagA mouth breathers, good job guys!
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.
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.
yes, why couldnt those dumb peasants who never had it so good have gotten aboard genocide joes bandwagon? Its a real mystery that evidently no one can understand.
/s
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.
We been fucking up the world for the last 4 years…
I do find it funny that he thinks it will work
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.
Rigged, no, Stolen, also no.
Results shifted due to successful propaganda from foreign countries and billionaires, yes.
This is the downside of Democracy, people are pretty dumb overall.
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.
I'd bet far more on the US splintering than on a WW at this point.