I think you have to admit guilt? Which is bullshit because the purpose of a pardon isnt to get guilty people off but to act as a check against judicial power. I’m not sure though.
A pardon stops all punishment from the judicial system. You don’t have to plead guilty and criminal proceedings stop. A pardon further undoes any legal handicap (for example, you can own firearms again).
That said, if you accept a pardon you can’t plead the fifth when it comes to details related to the crime you’ve committed.
There’s also a commutation, which is weaker than a pardon. Instead of having the crime fully forgiven you are simply let out of jail with the understanding you committed the crime and must face follow up consequences (like not being able to own firearms).
Finally, there are also conditional pardons. Those are ones where the president could impose a “you must plead guilty” style rule before the pardon can be applied. He could also apply a rule that says “you must perform 10 jumping jacks”.
Pardon powers are some of the most broad we have in the US.
About the only limitation is you can’t pardon for future crimes.
Ford was, based on the behavior of the Reagan, W Bush, and Trump administrations, entirely wrong to pardon Nixon. There is no reason to repeat his mistake.
It may surprise you that a very large number of Republican politicians have spoken ill of Trump in the past, so it always makes it into the news when they flop on the issue and go back to subservience.
Ford pardoned Nixon. He didn’t get elected to a full term after finishing the remainder of Nixons. We can argue about if the pardon was the final nail in the coffin (The economy shitting the bed didn’t help, I’m sure.), but I think we can agree it was definitely one of the nails.
Nixon also resigned. There was no chance of him coming back but it didn’t do anything to convince conservatives in the 70s. The movie Dick is a great primer on how Nixon’s resignation radicalized Republicans.
I appreciate all the comments here, but consider another perspective. If there were a federal crime committed (I’m not following the news very closely) and a president can pardon before a trial is performed, then a pardon from Biden would be a total power move. Given that trump would probably either weasel out of the conviction or it would be a slap on the wrist fine, this puts Biden in a position of power over trump. This would also crush trump’s ego if not publicly, it would eat at him in private.
Trump has 91 felony allegations across 4 different state and federal cases against him right now. Many of which are directly related to him trying to overthrow our democracy.
Burn him to the ground; I don’t care about his legacy as a president. He was a shitty one anyway and was never actually elected by popular vote.
I would be appalled if he was pardoned, and I’m already rather annoyed at the current state of the prosecution taking this long.
With these scumbags, “almost” is meaningless. I never gave Romney the benefit of any doubt because he’s ultimately as awful as any of the feral maga hogs—he wants the same inhuman things they do, he just wants more decorum about it
Louis XVI was prosecuted and found guilty of high treason and crimes against the state by the National Convention during the French revolution, so it does happen from time to time.
I understand the sentiment, but I hate this phrase. If any of the e.g. Scandinavian royals would exhibit this kind of behaviour and lawlessness, the monarchy would be dismantled in a heartbeat. It’s mostly for show, and the monarchy only exists for as long as the people want it to.
Seriously, I don’t know why so many people get this wrong!
We give guns to our cops to enforce the laws, and we should have higher expectations for the handling of their weapon than random schmuck off the street licensed gun owner.
We give the military and various other resources and powers to the President to execute the laws. They should also be held to an even higher standard! A bad guy as President can do a million times as much damage than they can as a cop.
Agree. These people are given the public trust. betraying the public trust should result in severe punishment. More severe than a random schmuck doing the same act, cause that random schmuck wasnt given the public trust and the power of authority.
I can see discussion if he committed crimes related to being in office, that time was past, and we wanted the country to move forward, but none of that is true. Trump is finally facing justice for crimes throughout hiss adult life and he’s trying to skip justice to gain the presidency. This is not the Nixon situation. Even worse, Romney reasons it “to be a bigger man”, wtf, this isn’t just play acting as part of the presidential campaign
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