If that’s a Great Honor what would be a disgrace?
Trump pardoned Flynn.
House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler issued a statement:
“This pardon is undeserved, unprincipled, and one more stain on President Trump’s rapidly diminishing legacy.
“Michael Flynn was fired from the White house for lying to senior officials. He pleaded guilty—twice—to lying to federal investigators about his communications with a foreign adversary. Flynn’s agreement to cooperate with the government in exchange for those guilty pleas seemed light to some, given reports that Flynn and his son had engaged in far more disturbing criminal activity.
“It is important to talk about why the President pardoned Flynn. President Trump dangled this pardon to encourage Flynn to backtrack on his pledge to cooperate with federal investigators—cooperation that might have exposed the President’s own wrongdoing. And it worked. Flynn broke his deal, recanted his plea, received the backing of the Attorney General over the objections of career prosecutors, and now has secured a pardon from the President of the United States.
“This pardon is part of a pattern. We saw it before, in the Roger Stone case—where President Trump granted clemency to protect an individual who might have implicated the President in criminal misconduct. We may see it again before President Trump finally leaves office. These actions are an abuse of power and fundamentally undermine the rule of law.
“The President’s enablers have constructed an elaborate narrative in which Trump and Flynn are victims and the Constitution is subject to the whims of the President. Americans soundly rejected this nonsense when they voted out President Trump. President-Elect Biden will soon take office and restore a measure of honor to the Office of the President. Between now and then, we must be vigilant to additional abuses of power, even as we look with hope to days to come.”
“Diminishing”? Why do people phrase their disavowal of Trump to imply that he ever had a legacy free of stain? He has not done a single thing that was motivated by virtue rather than vice. It’s all rust, no gleam.
Sadly, half the American population is a-ok with this kind of behavior. The election was not that “resounding” a defeat for Trump, and Biden has his own dirty laundry and deeply compromised political past.
Re #1, his “diminishing legacy”, I had a similar reaction, and was thinking of alternatives. “Increasingly negative” might work. “Diminishing” sounds like it is heading toward zero, and it’s well past that.
Yes it’s more like an expanding legacy of monstrosity.
Corruption feeds on itself; one of its many slogans being ‘if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.’ Pretty soon, you’re lucky if you’re left with Abe Lincoln.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_J._Cook
Just out of interest, can a president issue unspecified ‘blanket’ pardons for future use? I’m thinking of Trump’s cronies (family or otherwise) whose crimes committed on his behalf have yet to be uncovered and would be punishable with prison time if they are convicted. Could he possibly issue pardons to protect them from prosecution for any and all crimes committed prior to the last day of his incumbency without having to state the crimes for which they are being pardoned?
AoS, a pardon need not specify particular charges. A rather famous precedent:
That’s his mob not worried about prison, then. I assume that there’s no need to make the pardons public knowledge until they’re used, which means there’ll soon be a lot of people walking around with Get Out Of Jail Free cards.
What a shitty system!
Holms #1, Sackbut #3
Yeah, as someone wrote a while ago, Trump’s legacy is nothing but stains. It’s stains all the way down.
Well, I think that after pardoning that turkey for Thanksgiving, Drumpf thought he ought to pardon a few more turkeys – in particular the ones who didn’t gobble away like Michael Cohen did, or who denied, as Flynn did, that they had meant it when they had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. I think that these presidential ‘pardons’ should be discontinued. Tricky Bill Clinton pardoned at least one pal who didn’t deserve it. In any event, one suspects that that pardoned turkey gets taken back straight way to the nearest abattoir where it is treated in the same manner as the turkeys in the background were when Sarah Palin gave her famous TV interview. Ah,Thanksgiving, and the fowl slaughter that goes with it!
AoS,
Well, a couple of things:
1. The president can only pardon for “offenses against the United States,” i.e. federal crimes. Trump can’t protect himself or his family against charges by New York or any other state.
2. Doesn’t work prospectively — the crimes have to have been “completed” by the date of the pardon. So it wouldn’t offer protection for any federal crimes committed after the pardon, which would include such things as obstruction of justice or lying to investigators or a grand jury post-pardon.
3. I don’t know that a pardon can be secret. I tend to doubt it. In any event, it sort of defeats half the purpose of pardoning someone who hasn’t even been charged yet — Trump would want to deter the feds from even investigating. And it’s not like Trump is worried about taking the public relations hit for bullshit pardons.
4. Even assuming a “secret pardon” was a thing, and that Trump was inclined to do so, Biden would have access to and the ability to reveal it. After all, you’ve got to be able to PROVE in court that you received a presidential pardon, and that means there has to be an official government record of it — a letter from Donald J. Trump that says you’re pardoned, but of which there is no copy recorded anywhere in government files, is not worth the paper it’s written on.
Cheers, SM. I had visions of the FBI turning up with arrest warrants to Trump’s fellow crooks’ houses only to have blanket pardons for every federal crime up until the 19th Jan. waved in their faces, which of course would mean that there’d be little point in even trying to question them.
The secrecy bit wasn’t about not leaving copies in the records, I was thinking more of Trump issuing but not announcing them publically, leaving the copies as a little ‘fuck you’ to Biden and the FBI. Not that news of such pardons wouldn’t be almost instantly leaked to the media, but it wouldn’t be out of charactet for Trump to believe he could pull it off.
Note for US readers: “cheers” in ukanian means “thanks” as well as bye, nice talking to you, etc.
As it does in NZ also, where, depending on context, it can mean hello, goodbye, thanks, salut, or other similar concepts. Then, used sarcastically, it can mean the opposite of thanks or expressions of goodwill.
Ranks close to ‘yeah, nah’ + variants for confusing the hell out of foreigners.
I’ve got from somewhere (probably a tv lawyer drama) the idea that if a person is pardoned they can no longer use the excuse of avoiding self-incrimination to avoid testifying in court. Is there anything to that?
Banichi,
As I understand it, the basic proposition is true, but there are some complications. In order to invoke the 5th, you have to have some (I forget the exact phrase) reasonable fear of prosecution. That doesn’t require an actual indictment or even a formal investigation. If Flynn or whoever is subpoenaed to testify (in Congress or in court), as a practical matter he probably refuses, citing some fear of possible state law prosecution, and the courts would have to sort it out.
I think some actual subject matter experts have written about that recently, so I’d defer to one of those explainers if you find one. The nickel summary as I understand it is “maybe to probably — but don’t count on hearing Flynn forced to spill the beans any time soon.:”
Thank you for that elaboration.
I see that Flynn is calling for suspending the Constitution, imposing martial law, and having a new election. The price of a pardon, maybe?
https://www.newsweek.com/michael-flynn-call-martial-law-comes-amid-violent-threats-trump-election-defeat-1551769