I don't think MAGA would appreciate the gesture (pardon), or feel in the least bit grateful to Biden for granting it. So as far as doing it to promote "healing," I'm doubtful it would have more than a negligible effect. More likely to increase the bitterness, and give birth to new conspiracy theories.
If Biden gave Trump a pardon I’d be both disappointed and concerned for the President. Disappointed he gave Trump a pardon, and concerned he gave the pardon because he had a stroke or something. As far as Hunter goes I agree with others that it would be a bad look and only something Trump would do.
Trump's pardons included political figures and his own staff including: Joe Arpaio, Scooter Libby, Dinesh D'Souza, Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, Duncan D. Hunter, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, and Steve Bannon. Would look horrible for Joe Biden to pardon Hunter, particularly since Joe is himself being accused of related crimes. No thanks.
Reading this thread reminded me of the song with the words,,, Pardon me mam, is that the cat that chewed your new shoes?
I think it's a bandaid, but at least it's the best attempt at a "reset" regarding criminal justice that I can imagine. Once criminal justice becomes this vindictive tool for the people at the top, or if it even looks that way, you're well on the road to a banana republic if you're not already there. I'd much prefer if everyone gets pardoned than if everyone gets locked up. And I think that's actually a solid pitch for anybody not named Joe Biden and Donald Trump in this election. Joe Biden's Justice Department is the one who indicted Trump, now Trump is openly talking about retribution and though I understand the feeling, that would be really bad for the country. Best-case scenario is Trump gets pardoned by the next President and the next President does not pursue any charges against the Biden family and whoever his/her opponent is in 2028.
If nobody gets pardoned, and Trump goes to prison, there will be a cycle of every Presidency targeting its political opponents, and nobody in the Administration will admit it, most of their own party probably won't admit it, but it will be plain as day for everyone to see. Bloodlust to put politicians and/or political dissidents in jail is a dangerous game folks. My family knows a thing or two about that sort of thing.
A lot of people on both sides of the aisle don't seem to like the Presidential pardon power. I strongly disagree. The reason why the Presidential pardon power is so great is because it gives yet another avenue of relief for criminal defendants. When all of the rules in criminal law favor the defendant, and even if you're found guilty, politicians CAN STILL let you off the hook... you know you're living in a truly free country. It's the old adage, "it is better 100 guilty persons should escape than that one innocent person should suffer." It also provides yet another form of checks and balances. If both the laws and the courts are corrupt or even if they simply misstepped, you can still seek relief from the executive.
I'm opposed to Biden granting pardons for either Hunter or Trump. There is another option here. The president has the authority to commute a federal sentence. I'm opposed to that as well, just throwing that out there as a possible middle ground.
You are wishing for valid and substantive appeals, while pardons do not ascertain guilt or innocence. Big difference.
The idea that the system should refrain from investigating, charging, prosecuting, and if convicted, sentencing someone because of how his followers may react is right out of a mob movie. 1000mg of screw that. Otherwise we are setting a really bad precedent that presidents and ex presidents are above the law. I know 250 years is a long time, but a war was fought to rid ourselves of a king, we don't need one now.
Does anybody here see a problem with Trump wanting to appoint a special counsel to investigate the Biden family and if that leads to an indictment?
If Trump is elected, reliable informants don't give law enforcement (the Department of Justice or the FBI) any authority to pursue an investigation?
They could be lying, of course, but I thought one of the arguments is that the Attorneys General - not Presidents - make the decision to appoint the special counsel, who in turn has discretion and control over the case. That's the point of having a special counsel in the first place. To create even more independence. I don't think Presidents are supposed to be telling the Justice Department or special prosecutors who to investigate or indict. I'm not naive enough to think it's never happened. But if they're allowed to micromanage the DOJ, I suppose Obama could have simply shut down the investigation into Hillary or ordered the DOJ to indict Trump before he left office. He did neither, of course. Did Biden tell Garland or Smith to indict Trump? I sincerely hope not. With respect to Trump, he had his four years in office. He said Hillary would be in jail if he were President. That didn't happen. Not sure if he ever asked one of his AGs to investigate or indict specific people such as the Bidens and Hillary. If he did, they apparently rejected his request.
If Biden loses the election, incites his followers to storm the Capitol to halt the peaceful transition of power, takes highly classified documents, refuses to return them, defies a subpoena, lies to his attorneys, and starts flashing the documents around to ransdom people? By all means appoint a special counsel. To investigate a 3 year old claim of a bribery tape that the FBI has already investigated and could not substantiate? I'd have an issue with that since it would ultimately be a waste of time.
Why are the choices between rampant unaccountability in the ruling class or rampant political targeting? If I had to choose, the latter sounds better actually, at least you get some element of mutually assured destruction, the first leads just to a culture where you can commit crimes without fear of any consequence, a sort of mutually assured griftopia. If things like evidence still matter in courts, investigations may become more common and unremarkable, but successful prosecutions would not be easy without evidence of actual crimes. If courts simply become political instruments, that's great too, the more they can be discredited as such, people will understand what the rule of law actually is.
Given that the Biden's tax returns are available for review the information on the sources of Joe Biden's isn't just a matter of speculation, the documentation is out there for anyone who wants to review it. Joe Biden Financial Disclosures - Financial Disclosures
