Someone Has To Do It: US Elections 2020

[ursus arctos]

Pardons don't need to specify crimes.

A president can literally parson an individual for any Federal crime to have occurred during a stated period ending no later than the day of the pardon.

And just for the people in the back, the pardon also does not need to be limited to named individuals. See, e.g., Carter's pardon of the Vietnam War "draft dodgers" and Washington's pardon of the participants in the Whisky Rebellion.

[Hot Pepsi]

Did Carter have to pardon them? Could he have just told DOJ not to put any effort into prosecuting those cases?

[ursus arctos]

A tangentially related point
Under Federal law, you can't charge "conspiracy" without also charging an underlying crime. Conspiracy itself is not a crime, one has to have conspired to commit a different crime.

[ursus arctos]

Did Carter have to pardon them? Could he have just told DOJ not to put any effort into prosecuting those cases?

Such an instruction would not have been binding on any successor and no one who seriously thought about it would have taken the chance of returning if s/he ran a real chance if having to leave again once a new administration decided to change the policy.

[Hot Pepsi]

Oh, good point. I have no idea what the statute of limitations is.

[ad hoc]

I thought the pardons were supposed to be yesterday (for me - the day just ending in the US)? Isn't today (20th Jan) inauguration day and therefore the first day of the Biden presidency

[ursus arctos]

Not until Noon Eastern time (in 12 1/2 hours)

[ursus arctos]

Oh, good point. I have no idea what the statute of limitations is.

It was arguably tolled (suspended) by their flight.

Many of the people involved thought about all of this very deeply at the time.

[ursus arctos]

https://twitter.com/shimonpro/status/1351739289294565376

[ad hoc]

Presidential pardons seem like they would lead to vigilante justice. If someone like Bannon, say, gets off scot free then it feels like the only way for justice to be done is for it to be done outside the legal system

[ursus arctos]

Do you recall what Bannon was charged with?

He defrauded rubes who thought they were donating money to "build the wall".

It might actually be the case that that particular demographic is statistically more likely to produce someone intent on taking him out than the Great USian Public as a whole, but I wouldn't bet on it.

Steven Miller has done a lot more damage than Bannon and not only will never be charged, but will effortlessly take up a very well-compensated place in the White Supremacist Industrial Complex.

[ad hoc]

Ah, yes, I'd forgotten that he'd been charged with (and now presumably pardoned for) fraud and not being a horrible racist fascist piece of shit.

[Satchmo Distel]

Has Trump not considered that Bannon can't use the 5th Amendment now?

[DCI Harry Batt]

Have we quizzed ua on the idea of "secret pardons" yet?

[Nocturnal Submission]

Have we quizzed ua on the idea of "secret pardons" yet?

Yup. It's on the Trump's Card thread.

[DCI Harry Batt]

We should have had a "questions for us about pardons" thread all of its own.