Wait, the pardon can invalidate having to pay restitution too‽
Looks like it. So that guy just made a profit of 3.4 million (1 mil for the bribe out of 4.4 mil he had to pay back).
It's a dangerous game tho.
It can very well invalidate the life of the pardoned as well, if one of the aggrieved party has nothing left to lose because of that wage theft.
I wonder how long Donvict can continue before he gets stopped for good.
The judge wasn't technically wrong though. This was a "get out of jail for $1M card".
Creed always said it best, but he undersold them.
"You don't go by Monopoly, man. That game is nuts. Nobody just picks up Get Out of Jail Free cards. Those things cost thousands." - Creed
No get out of jail free card, but apparently a get out of jail for $1mil card.
Get out of jail and out of paying $4.4 million for $1 million. So it's a "get out of jail and here take this $3.4 million" card.
Can someone explain again how this isn’t criminal corruption?
"If the president does it it's not illegal. - Richard M. Nixon" - The Supreme Court
It is, they just don't care
I'm often asking this: how can presidential pardons be defended as acceptable at all, even outside Trump?
This was bound to happen at some point. Presidential pardons were just waiting to be abused.
They're not a thing in many other counties. And thank Christ for that.
Being able to personally just overturn the courts is bar shit insane.
I bet you, there will be political assassinations coming that Trump will simply pardon.
The thing is, if he has no involvement, was this even illegal before the supreme court gave Trump their get-out-of-jail-free card?
Not a laywer, but I could imagine it wouldn't have been.
Trump aside, y'all need to get rid of executive pardons.
Oh, and electronic voting.
Sincerely, from the provinces. Please.
So, ostensibly, pardons are meant to be a way to override the Justice system where it has failed to provide justice. If the law is unjust or it's application was unjust, a pardon can correct that. And ideally it is used sparingly and by a President that that can be trusted to be an arbiter of wisdom and morality. So there's just about no limitations on the power. And the other branches are meant to give consequences for unethical applications of it, like quid pro quo pardons/bribery. But obviously that is not how it works in practice.
The theoretical argument is that any justice system no matter how well thought out and well intentioned, will eventually result in edge cases where justice fails to be done. Especially when implemented on a large scale. There are already appeals, and those can fail too. Plenty of examples of people actually being railroaded.
You can just accept that , or you turn to democracy to try alleviate the most egregious cases. Thats what the pardon is for - no process, no more appeals. Just the president, the people's highest representative, and a pen.
It sometimes works (as in, is probably a net benefit) when the person wielding this power fears the people and will pay (at least) a political price for misusing it. Pardoning someone he knows is a complete of the power. Enriching himself by essentially selling pardons throws the whole thing into the world of comedy. Any talk of the theoretical merits of it is laughable.
You can argue that this was inevitable. Maybe you're right. But that was the intent, and it's failure is another symptom of the American democracy degenerating towards failure. Trump won't pay a price for this. Even on conservative forums where they hangwring about "not getting why he's doing this" (as they stare straight at the naked corruption), none of them will change their votes. Nobody is interested in holding him accountable.
This democratic failure has widespread consequences. The open corruption of the pardons process is actually one of the smaller symptoms of it.
I mean even if you're not explicitly selling pardons you don't have to worry about the political consequences of a pardon if it's your last term in office and can't run anymore due to being term limited. So the system is broke from the very start and just allows presidents to override enforcement of laws they don't like at the federal level.
When Indulgences return, where is our modern day Jan Hus or Martin Luther?
Probably already illegally detained and shipped off to a torture prison in one of americas vassal states
It's more of a time for a Mexican Joker anyway.
This is nothing new. He did this at the end of his first term too.
Further proof that Trump is a shrewd businessman. Joe Biden gave his pardons away for free, like a sucker.
Maybe the Luigi Brothers should stop by and "un-pardon" him?
I would have thought that restitution is not a criminal, but a civil matter and can't be subject to presidential pardon.
i love this. US laws regarding bribery are barely a notch above the honor system already.
the rules are basically "hey, you can take bribes in return for favors, but please make sure that your briber doesn't say 'I'm giving you this sack of money, conviently labeled "bribes", as a bribe so you can do favors for me in exchange' and you don't say 'understood, i will abuse my power to do favors for you in exchange for this bribe'—and as long as you don't both say these things on record and label the money as ’bribes’ you're good"...
... and this motherfucker's like "let's just do it anyway, we'll get away with it so who cares"
This will just make the GOP more loyal to Trump now that they know they don't have to follow rules.
I mean, he will do more tomorrow, and no one can do anything about it legally......
