Trump said he would consider pre-emptive pardons to protect Elon Musk and other close aides should Democrats take control of Congress
Donald Trump said he would be willing to protect Elon Musk and his staff if Democrats take control of Congress after the midterm elections this week.
In an interview for the “Pod Force One” podcast published Monday, Trump said he would move to “protect” the billionaire SpaceX and Tesla CEO if Congressional investigators targeted him.
Trump also indicated that he was weighing pre-emptive pardons for his close aides and others around him should the Democrats pursue investigations, according to Axios. It is a notion that the president has floated before to keep his team from facing prosecution for actions during the first two years of his term.
Maybe it’s time to float rewriting the pardon powers so there’s checks and balances that can’t be abused, because you know if one did it more will do the same otherwise. Invalidate his pardon power, invalidate his pardons, crimes committed by those in office should not be pardonable, etc.
We need to make it so that the president can only pardon people who they don’t personally know, and who didn’t commit crimes that directly benefit them.
The J6ers shouldn’t have been pardonable, members of his administration should not be pardonable. Only private citizens whose crimes had no benefit to the president.
And there should be a limit to how many they get. Like 36 a year or something. Thats 3 per month; more than enough!
It’s never that simple. Even the limit is a good idea on paper, but pardons also apply to people who have been convicted of “offenses” that should never have been offenses to begin with (IMO marijuana possession is a huge one.) If the prez happens to have heard or met any of them personally, they wouldn’t be eligible? Hardly seems fair. And yet, someone out there would argue this, you just know it.
can only pardon people who they don’t personally know, and who didn’t commit crimes that directly benefit them
Easy to abuse the other way too. Just have a group lobby to pardon someone so there’s no direct relationship between pardoner and pardonee. Would probably meet “legal criteria”, or there’ll be a subtler move that does meet legal criteria, because legal criteria change.
Unless there is a mechanism to PREVENT pardons from being issued without prior review, but even then: the review process can be abused (see: Supreme Court full of bought judges).
I also don’t understand why anyone can uphold the logic of “guilty, but there won’t be punishment”. Any system that’s based on that kind of logic needs to be abolished. If there’s a confirmed offense, there need to be consequences, period. If the offense shouldn’t have been an offense in the first place, there needs to be actual restitution made and some other mechanism than just saying “sorry, my bad”–it shouldn’t have more weight when it comes from the president, come on. Presidents are just people, human beings holding an office. (The fact that they’re venerated in some places is a fucking problem, not a feature.)
In some cases there can’t be restitution without causing damage to innocents; “heads need to roll” when that happens (there should be damage to those who continued enabling whatever went wrong.) And so on, but all of those steps can be abused.
Yet we go the other way these days (oh, nobody’s really “guilty” of anything) and it’s no wonder the president can be a convicted felon. I’m fucking tired.
“Pre-emptive pardon” is just another way of saying you are giving someone an exemption from having to follow the law.
Tell me you’re guilty as fuck without telling me you’re guilty as fuck.
Everything out of that loser’s mouth for the last decade has been screaming that he’s guilty.
Preemptive pardon should not even be a thing.
And if it is, the executive should list explicitly what crimes, on what days, against which individuals, cannot be brought to trial.
This is the real crux of the issue. Blanket pardons shouldn’t be a thing. If you want to pardon someone, it should be specific. Which crimes? Where? When? Who was victimized? Who else was involved? What was the outcome of the crime?
The SCOTUS has already ruled in
Burdick v. USthat accepting a pardon requires admitting guilt of the crime you’re being pardoned of. The wording of the ruling was that a pardon carries “an imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it.” The SCOTUS has consistently held that a pardon does not overturn a guilty conviction. Instead, it removes the punishment for the crime. You’re still unequivocally guilty after a pardon.It shouldn’t be some sort of “I pardon you for waves arms in air vaguely” power, because that turns the whole “needing to admit guilt” part into a sly wink wink elbow nudge situation. It puts the person’s crimes in a quantum Schrödinger state. The person accepting a vague pardon is inarguably guilty of something, because they admitted guilt when they accepted the pardon. But the court doesn’t know what they’ve admitted to until a prosecutor tries to indict them, and they go “oh no you can’t prosecute me, I was pardoned.”
It reminds me a little of popes selling indulgences. “Donate money and/or go on crusade, and I’ll absolve you of any sins you’ve already commited or will commit in the future.” That sort of thing eventually resulted in a rather significant schism.
Doesn’t accepting a pardon, especially a blanket pardon, also mean that you lose your Fifth Amendment protection to not incriminate yourself? You can not be punished for what you did, that means you have nothing to fear and can be made to confess everything and incriminate accomplices. Wouldn’t that be some way to have a go at Trump?
Effect of a Pardon
The Fifth Amendment privilege exists to protect the witness from providing self-incriminating testimony so long as, and only so long as, the danger of prosecution persists. As a result, according to at least one Supreme Court case, when a “witness has already received a pardon, he cannot longer set up his [Fifth Amendment] privilege, since he stands, with respect to such offense, as if it had never been committed.”
That’s true, in that way it works like an immunity deal.
The problem is that, if the pardonee refuses to testify and is found in contempt, Trump (or some later asshole) can then pardon the contempt as well.
Maybe, but if you have a blanket pardon then what are they going to charge you if you just refuse to comply? You’ve already been pardoned for the hypothetical contempt.
At present pardons can be blanket, but they can’t be prospective. So it can be “I pardon you for all (federal) crimes ever up to now”, but it can’t be I pardon you for X you’re going to do tomorrow.
They aren’t a thing. You can only pardon a crime that’s already been commited, not for future crimes.
Also Trump violated his oath of office within 72 hours of this term beginning, so technically none of his pardons mean anything from this term and can just be reversed.
He wasn’t legitimately serving in capacity of the president since he abdicated his office by violating his oath.
The crimes have already been committed, they just haven’t been charged for it yet.
That would be interesting - if he could pardon the crimes but he’d first have to specifically detail them.
Exactly, and there’s always like dozens of not hundreds of possible charges you could bring. If they pardon the few obvious big ones, they can still be charged on all the other ones, and have a judge sentence them to serve consecutively.
They also aren’t immune to civil suits for monetary damages and other things
I don’t think he would need to specifcy them?
I pardon Elon Musk and all DOGE staff for anything and everything they did while working for DOGE.
No, sadly he doesn’t. But it would be good if it was somehow made to work that way.
It doesnt seem unreasonable to need to do that either, but at the same time it can be abused.
Like let’s say Elon committed 20 crimes in DOGE, and they’re all related in one way or another. The 20th one specifically is related to the 19th how he copied data, but its own obscure law, that everyone’s forgot about, so they pardon the 19, and then get him on copying the data to a non authorized USB stick or something because it wasnt on an authorized seller list.
So I do kind of think it needs some ability to blanket things, but also, some specificity also seems important.
"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
scRotus says anything dipshit does is just part of his doing the job and he can’t be prosecuted for it at all.
‘to the best of my ability’ is also doing some heavy work here. he has no qualifications for office and he’s dumb as bricks. he’s doing the ‘best’ he can, doing the only thing he knows how to: lie, cheat, steal.
What I’m saying is the scrotus already set the path for executive overreach. The next president can use that to have them all killed if they wanted to Uber the same reasoning. Or just make up a pretext that isn’t explicitly stated, like that they are sitting justices who will from here forward serve in a non judiciary capacity.
The could and they should but they won’t.
Oh I looked it up and you’re right that future crimes can’t be pardoned. It doesn’t help that the media talks about preemptive pardons like they are for future crimes, when it really only means crimes that have been committed but no charges have been filed yet. https://northernkentuckylawreview.com/blog/preemptive-pardons-explained-understanding-president-bidens-family-pardons
he abdicated his office by violating his oath
And the only remedy for that is impeachment, followed by removal, which didn’t happen.
Yes, but it can happen at anytime, then you retroactively invalidate his past actions
Accepting a pardon means you’re guilty.
No, it doesn’t.
It does, however, void your 5th Amendment rights to refuse to testify against yourself.
Accepting a pardon is generally seen as an admission of guilt.
Stupid people think all kinds of things. Do you let them decide everything else you believe too?
Pardon should only be possible under very narrow circumstances. For example if laws got loosened after conviction or when convoction WAS obviously politically motivated. But neither can logically handed out before a judge read the verdict.
What if trump pardons himself and friends for any sex crimes now, maybe even murder?
Why would any judge honor this? Ooo now i’m thinking dems kept heads low regarding epstein convictions to use that very argumentation and they can’t pardon themselves anymore. A man can have hope right?
I strongly disagree. There has to be a check on judicial overreach and miscarriages of justice. Pardons make sense for that.
The problem with Trump isn’t the use of pardons per se, it’s that he’s issuing them corruptly.
Pardoned for what?
They haven’t been convicted of any crimes (yet)?
How is a pre-emptive pardon even a thing? The notion alone seems like a perversion of the original intent.
Unfortunately, there is precedent as Ford’s pardon of Nixon included future crimes. It’s fucking stupid.
You can’t call it a “precedent” if it was not contested in a legal environment.
That said, the constitution allows too much bullshit. It needs to be culled.
It’s because WE have to follow rules and THEY dont
Pardon for what? Election manipulation? Theft? Treason? Overstaying his education visa?
Yes
He’s unwittingly telegraphing that they should only pursue state-level prosecutions while he’s still in office. Not that they didn’t know that already.
How fucked up of a country is it that, in America, if Hitler was around living in Texas and putting Jews in concentration camps and murdering them, the president could pardon him?
This isn’t a left or right. Abolish pardons. No one should be above the law. Yes I understand shitty governments would weaponize this fast. I don’t care.
Trump. Elon. The whole lot of them need to be on trial for policies that have murdered millions worldwide.
Let’s just take all of his money instead.
he’s used his money to commit crimes, he’ll do it again. the fact he has so fucking much of it is too great a temptation.
civil forfeiture of all of it should definitely be on-the-table.
if a redneck sheriff can take a black guy’s cash (it might have come from drugs) that he was takin’ to pay ma’s rent… muskrat’s money… hell, all those fukfaces’ money… should be fair game for the taking.
Let’s make him count it as he hands it over, any mistake and he gets a portion of his flesh removed and has to start over
That’s cruel. Better to fine him massively for any miscount.
A fine is nothing more than the cost of doing business
ALL of it.
Every last penny.
Hit him where it really hurts.
Why stop there? Take his head off while you’re at it.
The next candidate who floats a blanket pardon for anyone convicted of murdering any billionaire gets my vote.
They were crying when Biden did it.
…for a price, I’m sure.
oh, I think that even if he premptively pardons the entire gang, Congress should investigate anyway. Just so that the record of what they did is made public and Trump doesn’t get to revise the historical record.
Fuck all that, I’m sick of pageantry and fucking reports, these fuckers need to go to PRISON they’ve committed an insane number of crimes and there needed to be consequences!!!
Aren’t pardons only for convictions. Have them plead and specify the deads so they have immunity
Then charge them elsewhere. Tax them. Civil suits.
Aren’t pardons only for convictions.
No. Pardons can cover crimes that have not yet even been charged. And they don’t have to reference specific crimes either.
even if he premptively pardons the entire gang
Depends on what you mean by “pre-emptively.” If you mean before they’ve been charged, that part is true. But pardons can only be for events in the past, so that interpretation of “pre-emptively” isn’t valid. I’m guessing you meant the former.
Next president better reverse all these dollarstore pardons.
If pardons were easily reversed, surely many would’ve been this year if not last year.
I think we need an amendment to rescind the pardon. Reduce it to a stay of execution only. Why is it even a thing? Did they really think giving this power to a sitting president would ONLY be used to right injustices? It’s a friggin unlimited commit crimes and get out of jail free card.
Yeah, pardons don’t make sense unless you believe that executives can never do wrong.
Which is a very strange belief to have as people in the process of rebelling against a king because he made decisions they didn’t like.
Pardons also make sense to correct miscarriages of justice. The justice system often leads to anomalous outcomes, and there needs to be a way to correct them.
So the pardon power should be restricted but not abandoned altogether: for example, no self-pardons, no pardons for crimes that have not been charged yet, no general pardons, no pardons for anyone who holds an Executive branch political appointment until (say) five years after a conviction.
Pardons also make sense to correct miscarriages of justice.
In theory.
But who defines injustice?
Currently, the executive can just label any and all prosecution of anyone they like a “miscarriage of justice,” as Donald Trump routinely does.
In my opinion, you shouldn’t get a reprieve just because you’re on good terms with the executive; you should have to ride out the justice system like anyone else. If it produces injustice - and it surely does - reform that.
Yeah, while stuff like this is very bad, Chelsea Manning was pardoned for the crime of leaking government secrets pertaining to the torture of prisoners in Iraq. She also had a whole 8th amendment case going on, but it would have taken many years to have a shot of freeing her on that.
Pardons however do need to be seriously curtailed, and should require that the individual have been convicted and not be affiliated with the president or their administration in any way. If President Josh Shapiro wants to pardon Elon he can go right ahead. Elon is a trump ally who was acting as part of his administration and hasn’t been convicted yet. Hell, Ford was Nixon’s VP and an elected member of the same party, if Carter wanted to pardon him after conviction that’s fine, but hell no to Ford
there should 100% be a check on pardons, like everything else. However, it wouldn’t do much good in this situation seeing how congress and SC have already abdicated their duties.
Kings had the power of pardon and they were creating a replacement for a king.
Biden used it to protect his family members and Dr. Fauci. Might’ve been a real risk of some retaliation in the air.
I never said some that there weren’t a few good uses. It’s just not worth the cost in my opinion. Biden saved two and Trump pardoned thousands from 01/06.
The only reason the office of the President exists is because the American founders didn’t have anyone among them with a reasonable chance of being supported as a king. Democracy was just a necessary compromise. If they could’ve gone full-on feudal, they would’ve.
the American founders didn’t have anyone among them with a reasonable chance of being supported as a king.
As in the Glorious Revolution in England, some of the founders put out feelers looking for some underemployed German or Dutch prince who might want the job of King. But the debate ran out of the founders’ control, thanks to radicals like Thomas Paine, who wrote pamphlets arguing that we didn’t need to have a king at all.
Lol what nonsense shit is this. The federalist papers have a mess of talks about how they’re worried that what they have created would be used like trump is using it now.
And even Washington was vehemently against it, and the reason the POTUS has a two term limit is because of Washington.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newburgh_letter
Where did you even come up with this…
the reason the POTUS has a two term limit is because of Washington
The two-terrm limit was not law until the 22nd Amendment was ratified in (I think) 1951, as a Republican-led reaction to FDR’s having been elected four times.
While this is correct, all previous presidents abided by the whole, two term thing as Washington did. It should have been a law from day one but nothing is perfect.
Look at that. The neo-Nazi scumbag is guilty before the prosecution opens a case.
