****I suppose [secret] pardons [by Obama] could be within the realm of possibility but people with legal etc knowledge (not me!) have said that pardons have to be made public.****
I know this isn’t your position, LJ, but I’m too far behind to see who I should be responding to. The article below was written by Time Magazine in 2017 and, at the time, they were fretting that it was PDJT who was about to issue secret pardons of himself or his family. The conclusion in the article is:
“The short answer: In theory, yes [the President can issue secret pardons].”
Time is certainly no authority on anything, but this is what they wrote after presumably doing a bit of research with the Office of the Pardon Attorney in the Justice Department.
https://time.com/4933386/donald-trump-secret-pardon-law/
I will check it out as soon as I have some minutes (hopefully today), but I will keep in mind it is Time which is ultra biased. In theory, wonder how it would fly legally.
Hmm, I read the article, and I need substantial legal sources to verify. It did say that if secret pardons were issued, they would come to light in the event of any indictments, so if there were secret pardons, we will find out about them.
I did check the link in the article but it goes to a page that discusses some Constitutional stuff but not pardons other than saying the president can grant them. Will have to look around a bit more later.
good post.
by the way,
“I’m too far behind to see who I should be responding to.”
just type in your own name or ‘all’ in the “to” area.
The original poster will sense it was directed to them.