“As if a review board could supercede the president’s constitutional pardon authority.”
They’re not trying to. An MEB is not a criminal determination. In this case it is to determine the fitness of a military member’s behavior. It can cover anything from physical problems to psychological and are used all the time for those determinations. If a member is unable to operate within the guidelines of the mission needs and can harm it in some way, he/she can be relieved of duty and possibly discharged not for punishment, but like a divorce for incompatibility.
Trump’s pardoning of violation of duty by a military member doesn’t mean the member didn’t do it. It actually cements it. But just because he is not going to be punished for the crime, it can, and does in this instance, create a question as to the fittability of the member. So the board is called after the determination of court martial. It would have been called anyway, probably in his defense to prove incompatibility, if the POTUS hadn’t pulled the plug on further punishment.
To be honest, Trump didn’t do him a real favor by pardoning the crime which left the violation in the works. It was going to follow him for the rest of his career and make it hard for him to get requested warm fuzzies like special assignments or base of preference. The buttons behind the game are pushed by many and often.
rwood
Find out who alerted the CBS ‘journalist’ to the paperwork. The swamp is wide and smelly.