Posted on 01/21/2025 2:30:28 AM PST by texas booster
From the comments: Please answer how it is Constitutional for a president to pardon someone who has not been charged with a crime also that encompasses a defined period of years? This needs to be taken to the Supreme Court.
It's a YT video but a good one. Please visit if you have time.
FR Index of his articles: Victor Davis Hanson on FR
Town Hall: Victor Davis Hanson on Town Hall
American Greatness: Victor Davis Hanson on American Greatness
His website: Victor Davis Hanson
Please let me know if you want on or off this new VDH ping list.
As a reminder, Professor Hanson has asked that we do not post the full article of his writings. Thank you for following the link to finish his article.
Content created by the Center for American Greatness, Inc. is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a significant audience.
Pedo Joe and his crime family should be in prison.
Agree pardons can’t be issued until someone has been convicted of a crime
DJT’s justice department should take this to court. Blanket pardons for every crime a person has not been charged with or accused of can’t be allowed.
Not a lawyer, but this seems entirely correct to me. A pardon for unnamed past and future crimes? To the Supreme Court. Even the dullard Roberts would get this one right.
Presumtive/preemptive pardons are legal and Constitutional...
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S2-C1-3-1/ALDE_00013316/
I read the legalese carefully. Where in the text does it state that the President may grant pardons for yet to committed crimes? Or yet to be charged crimes? I don’t see this.
For instance, the Court has indicated that the power may be exercised at any time after [an offense’s] commission,8 reflecting that the President may not preemptively immunize future criminal conduct.
Ford did it with Nixon. Carter with draft dodgers. Bush with Weinberger.
See my reply #9 with an apology for my italics screw up.
To my mind, pardoning future, yet to be committed crimes, is counterintuitive and immoral.
We can see that highly intelligent, well-meaning, reasonable and charming people, like us, can disagree about this. So, let the Supreme Court decide it.
Pardons are acceptable for unindicted (even undiscovered) crimes in the past. They cannot apply to anything in the future.
More fitting end to crooks and tyrants:
“So let the Supreme Court decide it.”
The Constitution did not give the unelected Supreme Court the dictatorial power to be the final arbiter of every issue before the nation. Too many times rulings of the Supreme Court have restricted the guaranteed rights of the people and the states in favor of the executive branch and the administrative state.
If the meaning of the words of the Constitution are not clear there are two defined processes for the legislative branch, which represents the people, and the states to amend it.
For now, the words of the Constitution permit preemptive pardons by not prohibiting them.
The ultimate check on presidential power is choosing honorable, reasonable leaders of good judgment and high character for the job. Joe Biden had a multi decade public track record of corruption, pettiness, lying, and influence peddling when he became president. To expect a self serving, morally bankrupt man to behave in a virtuous manner is unrealistic as we have seen.
Continue electing evil people to office and the nation will continue its descent into the abyss, no matter what our governing Constitution, laws passed by Congress, or rulings of the Supreme Court say.
What you say makes a lot of sense. I can see your points. But is any crazy, egregious, evil action permitted simply because it is not explicitly prohibited by the Constitution? Does the Constitution prohibit necrophagy? A silly example, I know, but it makes a point.
This preemptive pardon business needs to be resolved. And quickly. Whether by judicial action or legislative is fine with me. But we cannot permit what Biden did to become accepted practice in this country.
Ping
6 minute video that is a good and concise broadcast from VDH. About Trumps inauguration day, VDH is 100% positive about it. He discusses Biden’s scurrilous pardons. Biden’s preemptive pardons of his family came 15 minutes before Trumps inauguration. Amazing!
Unfortunately, I think the American people will write off all these pardons. Thinking that Biden pardoned his (actual gangsters) people, then Trump did the exact same. That Trump then pardoned his people.
Making it all a wash.
“This preemptive pardon business needs to be resolved. And quickly. Whether by judicial action or legislative is fine with me. But we cannot permit what Biden did to become accepted practice in this country.”
The largest and most recent precedent for preemptive pardons was done, when Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon against any and all future judicial actions. Nixon was on the verge of being impeached, and this was all Nixon got.
Obama was 20x the criminal that Nixon ever was. Such is the power of the liberal-left American mass media. Was Obama who set into motion and masterminded the Russia collusion scam and all other judicial harassments against Trump-45. This is why Obama bought a 17 million dollar DC mansion to stay in Washington DC. Unlike all other Presidents who retire back to their home state. Or the Clintons “retiring” (Hillary ran for the Senate from NY) to their NY State compound.
Agree with you about BHO. An evil man. Very destructive to our country.
But a president pardoning a president might be considered a special case. A one-off.
But imagine a president giving a preemptive pardon, for any and all offenses, to a political friend. Then imagine this friend going on to commit unlimited criminal acts. He can steal, murder, rape, whatever and never be charged.
Such a scenario is far-fetched but, given the character of recent democrat occupants of the office, not unimaginable.
No reasonable society could tolerate such a state of affairs. Then we’d truly be in the last days of Rome.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.