Posted on 05/18/2025 7:12:22 PM PDT by NoLibZone
Outgoing acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin said Tuesday the Department of Justice is reviewing several of former President Joe Biden’s final-hour pardons, vowing that his new office will scrutinize whether clemency was used “correctly” or politically.
Martin, whose nomination to the Washington, D.C., prosecutor post collapsed last week after key Senate Republicans pulled support, confirmed that President Donald Trump has reassigned him to two new high-profile roles: Director of the Office of the Pardon Attorney and head of the DOJ’s recently established Weaponization Working Group.
“I do think that the Biden pardons need some scrutiny,” Martin said at a press conference announcing the transition. “We want pardons to matter … to be accepted and to be something that’s used correctly. So I do think we’re going to take a hard look.”
Among the Biden pardons that have drawn sharp criticism from Republicans were the preemptive grants of clemency to former White House COVID-19 adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, former Wyoming GOP Rep. Liz Cheney, and several members of the House Jan. 6 committee. GOP lawmakers and Trump allies have railed against the moves as excessive and self-serving, with some accusing Biden of using the pardon power to insulate political allies from future investigations with a form of immunity.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
How do we know Biden issued pardons if he didn’t sign the paperwork himself?
Dangerous idea. What they will wind up doing is establishing a precedent that damages the ability of Trump to use the pardon power...and our side will be a target for post Trump political prosecutions.
Lock “Dr.” Jill up.
“vowing that his new office will scrutinize whether clemency was used “correctly” or politically.”
That has never been the legal standard. It has always been a plenary power without restriction except that an impeachment cannot be pardoned.
This is going to wind up creating a method that the courts can review pardons to see if they are “correct” or political.
And for what? Even if the pardons were stripped away, there is zero possibility of a successful prosecution of any of these people in DC or New York. None....
Trump signs everything he does personally. With witnesses and on video.
Is that something to hold the other side accountable on or do we simply let it slide? Which is possibly even more dangerous.
Two things....
Preemptive pardons must be challenged in court. There is no argument for a pardon issued to someone who hasn’t even been charged. But the pardon for unnamed crimes does not seem legitimate.
Second, it need to be verified beyond a reasonable doubt that Biden was of sound mind AND was the one who signed the pardon. Either one of those is untrue and the pardons are null and void.
Does his diminished capacity add a new variable?
Biden could not overcome the diminished capacity challenge.
Correction, there is no argument against a pardon issued to someone who has been convicted. But a blanket pardon issued to someone who hasn’t even been charged with a crime reeks of political skullduggery.
True... but that is not the point. This is the first time since the constitution was ratified that it is not held as absolute, a done deal. I have no doubt most of those pardons were political and corrupt. Same for Obama, Clinton and others over the years.
But what this will do is start a brand new thing for the first time in 237 years that pardons need an after the fact review process for appropriateness. This new review power is always going to be wielded when the opposition takes over. And it will be expanded... he is not debating whether or not Biden signed personally. He is evaluating whether the pardon was “correct” or whether it was “political”.
This will soon expand into a process, and there will be no keeping the courts out of it.
It’s a very bad path to go down. There is zero chance of successfully prosecuting any of these people and all this “review” will do is weaken the pardon power.... and WE are the ones who actually need it.
In three years, I don’t want some democrat deciding the J6 political prisoners were wrongly pardoned for “political reasons” and rounding them up again.
Bad bad idea.
Instead of going after the obvious they will go down a road that leads nowhere. It only makes it look like they tried to do something. The signatures should be illegal because their is no proof from them that Biden signed or even knew about those pardons. That negates the entire history of what a signature is for. Imagine if the constitution of the united states contained autopen signatures. Trump has not only been hand signing everything, but he has been doing a lot of it public.
All pardons need to be signed with the Presidents own hand. I see no danger in that.
“Is that something to hold the other side accountable on or do we simply let it slide?”
Let it slide. There is no chance of going after them in DC and NYC and getting a conviction. And democrats always pardon their sleazy ones. WE are the ones who need for the pardon power to be rigidly originalist because we do not pardon without respectable reasons. And it’s better to let democrat sleaze slide than to have Republican pardons always have to be adjudicated.
One of the wisest things our founders put in was the unlimited pardon power of the president to right a wrong and stop an abusive process. Better that power lets someone escape unjustly than we lose that power.
Think Eddie Gallagher, think the J6ers, think Michael Flynn. I don’t want some court or future democrat president reversing those.
No... we should have impeached and removed him. Say you overturn his pardons, so what? They aren’t getting prosecuted unless all the cases are moved to Odessa Texas, and still a crapshoot then.
But you will succeed in damaging the pardon power that has stood as is for 237 years.
The pardon power as written does NOT require a conviction nor a trial, nor even a charge brought.
The reason is that the pardon process was gifted to us as a way to halt an abusive prosecutor. It is the final circuit breaker. If a citizen is subject to a corrupt or malicious prosecutor, that citizen should not have to endure the legal costs, pretrial incarceration, and the stress of a trial and conviction before becoming eligible for a pardon.
The pardon saves that citizen from financial ruin, arrest, incarceration, and years of abuse. THAT is why you do not need to be charged and the pardon power was not limited.
“and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.” Article II, Section 2, Clause 1:
That is it... simple and clean. Don’t Eff it up to try to lock up Hunter for illegally having a 38, or Cheney for being a bitch, or Fauci for being a lying fraud.
I would like it changed so president cannot issue pardon while a lame duck.
That is not the debate. The guy doing the review said to ascertain whether the pardons were correct and not political.
And Article II does not say a word about how the President must sign. None... don’t screw this up for such a trivial cause.
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