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.
Next president better reverse all these dollarstore pardons.
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.
trump doesn’t care about helping anyone but he loves being thanked. He’s a pretty simple guy underneath all the simplicity.
Great. If pardoned, they can’t take the Fifth for anything they were pardoned for, and they can be nailed for contempt if they don’t testify or if they lie.
Only the guilty need pardons before the crimes are listed.
I feel like we’re getting dangerously close to the point where we start making our own justice
Someone already gave you guys a good example
Elon needs to spend the rest of his pathetic loser life in prison
They invented “Presidential immunity”. Time for Dems to invent “void corrupt pardons”. Found in the same section of the Constitution.
Look at that. The neo-Nazi scumbag is guilty before the prosecution opens a case.
I’m at the point where fuck it… Play the game by their rules. Put them in prison even though they’re pardoned. Oh it’s illegal? You don’t say…
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.
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.
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.
Pardons have to be for a specific crime which they have not been convicted of.
Pardons have to be for a specific crime
False. General pardons have been used since at least the mid-19th century. Recently, those for the 6 Jan mob.
which they have not been convicted of
False. Pardons can apply for crimes which have not been charged, for crimes being adjudicated, and for crimes for which the pardonee has already been convicted.
Presidential pardons is such a fucking stupid concept. It runs straight into the face of separating the executive from judicial.
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.
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.
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.
Preemptive pardon should not even be a thing.
Accepting a pardon means you’re guilty.
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.”
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
"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.
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.
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
Hit him where it really hurts.
ALL of it.
Every last penny.
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.
