I have long thought that if Trump does not get the nomination he will sit out the election and ensure the defeat of the Republican standard bearer. Now I am not so sure. Trump may be in need of a pardon. If he can’t pardon himself, will he make certain that he will not get the pardon by ensuring the victory of the Democrat? Right now Trump is far ahead in the primary polls, but six months in politics is an eternity. Food for thought.
Pardon Power
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
Those charges are bogus and should be thrown out.
We should be focused on getting him up to date on the vaccines not that bs. He shouldn’t need a pardon.
Kennedy has my attention simply bc he knows how the CDC and Big Pharma are joined at hip.
He shouldn’t need a pardon.
There is a universe of difference in court between ‘should” and “is”.
Either the President has the power to declassify or they don’t.
What he has is what I want to know. We suspect they (most) are traitors. Just how bad is it.
Since in my mind they are bogus, pardoning himself is not a concern to me.
If he and Kennedy joined, they could be an unstoppable force.
Trump is horrible at picking people. All you need to do is flatter him and he will pick his own executioner! But he is so gifted in other areas.
Since in my mind they are bogus
Doesn’t matter. What matters is what the Judge and the Jury hearing the case thinks. Trump will also probably be indicted on some trumped up charges over January 6 in DC. Facing a DC Judge and a DC Jury Trump will almost certainly need a pardon unless the Supreme Court acts on appeal, and I would not count on that.
We have managed to keep a semblance of democratic order in this country for 230 years by not treating our head of executive government in the same manner as a banana republic or a military dictatorship. Closest we came was President Nixon and the legitimate grounds for that action paled against some of Franklin Roosevelt, Andrew Jackson and Barack Obama’s actions. If this prosecution proceeding against President Trump continues, we will be justly held in contempt by the international community as just another politically corrupt country with no special moral authority.
No, the larger question is always: Why would they stop at Trump?
And as the indictments flow, the media will be ready to run stories about “why is the republican party so filled with criminals?”
Why would they stop at Trump?
Because no one is as big an idiot as Trump is at making himself a target. The January 6 rally was idiocy, his call to the Ukrainian government about Biden’s malfeasance was idiocy and getting into a meaningless fight over documents was idiocy. Trump is ever and always his own worst enemy,
Nate, they may want to go after others, but we have to admit that Trump was a perfect storm of not knowing the rules, not bothering to learn them, and not surrounding himself with people who knew them.
Wow – and I thought I was a bit cynical!
but we have to admit that Trump was a perfect storm of not knowing the rules, not bothering to learn them, and not surrounding himself with people who knew them.
No, we don’t have to, because it isn’t true.
Which part do you disagree with? If multiple parts, could you be specific?
Which part do you disagree with? If multiple parts, could you be specific?
You didn’t utter one true statement.
OK, so Trump understood the requirements of government service, spent time learning the few he didn’t, and surrounded himself with people so talented and experienced that mistakes were impossible, and no other president had ever done those things before. I like it. You’re staking out a bold position. Which particular aspect of his unmatched quality did you admire the most? Was it his great resume in the federal system before being elected, or his instinctive respect toward the team he assembled? Or did you love all of it equally?
OK, so Trump understood the requirements of government service, spent time learning the few he didn’t, and surrounded himself with people so talented and experienced that mistakes were impossible, and no other president had ever done those things before.
There are no ‘requirements of government service’. There are powers and duties associated with each office and for categories of public employee there are certain common standards and practices, e.g contra accepting unlawful gratuities.
No President is going to have an encyclopaedic understanding of this. One thing you can do is compare Trump in this regard to his predecessors. How you know it wasn’t a problem during the Trump Administration is by looking at the contrived and twee nature of the complaints against him and some of his staff. An example of that would be Jonathan Turley (who may be less clueless now) and others complaining that Kellyanne Conway’s public statements were a Hatch Act violation. Or the two shampeachments. Or the entrapment exercise against Gen. Flynn. Or the whole Russian dossier hoax. Or the controversy over Michael Cohen negotiating non-disclosure agreements. Or the controversy over Presidential Records and Personal Records, which erupted even though the paperwork was in a secure location and he allowed federal employees (including the FBI) to inspect the papers and he accepted their recommendation for securing them.
Was it his great resume in the federal system before being elected, or his instinctive respect toward the team he assembled?
Why would I care about that? It’s beneficial that the President have held a consequential federal position and it’s beneficial that the President be familiar with the operations of Congress but not be socialized into Capitol Hill culture. ‘Beneficial’ does not mean ‘required’, and it’s more important that the President be a man of accomplishment who has functioned in executive positions. Even so, some people who hit the tick-boxes make a mess of things when they’re sitting in that chair making decisions.
I gather your preferred quantum of ‘federal service’ is found in his predecessors or other candidates for President.
Ted Cruz: two years as counsel to the Federal Trade Commission, three years in Congress as of 2016.
Marco Rubio: five years in Congress as of 2016.
John Kasich: 18 years in Congress as of 2016
Mitt Romney: none as of 2012
Rick Santorum: 12 years in Congress as of 2012
Newt Gingrich: 20 years in Congress as of 2012
Ron Paul: 22 years in Congress as of 2012
John McCain: 25 years in Congress as of 2008, 22 years in the Navy.
Mike Huckabee: none
George W. Bush: none
Steve Forbes: none
Pat Buchanan: seven years in the public relations apparat of the White House (five under Nixon, two under Reagan).
Joseph Biden: 36 years in Congress, 8 years as VP
Bernie Sanders: 29 years in Congress as of 2020
Elizabeth Warren: 7 years in Congress, 1 year as chief of a sketchy federal agency.
Hellary: seven years in Congress, four years in the Cabinet
Barack Obama: four years in Congress, of which he spent about 1/3 of the time campaigning for President
John Edwards: six years in Congress
John Kerry: 19 years in Congress as of 2004
Howard Dean: none
Wesley Clark: 34 years in the military
Bill Bradley: 18 years in Congress
Al Gore: 16 years in Congress, 7 years as VP as of 2000
Bill Clinton: none
Now, of all the people with this ‘federal service’ you fancy is so important, how many had been executives in any venue? Answer: Kasich, Sanders, Warren, Hellary, Clark. Warren’s just under the envelope (and a demonstrated liar) and Kasich, Sanders, and Hellary have hideous shortcomings.
Note, Trump is an accomplished man outside the realm of politics. That’s atypical in this crew. Cruz, Romney, Paul, Dean, Edwards, Clark, and Forbes were as well. Edwards made his pile as a plaintiff’s personal injury lawyer with a side order of junk science, Paul and Dean ran enterprises with a single-digit population of employees, and Cruz (while impressive) was only in private practice for about three years.