"But the pardon also betrays a deep worry that Republicans wouldn’t stop coming after Biden’s family until they had extracted their pound of flesh—that we are past the point of saving the institutional legitimacy of our system of justice."
How about Trump issuing an executive order vacating all pardons granted during the previous administration? Sound ridiculous and impossible? By the time it gets litigated out and the Supreme Court probably has rationalized why that is a legitimate reading of the Constitution Trump can have wreaked havoc over the lives of many of his enemies.
There is no coming back from this so Biden is acting rationally in issuing his pardon of Hunter he KNOWS what will be coming.
That is also why he must pardon Trump, his coconspirators and the January 6 insurrectionists. Follow Lincoln's path of Amnesty and Reconstruction. At least it will disarm Trump's use of the pardon as a tool of propaganda for the short term. Also Jack Smith's reports need to published BEFORE Trump takes office.
Pardon him, for what purpose? So Trump can say, “Look, everyone! Biden pardoned me, so clearly I did nothing wrong! Time to do it all again, and then some!”???
A pardon is not an exoneration. If anything it says in spite of this pardon the pardoned person was a criminal. Especially if/when Jack Smith releases his damning report on Trump's crimes.
Do you seriously think MAGA is going to make that distinction? No matter how many times we explain things to them, they take Trump at his word. If he gets pardoned, he is going to shout from the rooftops that he never did anything wrong to begin with, it was all a political hit job, and he got pardoned because he’s innocent. And MAGA is going to lap it up. Pardoning him gets us nothing.
He will do that anyway. What MAGA thinks doesn’t matter… it is what the rest of the world sees. And not pardoning gets us nothing except to allow Trump to claim he has vindicated himself and the unjustly convicted patriots.
He himself will never need a pardon (not even a self-pardon) because the Federal Courts have never convicted him and will never convict him. So Biden giving him a pardon (along with the release of Jack Smith’s damning reports) makes it clear Trump was guilty and needed to be pardoned
"But the pardon also betrays a deep worry that Republicans wouldn’t stop coming after Biden’s family until they had extracted their pound of flesh—that we are past the point of saving the institutional legitimacy of our system of justice."
How about Trump issuing an executive order vacating all pardons granted during the previous administration? Sound ridiculous and impossible? By the time it gets litigated out and the Supreme Court probably has rationalized why that is a legitimate reading of the Constitution Trump can have wreaked havoc over the lives of many of his enemies.
There is no coming back from this so Biden is acting rationally in issuing his pardon of Hunter he KNOWS what will be coming.
That is also why he must pardon Trump, his coconspirators and the January 6 insurrectionists. Follow Lincoln's path of Amnesty and Reconstruction. At least it will disarm Trump's use of the pardon as a tool of propaganda for the short term. Also Jack Smith's reports need to published BEFORE Trump takes office.
Pardon him, for what purpose? So Trump can say, “Look, everyone! Biden pardoned me, so clearly I did nothing wrong! Time to do it all again, and then some!”???
A pardon is not an exoneration. If anything it says in spite of this pardon the pardoned person was a criminal. Especially if/when Jack Smith releases his damning report on Trump's crimes.
Do you seriously think MAGA is going to make that distinction? No matter how many times we explain things to them, they take Trump at his word. If he gets pardoned, he is going to shout from the rooftops that he never did anything wrong to begin with, it was all a political hit job, and he got pardoned because he’s innocent. And MAGA is going to lap it up. Pardoning him gets us nothing.
He will do that anyway. What MAGA thinks doesn’t matter… it is what the rest of the world sees. And not pardoning gets us nothing except to allow Trump to claim he has vindicated himself and the unjustly convicted patriots.
He himself will never need a pardon (not even a self-pardon) because the Federal Courts have never convicted him and will never convict him. So Biden giving him a pardon (along with the release of Jack Smith’s damning reports) makes it clear Trump was guilty and needed to be pardoned
Sorry, not buying that line of thinking.