Yeah, we know. I am particularly interested in seeing if he will go the extra mile and try the self-pardon, though. If he does that, and the courts uphold it, then we know we’ve officially crossed the line to dictatorship.
If he doesn’t, it will only be because people tell him the courts won’t back him on that.
OTOH, there is always the tiny, tiny chance that the self-pardon is a step too far, and convince Republicans to finally impeach his ass.
I suspect he doesn’t pardon himself day-1. No matter how he leaves office, there will be warning (or he’ll be dead). He’ll pardon himself as late as possible so he can tell people that he hasn’t (yet). There’s zero benefit to doing it early.
That said, he’s really fucking stupid, so I’m tired of predicting what he’ll do.
Plan B or maybe it is plan A is do a money grab, hand over the presidency to Vance, and have Vance do all the pardons, and he walks free.
That would require Trump to trust Vance. The absolute split second that Trump is out of power, everyone will turn on him. There’s no such thing as loyalty, just self interest.
Let’s all meet back here in a year and see how it all played out.
kinda makes me wish that !RemindMe bot was a thing here.
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… then we know we’ve officially crossed the line to dictatorship.
We already know that.
Don’t be so sure. It is well documented that the Founders felt that no person should be their own judge. But, more importantly, letting the President self-pardon gives that person an enormous advantage that the other branches can’t put in check. It subordinates the other branches.
Congress and the courts will, of course, go along with Trump’s priorities. But will they go along with diminishing their own power? Recall that even with the immunity decision, the courts left to themselves what is covered under that, so still kept some power in all that.
Pardons are an official act.
But a self-pardon can be argued to contradict other parts of the Constitution. It definitely is contrary to the founder’s intent.
Pretty sure absolute criminal immunity for the president would be as well.
SCOTUS: Hold my beer
Does he need to yet?
It’s not like he can be impeached and most of the cases will pause by default as he’s a sitting president. If any don’t he’ll have a tame Attorney General to kill them for him. State level charges could have a theoretical shot, but what state will take that fight?
The window to hold him accountable was 2020-2024 and the people responsible dropped the ball, sometimes with obvious intention, sometimes from naivité or incompetence
The problem as usual is that the Democrats bring Debate Club weapons to a knife fight
and convince the Republicans to finally impeach his ass.
Haha, good one.
let’s hope the dems get the house and a supermajority in the senate in the midterms (they won’t)
Right? Dude sends a crowd of rowdies into the Capitol building to hang the vice president for not lying but, self-pardoning is too far
lol the Rs will never impeach dear leader man
There is no way a self pardon will be the line too far. Democrats expect it and the Republican electorate would cheer him on.
If he crosses a line it will be fucking with other Republican’s money.
He did say in a recent interview that he would not pardon himself so we know he will do that on day one for sure. I am going to nickname him Mr. Opposite since I won’t acknowledge him as an actual president.
“But mah cheap eggs and bacon!” - every dingaling that voted based on “inflation”.
I just want to point out this is Charles F. Darwin speaking, folks
Commit a crime against others, pardon crimes against friends, dissolve criminal investigation of self.
Totally normal first-day agenda for a supposedly democratic country.
It will be interesting to see this play out.
If he pardons himself, it becomes an instant admission of guilt, which means that he is brazenly certifying that he has committed high crimes and misdemeanors.
We also don’t know if it is legal for the executive to pardon themselves. I don’t think it’s ever happened. Ford or Johnson pardoned Nixon, but I think that pardon was given before any trials had started.
He can’t pardon himself from the state felonies he has already been found guilty of.
As far as deportations, (and expulsions) Biden’s policy on immigration seems like a carry over from the first trump administration. In the last two years Biden has deported more folks than trumps highest numbers.
pardon Jan 6 rioters
Any that, ladies and gentlemen, is the nascent core of the American Sturmabteilung.
I really fucking don’t think he’ll pardon any of these guys. That would mean he cares for poor people
I’m not sure you understand the full power of the Nationalist Christian movement. It’s not about pardoning the poors. It’s about creating a paramilitary force with fanatical loyally to him, and him alone. He’ll be viewed by them as a savior/messiah even more than he already is by those people specifically. He will be seen as the Chosen One by those people, because he specifically saved them from “unjust imprisonment and political persecution” (for the record, it’s fully justified prosecution, because they fucking rioted and broke into the capital, trying to stop a peaceful fucking transfer of power). This is just a new and horrifyingly fascinating evolution of the große Lüge: continue to reframe an event by pardon people for crimes they actually committed that you’ve consistently told everyone aren’t crimes because you wanted those crimes to succeed.
because they fucking rioted and broke into the capital
Agreed with everything you said here, except they planned this. Riots tend to be spontaneous. This was plotted and schemed for months.
Yep, it’s to let everyone know that you can commit any kind of violence as long as you’re wearing a red hat and the fuhrer will pardon you.
Trump pardoning more violent criminals, what a fucking surprise
Not that he should, but it’d be a power move if Biden immediately pardoned everyone involved in the attempted assassinations against Trump. Send a message.
Edit: I want to be super clear that I’m not advocating for this. Once that door is opened, there’s no closing it again, and it’d be basically the worst possible outcome of all of this. It was in jest. Do not actually support this.
No, the power move would be to do something unspeakably drastic with respect to Trump’s physical safety, then pardon himself afterwards. Challenge Congress to fix the loophole that the Courts established.
The world feels like: Democrats are the cops, the DNC is the FBI, Trump is Hans Gruber, Bernie Sanders is Al Powell, America is the Christmas party (it even includes a pregnant woman in peril). We’ll say Kamala Harris is Holly Gennero, Joe Biden is Mr. Takagi, protest voters are Ellis, and Gen Z is Argyle. Richard Thornburg has failed us, the power’s been cut, and the hostages are on the roof. But we don’t have a John MacClane. I don’t know what drastic measure needs to be taken. But it would be really great if we could keep the burglars-cum-terrorists from blowing us to smithereens and making off with the loot.
