Bush's Ace in the Hole-- The Pardon Power

[KalicoKitty]

(If this has already been posted, forgive me.)


Rumors are buzzing about who will be indicted in the Plamegate scandal, and what further revelations will develop. Some people have even speculated that the Vice-President may be indicted or named as an unindicted co-conspirator.

But just remember that the President always has the means to stop judicial proceedings of his closest political associates from going any further. He can simply pardon persons indicted for a crime, or even those who have not yet been indicted.

More:

http://balkin.blogspot.com/2005/10/bushs-ace-in-hole-pardon-power.html

[MADem]

1. Count on it

My guess is they are already drafted, just waiting for a signature and a date stamp!!!

[Fridays Child]

2. I've never understood how someone who hasn't been convicted...

...can be pardoned. Did Poppy invent that little trick or was it around before he used it to prevent the trials that would have led to his own conviction?

[flyingfysh]

4. Ford did it

He pardoned Nixon before Nixon had been formally convicted of anything.

[unblock]

6. ford pardoned nixon, who had yet to be charged

and he didn't 'invent' it either.

it's a legitimate and appropriate power to prevent harrassment of citizens by prosecutors run amok.

[Fridays Child]

14. Then, Poppy used it unethically, if not illegally.

[unblock]

18. unethically? absolutely. illegally? nope.

the real tragedy is how our media let them get away with it. a few days of minor outrage and then nothing.

if the public had it seared in their brains that poppy had used the pardon power to protect his own sorry ass, and that everyone basically knew that the people he was pardoning were guilty as hell, and that he was in on it, then there's NO WAY IN HELL we would be stuck with poppy JUNIOR now!

:grr:

[Brundle_Fly]

32. but didnt

GHWB pardon for a previous admin (reagan)

I think maybe McCain if elected could pardon them....but Shrub can't... can he?

[bowens43]

34. Yes, he can.

The power to pardon is absolute.

[Eric J in MN]

24. I would support a Constitutional amendment

to stop presidents from pardoning anyone who were employees of their own administration.

[laugle]

27. Yea, Ford pardoned Nixon and then lost the election,

Bush's legacy is sooo bad already, and knowing what a conceeded arrogant man he is, he may not care to save anyone's butt.

You know how he likes to be seen as the moral, kick-ass, from Texas.

Bush cares about one person, AND THAT'S BUSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[TheCowsCameHome]

3. Would that be a wise thing to do, given the 2006 elections looming?

I think it would be like writing a suicide pact for the whole party.

Not that that would be bad.

[longship]

5. Congress Ace in the Hole -- Impeachment and Removal from Office

How many threads do we have to start about this?

If Chimp pardons before the very end of his term, he'll be impeached and removed.

Why? Because it would be an unprecedented abuse of power to pardon your own people for crimes committed in your own administration. This would be an especially grave business given that Chimp himself may be implicated deeply in the crimes.

And NO, Bush Sr. did not do that. He pardoned Cap Weinberger and company for crimes committed during the previous administration. It pushed the abuse of power envelope but was let pass.

Nobody will like it if Chimp does this. He will be quickly impeached and removed from office. If that does not happen we will have a lawless administration with an unlimited get out of jail free card. That would more horrible than anybody could imagine.

[halobeam]

7. To take it further.....

a snippet from the OP link...

There is a limit on the Presidential power of pardons. The Consstitution says that power is removed in cases of impeachment.

There is no time frame on when impeachment needs to occur either because it can be used to remove someone from office or to prevent someone from holding office.

Some of the pardoned individuals of the past should have been impeached to prevent them from holding office in the future.

I think the pardon of Richard Nixon could have been overturned had the house decided to impeach him. I think they felt it would have been bad for the country so the deferred to the parodon of Gerald Ford.

Likewise, I think many of the Iran Contra pardons could have also been overturned. If they had been, through the impeachment process, maybe we suold not have had some of them back infecting our government again......

end snip....


I find this extremely interesting, being the info came from Conyers, if I recall correctly.

[unblock]

11. pardons cannot be "overturned"

a pardon cannot prevent the impeachment process, but impeachment can only lead to removal from office or being barred from holding future elected positions.

however, impeachment cannot send anyone to prison. if cheney murders someone on national t.v. and shrub pardons him, congress and impeach and remove cheney (and shrub along with him, i would hope) but no one would be able to prosecute cheney for murder.

[halobeam]

25. Thanks for straightening that out for me....

to add, I went back and checked and it wasn't Conyers who stated that... just thought I'd clear him from my misunderstanding. I love that guy.

[bornskeptic]

35. Not quite correct.

" if cheney murders someone on national t.v. and shrub pardons him, congress and impeach and remove cheney (and shrub along with him, i would hope) but no one would be able to prosecute cheney for murder."

The President only has the power to pardon offenses against the United States. In your scenario, Cheney could still be prosecuted under state or local law.

[laugle]

31. Good post...but please take time

to proofread....to many misspelled words makes it hard to read.

[halobeam]

33. Yeah, I copied and pasted the body...

didn't proof-read their writing. Should have.

Thanks. (I hate it when that happens, too)

[onenote]

8. thank you, longship

Its nice to find an island of reality in a sea of hysteria.

onenote

[longship]

10. U R Welcome

Sometimes people here react before thinking. I've done it myself, almost never with positive results.

The pardon power is effectively unlimited. Chimp could even pardon himself. But as a country built first on a body of law we could never allow that to stand.

Some people here get carried away with their cynicism. Seeing the outrageous behavior I can't rightly blame them. But this continual spewing of "pardons, pardons, pardons" is getting ridiculous. Few are actually thinking about exactly what that might mean or about the historic context of the presidential pardon. They just convince themselves it will happen without thinking about it.

[unblock]

13. i think the pardon power is HIGHLY relevant in this case

i completely agree that shrub can't just pardon and be done with it. there would indeed be such hell to pay that he would be forced to resign. congress won't impeach him because they wouldn't want the spectacle, but since they're all the same party they would work something out. but you're right, it would never fly.

except when it does. pardons are tolerated during the closing days of an administration, so we do have to worry about the timing of all this. it is quite likely that there might be some stinky pardons in january 2009, and there might be some before that if they think they can get away with it.

the key is, under what circumstances will the public tolerate it?
under the present circumstances, the public simply won't tolerate the pardon of someone in the white house accused of fairly straightforward treason (or what the public understands as treason).

however, they no doubt will try to manipulate public perception to the point where a pardon might be tolerated.

for instance, if they are able to make it look partisan, like the prosecutor has a personal vendetta, like the prosecutor has otherwise run amok; that might give them enough cover for a pardon.
if we are attacked again a la 9/11, that and some more "wartime" rhetoric might be enough. think, "i need my people to focus on the war and that's more important than these allegations that i know to be false anyway" bu**sh**, i know, but all they need is enough cover to avoid triggering a massive cry for removal from office.


so in a nutshell, the pardon power is very relevant, but it's rather more complicated than most people think.

[longship]

15. One hopes that your scenerio doesn't fly

My opinion is that the uproar will be so loud that Congress will not be able to spin it away. If they try, the uproar should increase to a level where it can no longer be ignored.

If people in the know are convinced that presidential pardon is a likely scenerio we should steel ourselves for a political battle royale. We cannot let this stand. We need alternative strategies to counter the rape of justice and restore the rule of law to the country.

Finally, our Congress Critters must be made aware of this and their agreement to act quickly should be secured. A Constitutional Amendment may be necessary to limit the power of the pardon to people and acts outside of government.

[unblock]

17. unfortunately i very much do NOT like the idea of limiting pardons

at least not in the manner you suggest. if the pardon is limited to people and acts outside government, then local and state governments can criminalize and prosecute all sorts of things in order to wield disproportionate power over the federal government.

this sort of stuff doesn't happen now, because of the pardon. remove the pardon and eventually someone will figure out how to exploit that.

perhaps there are less drastic ways to curtail the pardon, but this is dangerous constitutional ground to be mucking around with. the founders did have a pretty good idea what they were doing, and as a result we've been spared over 2 centuries from seeing the sort of crap they had to put up with from the british in their day. some of that could return if we do the wrong thing.


my scenario for a pardon is not possible just yet. the banana republicans would have to do a lot of careful, coordinated public perception manipulation to lay the groundwork for it. consequently, we must be very concerned with fighting back when they start saying things that might eventually make a pardon seem anything other than outrageous.

[longship]

20. Agreed.

Re: pardon limits. Like any amendment to the constitution, care must be taken and precisely your kind of argument must be made and considered. It's good that the amendment process is so difficult.

We need to watch for anything that smells like pardon justification spin. I would help with that. I would like to get an expert's opinion on it.

Last week I talked to a friend who has appeared on CNN as a constitutional expert. I asked him specifically about pardons. John is very soft spoken. He just said, "People wouldn't like it." I asked him if he meant that Chimp would be impeached. He said, "Yeah." This guy is one of my closest friends; I understood that he had little doubts of that outcome. I asked about the Repugs and he just said, "Well, they wouldn't like it either."

But since there's been so much buzz about this I'd now like to hear some more dialog on the topic. Since this is a gravely serious matter it may be better to prepare for the remote possibility than be caught with one's pants down.

[unblock]

21. "pardon justification spin" will NOT mention "pardon" anytime soon

they would start by building the case for an errant prosecutor or political gameplaying or something like that, to get things to the point where something seems wrong, THEN trot out the pardon as a solution.

if they mention pardon now, it will cement it in the public's mind as an act of corruption and then they'll have twice as much work.

so my suggestion is that WE broach the topic of pardon FIRST, so that we can make sure that people think of pardon properly.

[longship]

23. I understood that clearly.

It likely starts with a spin like "The Democrats are trying to criminalize politics."

[unblock]

28. yeah, uh -- where have i heard THAT before?

we're trying to criminalize politics?
no, they're trying to politicize crime!


in truth, their accusation that we're trying to criminalize politics is very revealing. they think that all the stunts they pull in the name of politics is perfectly ok. they think nothing of the dirty tricks and the abuse of power and destroying peoples lives and vengence and extortion and whatever they feel they need to do to amass and exert power. they think it's all fine.

they think we're whining and trying to "criminalize" it simply because they do it better than we do!

[Blue Topaz]

16. Considering that Fitzgerald was picked to head this investigation

by *'s own Justice Dept, it's hard to imagine spinning this as a partisan prosecutor gone mad with power. Then again, the * administration has spun things I would have thought impossible. Still, I don't think the public would stand for * pardoning his own staff and closest advisors for treasonous crimes. If he did, he'd effectively be handing the weight of public opinion to the Dems for the forseeable future.

[KalicoKitty]

9. Thanks, longship, for the info!

I WOULD love it if Bush WERE quickly impeached and removed from office!


:bounce:

[longship]

12. I would not want it to happen that way.

Pardons would be an unprecedented constitutional crisis. The anxiety it would cause both here and abroad might be dangerous. If proper corrective action did not occur it would mean the end of accountability, checks, and balances, for the executive branch. Our republic would cease to be one of laws, but one of rampant lawlessness.

Pardons in this case are not something to be wished for.

[Shipwack]

19. My own theory/ nightmare is...

Things (trials, sentencing, etc) are dragged out until '06.

Bush pardons everyone (Cheney on down).

Bush and Cheney claim that they can no longer carry out the people's mandate, due to these unwarranted partisan attacks, and resign ("for the good of the country"). Brownie uses his connections to get Bush a pony to make him feel better.

Condoleezza Rice becomes President in 2006, giving the neocons the possibility of having control of the Presidency for the next 10 years.

[unblock]

22. i've been worried about "peaking too soon".

whether or not there are pardons, if this blows up right now, it's early enough for the banana republicans to plan 2006 and 2008 electoral strategies around new themes and to marginalize shrub and the gang.

if the banana republicans can distance themselves from shrub, calling for reform and new ideas and "i'm an independent conservative" and crap like that, then they have a shot at holding on to power even while shrub and the gang go down.

on the other hand, if there's some major bad news for them during the 2006 campaign or and/or better yet or more revelations during the 2008 campaign, then the democrats are in much better shape.

i would hate to see this all vanish by having them quickly clear out a bunch of people and then positioning themselves well for 2006 and 2008. getting their new favorite presidential candidate in as veep now would be a scary scenario.

[laugle]

26. Talk radio is buzzing about Cheney resigning and Condi

becoming VP. It seems that many people think Cheney will be indicted. That's about the only thing that would make that old goat resign......we all know damn well, Libby didn't do this without Cheney's knowledge! Personally, I don't think they will get him, but I can hope that one thing will lead to another and the dominos will start falling.....

[unblock]

29. if cheney's indicted, i do think resignation is a distinct possibility

at some point anyway.

remember, there was talk that cheney wouldn't want to serve out the whole term anyway. he's got that heart thing going on, he's getting up in years, and he probably wants to cash out and enjoy his major riches. the veep job generally sucks (although cheney's clearly having more fun with it than most veeps do) and veep job while fighting an indictment sounds absolutely wretched.

besides, most of what cheney does, he does quietly and behind the scenes. this won't be so easy when there's more media attention on him because of the indictment.

finally, it does give a great opportunity to groom the next banana republican presidential candidate, and even cheney has got to realize THAT AIN'T HIM.

[laugle]

30. Yea, Cheney already accomplished what he

set out to do; war in Iraq and big Haliburton contracts have made him a very rich man.

But what will poor whittle texas idiot do. Poor Georgee porgy, the biggest lame duck sucker in history!!! LOL