"Blanket Pardon"

[onehandle]

It's coming.

Rachel is talking about it with a Constitutional Lawyer.

He says that then Congress would have to act to "limit the power of the President" so this wouldn't happen again.

In other words, Bush and pals get off scot-free, and Obama's power gets limited instantly.

Well played, President Cheney.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. Bush and Cheney should have been impeached!

[dansolo]

2. Congress can't do that

The only way that Congress can limit the pardon powers of a president would be through a Constitutional amendment. That ain't gonna happen.

[onehandle]

5. That's what he was saying.

It would be so outrageous that a Constitutional Amendment would be necessary.

[Thothmes]

20. Why is that outrageous

The Presidents power to pardon or Reprieve in Federal cases is specified in Article II Section 2 of the Constitution. Congress has absolutly no authority to change that except by Constitutional amendment.

[Art_from_Ark]

3. I can just imagine Yakob Smirnoff talking about this

"Amerika! What a country! Is only country in world where crooked leader can grant blanket pardon to crooked henchmen, and next leader can do nothing about it!"

[PretzelWarrior]

4. what the F are you talking about?

[Sarah Ibarruri]

6. I pray to God that charges can brought against these assholes nt

[AndyTiedye]

7. Send Them to the Hague! The International Criminal Court Does Not Accept Presidential Pardons

[elocs]

8. Yes, the pardons are a coming and the heads at DU will be exploding.

Impeachment without conviction means little outside of history books. Clinton was impeached but not convicted and he pardoned many when his presidency ended. Life is not fair and anyone who ever told you it was fair was lying or on drugs or both.

[onehandle]

9. This is much more than simple pardons.

This could be an all-encompassing pardon for his administration and Anyone they dealt with outside of the administration.

[elocs]

13. Yes, a preemptive strike and a stake through the heart for the frog marches

and accountabilities that so many have for Bushco.

[walldude]

21. Um... you can't be pardoned for a crime you haven't been

convicted. Bush cannot pardon himself and Cheney unless they get busted before they leave office.

[ieoeja]

24. Tell that to Nixon.

Pardoned for any crime he may have committed, not crimes for which he had been convicted or even charged for that matter.

Tell that to Caspar Wienberger while you are at it. He had at least been charged. But the pardon came days before his trial was scheduled to commence. He promised, "I won't be going down alone," prompting a pardon by President GHW Bush presumably because Bush1 was among those Caspar intended to accompany him.

[sofa king]

30. I'm not so sure about that.

http://www.wave3.com/Global/story.asp?S=3780555

"The paperwork pardons the nine people already charged as well as anyone else who might come to the attention of the special grand jury for violation of any section of the penal code, not just the personnel laws. The pardon extends to crimes that may have been committed up to Monday."

That example, provided by the criminal Republican governor of Kentucky, may show that preemptive pardons are also possible at the federal level.

[stahbrett]

31. Uh, didn't Gerald Ford pardon Nixon? What crime was Nixon convicted of? (nt)

[elocs]

32. Umm....yes you can. Check here:

http://www.slate.com/id/2195689/

Pre-emptive Presidential PardonsCan you be pardoned for a crime before you're ever charged?
By Jacob Leibenluft Posted Monday, July 21, 2008, at 6:36 PM ET

With six months to go before President Bush leaves office, the White House is receiving a flurry of pardon applications. The New York Times reported that "several members of the conservative legal community" are pushing for the White House to grant pre-emptive pardons for officials involved in counterterrorism programs. Wait—can a president really pardon someone who hasn't even been charged with a crime?


Yep. In 1866, the Supreme Court ruled in Ex parte Garland that the pardon power "extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken, or during their pendency, or after conviction and judgment." (In that case, a former Confederate senator successfully petitioned the court to uphold a pardon that prevented him from being disbarred.) Generally speaking, once an act has been committed, the president can issue a pardon at any time—regardless of whether charges have even been filed.

Timothy Noah made the case after Gerald Ford's death that the pardon of Richard Nixon set a dangerous precedent. Toward the end of President Clinton's administration, Emily Yoffe explained the difference between a pardon and a commutation, whether it was constitutional for Congress to hold hearings on pardons, and how often fugitives received pardons. Daniel Engber described how you go about applying for clemency from your state's governor. Last year, Michelle Tsai discussed whether a presidential pardon would get Scooter Libby his $250,000 fine back.

As the Explainer has pointed out before, there aren't many limits to the president's pardon power, at least when it comes to criminal prosecutions under federal law. The president's clemency power has its origins in the practices of the English monarchy, and as a result, the Supreme Court has given the president wide leeway under Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution. There are some exceptions: The chief executive can't pardon someone for a violation of state law or nullify a civil ruling, and his power doesn't extend to convictions handed down in an impeachment proceeding. (It's also not clear whether the president can pardon himself for future convictions.)

While pre-emptive pardons remain very rare, there are a few notable exceptions. Perhaps the most famous presidential pardon of all time occurred before any charges were filed. Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon absolved the former president of "all offenses against the United States which he … has committed or may have committed or taken part in" between the date of his inauguration in 1969 and his resignation in August 1974. In other cases, presidents have pardoned individuals after criminal proceedings have begun but before a judgment has been handed down. In late 1992, less than a month before leaving office, President George H.W. Bush pardoned former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who had been indicted earlier that year on perjury charges surrounding the Iran-Contra affair. (A lawyer for Roger Clemens' former trainer Brian McNamee claimed the pitcher might receive a similar pardon from Bush if he were ever indicted.) In addition, broad presidential amnesties—like the one President Carter issued to those who had avoided the draft during the Vietnam War—are essentially pre-emptive pardons issued to a large group of individuals.

If someone hasn't yet been charged with a crime, how does the president know what to pardon them for? As in Nixon's case, President Bush could issue a pardon that applies generally to any crimes that may have been committed within a certain range of dates. More likely, a pardon could apply only to actions surrounding a single policy or place—say, the detention or interrogation of suspected al-Qaida members.

[AllentownJake]

10. I know I'm going to get flamed for saying this

Might be a good thing. They admit guilt (you can't be pardoned if you did nothing wrong by accepting the pardon they are admitting they are guilty) and we move on to solving problems. I'd love to see them in jail but something tells me pardon or no pardon that isn't going to happen.

[onehandle]

12. I agree with the moving on to solve problems part.

The rest makes my ears bleed from my scream.

I suspect that Obama will have to give them a pass simply because he has so many problems to work on. Also, Presidents give their predecessors passes. That's how it's done.

[AllentownJake]

14. This is like a bad divorce

Your partner lied, cheated, stole, and humilated you. You know you aren't going to come ahead from the legal fees. Taking them to court would be fun in a sick way to expose how rotten they are but at the end of the day would ruin you from the stress of a court trial mixxed with the expense. Sometimes you settle just so you can move on with your life and hope it doesn't happen to you again.

Probably a bad analogy but the only one I can think of.

[Stuckinthebush]

11. Pardons don't work at the Hague

Send these jokers to the Hague to be sentenced as war criminals.

[Richardo]

15. Again, who 'sends' people to the Hague?

What's the mechanism? Are there ICC marshalls that come to arrest them? Do our own marshalls have to hand them over? Does the ICC have to hand down indictments first? Who brings the charges? I've never seen an answer to that here.

[Stuckinthebush]

16. No clue

I'd imagine that the world court issues indictments and then it is up to the country of origin to hand them over.

But that's a wild ass guess.

[Richardo]

18. Might be a good idea to know, just in case someone asks.

[yodermon]

17. Better would be to immediately subpoena everyone pardoned

and force the to testify before Congress under oath, about the matters for which they were pardoned.

Since they are immune, they MUST testify or be held in contempt of Congress. Which an Obama justice department would actually enforce this time.

I am actually more concerned about the full truth of the crimes being suppressed from the public than the crooks escaping justice.

[Avalux]

19. Bush will do it. Stopping him will require intervention by the SC.

Fat chance of that happening. What will result is a constitutional amendment that will not be retroactive. Fuckers.

[walldude]

22. So tell me, how can Bush pardon himself and Cheney?

They haven't been convicted of anything.... yet.

[Bake]

23. Look at Ford's pardon of Nixon

Nixon had never been convicted either.

Bake

[ieoeja]

25. And GHW Bush's pardon of Weinberger.

He had been charged, but hadn't gone to trial yet.

[walldude]

35. No but there was a specific crime. The break in at Watergate

A pardon has to be for something specific. IN order to be pardoned they will have to admit they committed a crime and admit exactly what the crime was.

[Riddler]

26. Bush pardons Cheney on Jan 18. Resigns. Cheney pardons Bush on Jan. 19.

[NYC Liberal]

34. No need to resign. 25th Amendment. Bush declares himself "disabled" for 10 minutes

and then takes back power.

[Kitty Herder]

27. God this pisses me off!

Why were these fuckers not impeached?!

[Lorentz]

28. Rachel said REPEATEDLY that McCain was going to win the election.

Just because she brings it up on her show doesn't make it so. Honestly, why does she get so much cred?

[sofa king]

29. I believe there is a loophole.

"The President ... shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment."

That's a pretty open statement, and I'm not sure that "impeachment" refers to the process, or the actual result.

Come January, there will be more than enough votes in the House to start the process rolling. If it's the process which strips immunity from the pardoned, then all Congress needs to do is have Dennis Kucinich reintroduce his impeachment articles and have the House vote on it. Those articles cover a majority of the most egregious crimes committed by the Bush Administration, and therefore will strip most of the pardoned of their immunity. Furthermore, if it's the process, then the process may not have to be completed with a 2/3 Senate vote to render the pardons ineffective. Rather, the process could be left open until Bush leaves office.

Any blanket pardon by Bush would be riddled with holes, and we could spend the next ten to twenty years running every last one of those jackals down.

[trudyco]

37. But an impeachment is to kick them out of office - they'd already be out by then -nt

[sofa king]

38. But in this case, the impeachment's purpose is to nullify the pardons.

So like I said, if it's the process itself which renders the pardons inoperable, then Congress only has to start the proceedings. They can do that on the morning of January 20th, if necessary. I think that it's even possible to impeach them after they have left office, for the purpose of rendering pardons useless and for preventing those people from ever returning to office.

http://www.counterpunch.org/swanson07032007.html

[DU GrovelBot]

33. ## PLEASE DONATE TO DEMOCRATIC UNDERGROUND! ##

==================
GROVELBOT.EXE v4.1
==================



This week is our fourth quarter 2008 fund drive. Democratic Underground is
a completely independent website. We depend on donations from our members
to cover our costs. Please take a moment to donate! Thank you!

[acmavm]

36. Well then I guess we'll have to rely on the Geneva Convention and

International Law. Because I don't see these thugs ever paying for what they've done. Not in an American courtroom.