The Supreme Court holding that acceptance of a Presidential pardon was an admission of guilt came in a case where the recipient of a pardon declined it on those very grounds. The Court also held a pardon had to be accepted in order to be effective. The recipient, in other words, is allowed to reject the pardon.SCOOP: President Trump isn't just accepting pardon requests but blindly discussing them "like Christmas gifts" to people who haven't even asked, sources with direct knowledge of the conversations told Axios. https://t.co/c7R2uuzF3z
— Axios (@axios) December 8, 2020
The Axios article notes at least one person who might be on Trump’s list wasn’t interested for the very reason they hadn’t committed a crime. The image in that tweet may very well be how Trump imagines his “gift,” but that’s not how they work. Pardons only forgive past crimes; they have no effect on a future crime. Trump may pass out a record number of pardons, but there may well be another record set for pardons declined.
We really have to improve our system for determining who is worthy to be our President.
Getting the caucuses and, especially, Iowa's out of the position its in (not to mention New Hampshire's, not to mention state legislature ratfucking) is something that shouldn't be allowed to go another cycle.
ReplyDeleteIf she's able to pull of the Georgia miracle some of us are praying for, the estimable Stacy Abrams should be offered the leadership of the DNC and she should start working to replace the present abomination with a reliably Democratic, democratic nominations system. Something that will empower the majority of voters instead of being the plaything of geeks and hobbyists and idiots who listen to Sam Seder. Democrats have got to find a way to dump those guys as certainly as it must drop the caucuses.