An NPR review of social media posts, speeches and interviews found that Trump has made calls to “free” Jan. 6 defendants or promised to issue them presidential pardons more than a dozen times. Trump has said he would issue those pardons on “day one” of his presidency, as part of a broader agenda to use presidential power to exact “retribution” against his opponents and deliver “justice” for his supporters.
“We’ll be looking very, very seriously at full pardons,” Trump told an interviewer in 2022. “I mean full pardons with an apology to many.”
“LET THE JANUARY 6 PRISONERS GO,” Trump posted on his social media site, Truth Social, in March 2023.
Later that year, Trump re-posted a Truth Social post stating, “The cops should be charged and the protesters should be freed.”
In the immediate term, a pardon for Jan. 6 defendants would free them from prison as well as other court-ordered supervision, and end ongoing prosecutions. The pardon would also allow the hundreds of defendants convicted of felonies to legally own guns again.
So wait, now they’re not antifa again?
As long as supporting them is more likely to get votes or airtime than not, he doesn’t particularly care.
Don’t worry, “looking very, very seriously at full pardons” is Trump for “vote for me and I’ll forget about you right after”. Remember how he promised to prosecute Clinton after the election? Got bored of it literally the day after the election.
Yup, pardons are like payments to lawyers, not gonna happen with Trump.
Here are some things that need to be said: Presidential pardons aren’t just some card that wipes you of all wrongdoing. They actually come with things such as admitting guilt to the thing you did, which in this case would still come with voting rights being revoked.
Kind of a dumb move if you ask me; to be courting people who can’t even vote for you. hah.
This man cannot be allowed to become president again. The country will absolutely fall.
having to plead guilty to the thing you did
That is not true. Accepting a pardon does not require any legal plea at all.
Ohhh, my knowledge was out of date on the subject then! I didn’t realize that the Kansas ruling had been overturned. Thanks for this!
How would a turkey plead guilty to avoid slaughter? Of course it had to be overturned
#bigbrain
Great example of the Dunning-Kruger effect right here people.
Basically if people were already in prison, they’ve ALREADY been found guilty.
The argument was, by taking a pardon, is the person themselves admitting guilt or not.
And my argument (explaining the joke always improve it) why there can be no stipulation of the pardoned to need to admit fault is the turkey who gets pardoned each year.
Since the turkey cannot admit guilt, it can only be pardoned in a system where there is no such prerequisite to pardoning
I answered to a post exclaiming surprise that there is no need to admit guilt with a silly point about why such a law wouldn’t be able to exist
I wonder if a pardon can remove the penalty against holding a US office, since the power to dismiss that restriction is given to Congress. I could see the right to vote being restored, but not the right to hold office, though that would probably need to go to the Supreme Court.
If there are any state-level charges, those cannot be pardoned by the President.
And this is not a violation of the fourteenth amendment?
Why would it be? If they’re pardoned before being convicted, they’re not insurrectionists. If they’re pardoned after being convicted, their sentences are commuted but they still have the penalties under the 14th amendment.
Now, if he actually pardons a convicted insurrectionist, that could possibly kick him out of office, if someone bothered to enforce it (e.g. I assume that’s “giving comfort to the enemy”). Congress could vote by 2/3 majority to keep Trump in office though.
“LET THE JANUARY 6 PRISONERS GO,”
I’m assuming by, “PRISONERS,” he means convicted insurrectionists. His plan then is to free traitors which, by my reading, is “giving comfort” to enemies of the state. Again, how is that not a violation of the fourteenth?
I believe we’re all thinking too much into the fourteenth. It’s really a simple clause which Americans should not need to do mental gymnastics to understand. We have plenty of qualified citizens who can run for the office of President (once we clear these chucklefucks out). Traitors (and even traitor-adjacent individuals) should not be in public office and that is what the fourteenth is all about. We didn’t want to see a repeat of the Civil War and now look at us.
It’s a legal document, so we really do need to look deeply into it. You can’t just interpret the law based on feel, it needs to be based on something as objective as possible.
Does pardoning someone who is wrongfully convicted of insurrection count? Who decides whether it’s wrongful? Surely the President of the US, the head of state, should be someone who can accurately decide what an enemy of the state looks like since that’s their job. What about someone who is charged but not convicted? They’re prisoners too. What about someone who was an accomplice to an insurrectionist, but they didn’t actually qualify under the legal terminology.
That section hasn’t been tried much in court, so there isn’t a ton of legal precedent to go on aside from the civil war aftermath.
Yes, traitors shouldn’t be in public office, but we need an objective definition of that based on legal precedent, and there’s still a lot of gaps in that precedent. I want to see Trump’s trials complete quickly so we can get some precedent established before getting into a likely messy election.
The remedy is clearly spelled out in the amendment. Let Congress lift the disability by a vote or find a new candidate — case closed. No citizen has a constitutional right to hold a government office, especially the highest office in the land. Please stop making excuses for disgraceful and illegal behavior like treason.
I’m not making excuses, I’m just not jumping on the bandwagon. I think there are legitimat. e constitutional questions that haven’t been sufficiently resolved with legal precedent. We’re a nation based on rule of law, not rule of feels.
Trump hasn’t been convicted of insurrection or treason AFAIK. I think he should be, and I think the Jan 6 commission agrees, but that needs to go through a formal legal process.
Yes, but that’s at the state level and doesn’t apply to the federal election. That ruling could be overturned (in which case Trump is allowed on the ballot in Colorado) or sustained (Trump is not allowed to take office federally). Trump isn’t going to win Colorado regardless, so it doesn’t really matter without a nationwide ruling.
I don’t know American law, but isn’t offering favours in exchange for votes… illegal?
Actually the opposite. It’s the American way.
More and more violations of the 14th amendment.
Hey Supreme Court — DO YOUR FUCKING JOB.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Though Trump is facing four criminal prosecutions, including two indictments related to his effort to overturn the 2020 election himself, polls have consistently shown that the former president maintains a substantial lead in the Republican presidential primary.
In an interview with NBC News, Trump said he was open to pardoning Enrique Tarrio, the former leader of the extremist group the Proud Boys, who was convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 22 years in prison.
“The Special Counsel’s office, in their court filings, they’re showing that they are tracking Trump’s comments about the Jan. 6 rioters, including the Proud Boys and others,” said Joscelyn, who was the principal author of the Jan. 6 select committee’s report.
Trump’s stated promise to act as a “dictator” on day one of his presidency, alongside his description of his political enemies as “vermin,” his call for the “termination” of provisions in the Constitution and his claim that unauthorized immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country, have led his critics to fear how he will use presidential power.
Hughes started the group after a longtime family friend - a former Army Reservist named Timothy Hale-Cusanelli who is known for making extreme racist and antisemitic comments and once going to work with a “Hitler mustache” - was arrested and ultimately convicted for breaching the Capitol, obstructing Congress and disorderly conduct.
That feeling has only been intensified by what he called the “information war” around the Capitol riot, with former President Trump, Republicans in Congress, and right-wing media outlets all seeking to downplay or even deny the violence of that day.
The original article contains 2,671 words, the summary contains 265 words. Saved 90%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
