There’s much talk about Presidential pardons being issued wholesale over the next three weeks.
This is a power available to sitting Presidents and we can expect Trump will use and abuse it wholesale.
But of most interest is the debate whether he can pardon himself. He can’t although I don’t doubt he will try.
The reason he cannot is that by definition a pardon can only be delivered by ‘A’ to ‘B’.
It is an act of forgiveness thus requiring a pardoner and a pardonee.
In one sense it’s a reminiscent of something that happened eight years ago. I was lying on the floor playing a game of patiences, my then four year old daughter crouched beside me watching. I got it out and declared loudly, “I won”. The daughter looked puzzled. “Who lose Daddy?” she asked.
I suppose I could argue I beat the odds but that would not apply to a pardon situation.
This is now a matter of huge concern for Trump. According to the Financial Times a Democrat controlled committee has opened an enquiry into the shenanigans two years ago surrounding an office building owned by Trump’s son-in-law at 666 Fifth Avenue in New York.
On face value it involves a massive and unprecedented abuse of the Presidential office.
I’ll spill the details out mid January on this site as it’s an extraordinary story.
7 Comments
i understand you need to have been found guilty of something before you can be pardoned
i think the likelihood of that thing resembling the plug-hole in a baboon sanctuary ever admitting guilt = zero
Children put things in perspective nicely. The innocence of youth, if only it was eternal.
You give me hope I might still be able to father a son.
Netflix has already done a story on Jared Kushner and that building -It’s called Dirty Money -it’s in Season Two.
Even when Trump has gone, he hasn’t? He casts a long shadow apparently. I’m not sure keeping him in the news would be a good strategy for the Democrats.
I know Bob that there’s a part of you, deep down, that truly loves Trump.
Politics is war by other means as per Foucault and Trump plays it that way as do his opponents. Both sides use every weapon they can muster. No sign of a truce.
True, one cannot pardon ones self. However, could it not be that president Trump can pardon the citizen Trump?