by PAUL COLLITS – THE American Founding Fathers must have had a reason for granting the president the power to pardon criminals. It’s just not clear now what that might have been.
Maybe it was yet another act of creating separations of powers. On this understanding, perhaps they thought it essential for the executive to be able to undo injustices perpetrated by the judiciary.
- This is one hell of an incentive to provide a pardon.
- God knows what might come out of such a project.
- Such a book would make the Epstein’s rolodex look like a Sunday stroll.
So far, so good. But they either didn’t understand, or didn’t care, that as an elected official, the president would necessarily be a political animal. And do political, often bad, things with the privilege.
In a similar way, they created what now appears as a totally daft idea of letting the legislative branch limit the president’s power by allowing it to, in effect, veto the president’s appointees to his administration.
MERCILESS
We call this being “borked”, in honour of the late Ted Kennedy’s merciless and ruinous campaign to deny a Ronald Reagan Supreme Court pick in the 1980s. That was Robert Bork and has impacted just about every other important pick since.
This process might contribute to the endless theatre of US politics, but it has become a cross between farce and the simple exercise of hard power. It’s the stuff of Kevin Spacey’s fictional House of Cards character Francis Underwood. It is ugly political stuff.
Like with all these things, good theory requires good actors. Now, the American democratic toilet is awash with bad actors whose decisions do not reflect the popular will, nor do they achieve the public good.
Perhaps pardons might be a good idea if the governor or president delivering them wasn’t elected, and therefore not subject to political pressure and skullduggery.
No one remotely familiar with the American judicial system would seek to argue that it isn’t a murky swamp. This is a generous description of what is nothing more than a legal sewer.
It is, therefore, tempting to see pardons, even when left to partisan actors, as a last-ditch safety valve. A strong case would exist, for example, when the hypothetical victim of American justice was sitting on death row.
Nope, this justification no longer works. It was controversial when Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon in the 1970s. And it is controversial now.
And it just got a lot more controversial.
It is Article II section 2 clause 1 of the US Constitution that permits presidential pardons: “The President … shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of impeachment.”
They are meant to be used when in the public interest.
Congress adds: “The Constitution establishes the President’s authority to grant clemency, encompassing not only pardons of individuals but several other forms of relief from criminal punishment as well.
“The power, which has historical roots in early English law, has been recognised by the Supreme Court as quite broad.
“Despite the breadth of the President’s authority under the Pardon Clause, the Constitution’s text provides for at least two limits on the power: first, clemency may only be granted for Offences against the United States, meaning that state criminal offences and federal or State civil claims are not covered. Second, the President’s clemency authority cannot be used in Cases of impeachment.”
Broad, then, but limited.
Most recent presidents have used pardons to achieve political outcomes. Remember that in the USA everything is politics. Largely because just about every public official is elected. Another Constitutional blunder, perhaps.
DYING
Bill Clinton, for example, was busy in his dying days of power: “As president, Clinton used his power under the US Constitution to grant pardons and clemency to 456 people, thus commuting the sentences of those already convicted of a crime, and obviating a trial for those not yet convicted. On January 20, 2001, he pardoned 140 people in the final hours of his presidency.”
Obama had a busy day on December 19, 2016: “Today, President Obama granted clemency to 231 deserving individuals — the most individual acts of clemency granted in a single day by any president in this nation’s history.”
Obama achieved more than 1100 commutations during his terms of office. Daylight is second in the presidential pardons list.
One man’s clemency, of course, is another’s reckless release or sentence-commuting of dangerous criminals.
DANGEROUS
We have seen down under (on Albo’s inane watch) what can come of releasing dangerous people into the wild.
Back to the Bidens.
One might assume that, surely, a president shouldn’t be allowed to pardon a member of his own family. That seems more than a tad murky. Especially when that family member isn’t remotely a “victim”, but a sleazy criminal.
And when the pardoner himself is a sleazy criminal. We speak, of course, of Hunter Biden and “the Big Guy”, in Miranda Devine’s parlance.
A story from Real-Time Daily News has it: “A White House official disclosed that Hunter Biden had threatened Joe Biden with the release of a book detailing his recent life experiences, just a day before Hunter received a full pardon.”
This is one hell of an incentive to provide a pardon. God knows what might come out of such a project. Such a book might well make the late Jeffrey Epstein’s rolodex look like a Sunday stroll in the park.
The current incumbent is just about out of desire to burnish a half decent legacy. That much is apparent.
He has ditched his own Party in an act of hellish bitterness, possibly justified. He is actively trying to start World War III. And might just succeed.
He may well have voted for Donald Trump and he possibly feels as Bill Hayden might have felt had Bob Hawke been beaten in 1983. Rather elated, I would imagine.
It showed plainly when Biden Sr met Trump recently at the White House.
LENIENCY
As well, there is the permission that Biden Sr has now given Trump to exercise his own judicial leniency, say in relation to January 6. A further gift to his successor, and one that Trump might relish executing.
Naturally, the Democrats aren’t happy.
Real-Time Daily News again: “Hunter’s pardon is not being well received by DNC operators, who are slamming it as ‘stupidly selfish’, ‘senile’, ‘bullshit’ and ‘just plain wrong’. Many Democrats are now calling Biden a ‘serial liar’ and accusing him of ‘destroying’ his legacy.”
No surprises there. Why would anyone think this pardon was justifiable? In the public interest, as per the Founding Fathers’ intent? I think not.
And what about this: “Joe Biden bypassed the Justice Department’s Pardon Office to grant a pardon to his son, despite relying on the office for all other acts of clemency. [Source: Real-Time Daily News]
The BBC notes: “Neither a pardon (doing away with a conviction) nor a commutation (changing a sentence) is an acceptance of innocence.
“They’re granted when convicted criminals are believed to have fulfilled their debt to society, or are seen as deserving for some reason.”
Fulfilled their debts to society. Hmmm. Hunter Biden hasn’t even begun his. Perhaps this one is a pre-emptive pardon.
We know he would have “fulfilled his debt to society”, but we’ll just save him the trouble of going through the process.
There are other issues in play.
US political commentator Jack Posobiec has weighed in: “How do we know Joe Biden actually signed this pardon? Has anyone seen a video of him signing it? Has anyone seen a video of him explaining any of this?”
Well, indeed. Who knows if old Joe knows even what day it is? Perhaps Dr Jill did the pardoning. Or Obama.
US author Ed Dowd thinks: “Was there ever any doubt Biden would pardon his son? Not a surprise in the least.”
Dowd has a point. It is all of a piece with the Democrats’ normal modus operandi. They steal elections, after all. They install puppet crooks in foreign countries. They pursue lawfare against their political enemies. No, it shouldn’t be a surprise.
STENCH
The great UK politician Andrew Bridgen has joined in the conversation, bringing the Ukraine stench into play: “Joe Biden’s blanket pardon of Hunter covers the entire period of the 2014 CIA coup in Ukraine when Hunter was appointed to the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
“This means he can’t be investigated for any criminal activity during this timeframe.”
Are you paying attention yet? Joe Biden’s pardoning of his son looks like an admission of guilt and the dates of the immunity look suspicious of strong links to Ukraine. People should now see how corrupt the whole system is.
Legacy-wise, for a senile old crook like Biden, merely to have occupied the office of Commander in Chief is probably enough, to the extent that he will be able to remember doing so. I am guessing that the notion of a legacy is beyond his comprehension. It simply isn’t a thing.
So why not pardon his contemptible son? The lap top guy. Go out with a bang. Just so long as Europe doesn’t go out with a bang as well.
One footnote. Stuck up in north Queensland as I am, I couldn’t help but notice this week the interception of a major cocaine play, off what we used (in happier times) to call Fraser Island.
Cocaine users the world over, most of them urban, rich and woke, will be lamenting a likely price hike for their favoured tipple.
I guess something had to go wrong for Hunter Biden this week.PC
