Trump said he would consider pre-emptive pardons to protect Elon Musk and other close aides should Democrats take control of Congress
Donald Trump said he would be willing to protect Elon Musk and his staff if Democrats take control of Congress after the midterm elections this week.
In an interview for the “Pod Force One” podcast published Monday, Trump said he would move to “protect” the billionaire SpaceX and Tesla CEO if Congressional investigators targeted him.
Trump also indicated that he was weighing pre-emptive pardons for his close aides and others around him should the Democrats pursue investigations, according to Axios. It is a notion that the president has floated before to keep his team from facing prosecution for actions during the first two years of his term.
Maybe it’s time to float rewriting the pardon powers so there’s checks and balances that can’t be abused, because you know if one did it more will do the same otherwise. Invalidate his pardon power, invalidate his pardons, crimes committed by those in office should not be pardonable, etc.
We need to make it so that the president can only pardon people who they don’t personally know, and who didn’t commit crimes that directly benefit them.
The J6ers shouldn’t have been pardonable, members of his administration should not be pardonable. Only private citizens whose crimes had no benefit to the president.
And there should be a limit to how many they get. Like 36 a year or something. Thats 3 per month; more than enough!
It’s never that simple. Even the limit is a good idea on paper, but pardons also apply to people who have been convicted of “offenses” that should never have been offenses to begin with (IMO marijuana possession is a huge one.) If the prez happens to have heard or met any of them personally, they wouldn’t be eligible? Hardly seems fair. And yet, someone out there would argue this, you just know it.
can only pardon people who they don’t personally know, and who didn’t commit crimes that directly benefit them
Easy to abuse the other way too. Just have a group lobby to pardon someone so there’s no direct relationship between pardoner and pardonee. Would probably meet “legal criteria”, or there’ll be a subtler move that does meet legal criteria, because legal criteria change.
Unless there is a mechanism to PREVENT pardons from being issued without prior review, but even then: the review process can be abused (see: Supreme Court full of bought judges).
I also don’t understand why anyone can uphold the logic of “guilty, but there won’t be punishment”. Any system that’s based on that kind of logic needs to be abolished. If there’s a confirmed offense, there need to be consequences, period. If the offense shouldn’t have been an offense in the first place, there needs to be actual restitution made and some other mechanism than just saying “sorry, my bad”–it shouldn’t have more weight when it comes from the president, come on. Presidents are just people, human beings holding an office. (The fact that they’re venerated in some places is a fucking problem, not a feature.)
In some cases there can’t be restitution without causing damage to innocents; “heads need to roll” when that happens (there should be damage to those who continued enabling whatever went wrong.) And so on, but all of those steps can be abused.
Yet we go the other way these days (oh, nobody’s really “guilty” of anything) and it’s no wonder the president can be a convicted felon. I’m fucking tired.
Tell me you’re guilty as fuck without telling me you’re guilty as fuck.
Everything out of that loser’s mouth for the last decade has been screaming that he’s guilty.
Preemptive pardon should not even be a thing.
And if it is, the executive should list explicitly what crimes, on what days, against which individuals, cannot be brought to trial.
This is the real crux of the issue. Blanket pardons shouldn’t be a thing. If you want to pardon someone, it should be specific. Which crimes? Where? When? Who was victimized? Who else was involved? What was the outcome of the crime?
The SCOTUS has already ruled in
Burdick v. USthat accepting a pardon requires admitting guilt of the crime you’re being pardoned of. The wording of the ruling was that a pardon carries “an imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it.” The SCOTUS has consistently held that a pardon does not overturn a guilty conviction. Instead, it removes the punishment for the crime. You’re still unequivocally guilty after a pardon.It shouldn’t be some sort of “I pardon you for waves arms in air vaguely” power, because that turns the whole “needing to admit guilt” part into a sly wink wink elbow nudge situation. It puts the person’s crimes in a quantum Schrödinger state. The person accepting a vague pardon is inarguably guilty of something, because they admitted guilt when they accepted the pardon. But the court doesn’t know what they’ve admitted to until a prosecutor tries to indict them, and they go “oh no you can’t prosecute me, I was pardoned.”
It reminds me a little of popes selling indulgences. “Donate money and/or go on crusade, and I’ll absolve you of any sins you’ve already commited or will commit in the future.” That sort of thing eventually resulted in a rather significant schism.
Doesn’t accepting a pardon, especially a blanket pardon, also mean that you lose your Fifth Amendment protection to not incriminate yourself? You can not be punished for what you did, that means you have nothing to fear and can be made to confess everything and incriminate accomplices. Wouldn’t that be some way to have a go at Trump?
Effect of a Pardon
The Fifth Amendment privilege exists to protect the witness from providing self-incriminating testimony so long as, and only so long as, the danger of prosecution persists. As a result, according to at least one Supreme Court case, when a “witness has already received a pardon, he cannot longer set up his [Fifth Amendment] privilege, since he stands, with respect to such offense, as if it had never been committed.”
That’s true, in that way it works like an immunity deal.
The problem is that, if the pardonee refuses to testify and is found in contempt, Trump (or some later asshole) can then pardon the contempt as well.
Maybe, but if you have a blanket pardon then what are they going to charge you if you just refuse to comply? You’ve already been pardoned for the hypothetical contempt.
At present pardons can be blanket, but they can’t be prospective. So it can be “I pardon you for all (federal) crimes ever up to now”, but it can’t be I pardon you for X you’re going to do tomorrow.
They aren’t a thing. You can only pardon a crime that’s already been commited, not for future crimes.
Also Trump violated his oath of office within 72 hours of this term beginning, so technically none of his pardons mean anything from this term and can just be reversed.
He wasn’t legitimately serving in capacity of the president since he abdicated his office by violating his oath.
The crimes have already been committed, they just haven’t been charged for it yet.
That would be interesting - if he could pardon the crimes but he’d first have to specifically detail them.
Exactly, and there’s always like dozens of not hundreds of possible charges you could bring. If they pardon the few obvious big ones, they can still be charged on all the other ones, and have a judge sentence them to serve consecutively.
They also aren’t immune to civil suits for monetary damages and other things
I don’t think he would need to specifcy them?
I pardon Elon Musk and all DOGE staff for anything and everything they did while working for DOGE.
No, sadly he doesn’t. But it would be good if it was somehow made to work that way.
It doesnt seem unreasonable to need to do that either, but at the same time it can be abused.
Like let’s say Elon committed 20 crimes in DOGE, and they’re all related in one way or another. The 20th one specifically is related to the 19th how he copied data, but its own obscure law, that everyone’s forgot about, so they pardon the 19, and then get him on copying the data to a non authorized USB stick or something because it wasnt on an authorized seller list.
So I do kind of think it needs some ability to blanket things, but also, some specificity also seems important.
"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.
scRotus says anything dipshit does is just part of his doing the job and he can’t be prosecuted for it at all.
‘to the best of my ability’ is also doing some heavy work here. he has no qualifications for office and he’s dumb as bricks. he’s doing the ‘best’ he can, doing the only thing he knows how to: lie, cheat, steal.
What I’m saying is the scrotus already set the path for executive overreach. The next president can use that to have them all killed if they wanted to Uber the same reasoning. Or just make up a pretext that isn’t explicitly stated, like that they are sitting justices who will from here forward serve in a non judiciary capacity.
The could and they should but they won’t.
Oh I looked it up and you’re right that future crimes can’t be pardoned. It doesn’t help that the media talks about preemptive pardons like they are for future crimes, when it really only means crimes that have been committed but no charges have been filed yet. https://northernkentuckylawreview.com/blog/preemptive-pardons-explained-understanding-president-bidens-family-pardons
he abdicated his office by violating his oath
And the only remedy for that is impeachment, followed by removal, which didn’t happen.
Yes, but it can happen at anytime, then you retroactively invalidate his past actions
Accepting a pardon means you’re guilty.
No, it doesn’t.
It does, however, void your 5th Amendment rights to refuse to testify against yourself.
Accepting a pardon is generally seen as an admission of guilt.
Stupid people think all kinds of things. Do you let them decide everything else you believe too?
Pardon should only be possible under very narrow circumstances. For example if laws got loosened after conviction or when convoction WAS obviously politically motivated. But neither can logically handed out before a judge read the verdict.
What if trump pardons himself and friends for any sex crimes now, maybe even murder?
Why would any judge honor this? Ooo now i’m thinking dems kept heads low regarding epstein convictions to use that very argumentation and they can’t pardon themselves anymore. A man can have hope right?
I strongly disagree. There has to be a check on judicial overreach and miscarriages of justice. Pardons make sense for that.
The problem with Trump isn’t the use of pardons per se, it’s that he’s issuing them corruptly.
“Pre-emptive pardon” is just another way of saying you are giving someone an exemption from having to follow the law.
Pardoned for what?
They haven’t been convicted of any crimes (yet)?
How is a pre-emptive pardon even a thing? The notion alone seems like a perversion of the original intent.
Unfortunately, there is precedent as Ford’s pardon of Nixon included future crimes. It’s fucking stupid.
You can’t call it a “precedent” if it was not contested in a legal environment.
That said, the constitution allows too much bullshit. It needs to be culled.
It’s because WE have to follow rules and THEY dont
Let’s just take all of his money instead.
he’s used his money to commit crimes, he’ll do it again. the fact he has so fucking much of it is too great a temptation.
civil forfeiture of all of it should definitely be on-the-table.
if a redneck sheriff can take a black guy’s cash (it might have come from drugs) that he was takin’ to pay ma’s rent… muskrat’s money… hell, all those fukfaces’ money… should be fair game for the taking.
Let’s make him count it as he hands it over, any mistake and he gets a portion of his flesh removed and has to start over
That’s cruel. Better to fine him massively for any miscount.
A fine is nothing more than the cost of doing business
ALL of it.
Every last penny.
Hit him where it really hurts.
Why stop there? Take his head off while you’re at it.
The next candidate who floats a blanket pardon for anyone convicted of murdering any billionaire gets my vote.
Pardon for what? Election manipulation? Theft? Treason? Overstaying his education visa?
Yes
How fucked up of a country is it that, in America, if Hitler was around living in Texas and putting Jews in concentration camps and murdering them, the president could pardon him?
This isn’t a left or right. Abolish pardons. No one should be above the law. Yes I understand shitty governments would weaponize this fast. I don’t care.
Trump. Elon. The whole lot of them need to be on trial for policies that have murdered millions worldwide.
He’s unwittingly telegraphing that they should only pursue state-level prosecutions while he’s still in office. Not that they didn’t know that already.
oh, I think that even if he premptively pardons the entire gang, Congress should investigate anyway. Just so that the record of what they did is made public and Trump doesn’t get to revise the historical record.
Fuck all that, I’m sick of pageantry and fucking reports, these fuckers need to go to PRISON they’ve committed an insane number of crimes and there needed to be consequences!!!
Aren’t pardons only for convictions. Have them plead and specify the deads so they have immunity
Then charge them elsewhere. Tax them. Civil suits.
Aren’t pardons only for convictions.
No. Pardons can cover crimes that have not yet even been charged. And they don’t have to reference specific crimes either.
even if he premptively pardons the entire gang
Depends on what you mean by “pre-emptively.” If you mean before they’ve been charged, that part is true. But pardons can only be for events in the past, so that interpretation of “pre-emptively” isn’t valid. I’m guessing you meant the former.
I think we need an amendment to rescind the pardon. Reduce it to a stay of execution only. Why is it even a thing? Did they really think giving this power to a sitting president would ONLY be used to right injustices? It’s a friggin unlimited commit crimes and get out of jail free card.
Yeah, pardons don’t make sense unless you believe that executives can never do wrong.
Which is a very strange belief to have as people in the process of rebelling against a king because he made decisions they didn’t like.
Pardons also make sense to correct miscarriages of justice. The justice system often leads to anomalous outcomes, and there needs to be a way to correct them.
So the pardon power should be restricted but not abandoned altogether: for example, no self-pardons, no pardons for crimes that have not been charged yet, no general pardons, no pardons for anyone who holds an Executive branch political appointment until (say) five years after a conviction.
Pardons also make sense to correct miscarriages of justice.
In theory.
But who defines injustice?
Currently, the executive can just label any and all prosecution of anyone they like a “miscarriage of justice,” as Donald Trump routinely does.
In my opinion, you shouldn’t get a reprieve just because you’re on good terms with the executive; you should have to ride out the justice system like anyone else. If it produces injustice - and it surely does - reform that.
Yeah, while stuff like this is very bad, Chelsea Manning was pardoned for the crime of leaking government secrets pertaining to the torture of prisoners in Iraq. She also had a whole 8th amendment case going on, but it would have taken many years to have a shot of freeing her on that.
Pardons however do need to be seriously curtailed, and should require that the individual have been convicted and not be affiliated with the president or their administration in any way. If President Josh Shapiro wants to pardon Elon he can go right ahead. Elon is a trump ally who was acting as part of his administration and hasn’t been convicted yet. Hell, Ford was Nixon’s VP and an elected member of the same party, if Carter wanted to pardon him after conviction that’s fine, but hell no to Ford
there should 100% be a check on pardons, like everything else. However, it wouldn’t do much good in this situation seeing how congress and SC have already abdicated their duties.
Kings had the power of pardon and they were creating a replacement for a king.
Biden used it to protect his family members and Dr. Fauci. Might’ve been a real risk of some retaliation in the air.
I never said some that there weren’t a few good uses. It’s just not worth the cost in my opinion. Biden saved two and Trump pardoned thousands from 01/06.
The only reason the office of the President exists is because the American founders didn’t have anyone among them with a reasonable chance of being supported as a king. Democracy was just a necessary compromise. If they could’ve gone full-on feudal, they would’ve.
the American founders didn’t have anyone among them with a reasonable chance of being supported as a king.
As in the Glorious Revolution in England, some of the founders put out feelers looking for some underemployed German or Dutch prince who might want the job of King. But the debate ran out of the founders’ control, thanks to radicals like Thomas Paine, who wrote pamphlets arguing that we didn’t need to have a king at all.
Lol what nonsense shit is this. The federalist papers have a mess of talks about how they’re worried that what they have created would be used like trump is using it now.
And even Washington was vehemently against it, and the reason the POTUS has a two term limit is because of Washington.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newburgh_letter
Where did you even come up with this…
the reason the POTUS has a two term limit is because of Washington
The two-terrm limit was not law until the 22nd Amendment was ratified in (I think) 1951, as a Republican-led reaction to FDR’s having been elected four times.
While this is correct, all previous presidents abided by the whole, two term thing as Washington did. It should have been a law from day one but nothing is perfect.
“Trump floats” means nothing. Stop reporting on his idiocy as if it’s news. It’s been ten years of this doofus, and this is Lemmy, there’s nobody here left to convince that he’ll do anything but whatever he can, while his word means nothing.
Report on what he does, not what he says.
Let me know when he floats face down in the reflecting pool
Let me know when he floats face down in the reflecting pool
You’re gonna be really sad when you miss that headline…
I assure you that they will neither be sad nor miss out. Everyone will know immediately.
His smell couldn’t travel THAT far THAT quickly…
lol the internet would be a lot quieter if we had to wait for that. We all deal with his shit and can’t even smell it from a distance (thank fucking god)
The headline would probably read ‘found floating’ anyway.
Don’t feed the trolls. When you argue with a troll, you are entering a competition to see who has more free time. You will lose, because you have a life and the troll does not. Do not EVER respond to trolls.
I’ve been saying this about Trump since 2014. Shame nobody followed that advice up to this point, and likely never will.
Step 1: fix the reflecting pool.
He’s saying the quiet part out loud. He will do it. Once the cat is out of the bag, that’s it.
He won’t pardon anyone unless it directly benefits him, either financially or by maintaining one of the many cover-ups that protect him. But he wants them to keep committing crimes. So he’s setting up a rug-pull.
Look at that. The neo-Nazi scumbag is guilty before the prosecution opens a case.
In the near future American school children will respond to being told about Nixon with “wait, that’s it?!”
Assuming they aren’t too busy sheltering in place, of course.
As if we werent saying “thats it?” to Clintons blowjob
That blowjob demonstrated that he could be easily compromised. Ridiculously easy, really. Granted this administration has proven that corruption and kompramat is actually a rite of passage rather than being truly scandal-worthy, so yeah. We screwed
The blowjob wasn’t really the issue.
The problem was he lied under oath.
At the time, I thought he shouldn’t be removed for that, but in the intervening years I’ve realized I was wrong. You could argue that there was no reason to be questioning him about it, and you could argue that he had a right to privacy.
However, once he’s under oath, he should have to tell the truth.
He should have been removed, because it would have made it clear that presidents need to obey the law.
LOL, as if that would have changed right wing behavior. Sure, they would have gladly removed Clinton, for “reasons of principle” (fucking LOL) and then went right on to be as awful as always.
They were trying to get Clinton pretty much all of the 90s and were ecstatic that they got a…stain on a dress. Fucking embarrassing.
The problem was he lied under oath.
If he did, with the vast resources the Republicans had, he would have been criminally charged and convicted for it. He wasn’t. It was claimed during the impeachment process that he lied, but what he had actually done was truthfully answer the questions based on Kenneth Starr’s definitions (“sexual relations” was defined, very Conservatively, as PIV sex, and didn’t involve BJs, cigar insertions, etc). It was a perjury trap and he was smart enough to wriggle out.
They also went after him with a number of bullshit civil suits, all of which were thrown out of court.
By the way, I’m not arguing that Clinton wasn’t a sleazebag. Just that the impeachment was based on lies and distortions.
I don’t know about his guilt. GOP kept changing the goalposts. It was fraud they were trying to get him for and weren’t able. Then they framed the sex as intercourse not blow job and then decided since he didn’t own up to the affair in general that he had lied. Legalese is always in play leaving denial that plain language would capture. He was a cheater in his marriage but he had that in common with almost every other president, VP, Senator, Congressman, on down the line of politicians, including those who were prosecuting him.
He didn’t lie though. They didn’t ask him if he got a blowjob, they asked him if he’d had sex.
The problem was he lied under oath.
That depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is
Nixon was surpassed by Iran/Contra.
Ronnie Raygun had the largest number in history (138) for the number of people in an administration that were investigated, indicted or convicted. And the conservatives spent most of the 90s and beyond agitating to have stuff named after him, and to put that asshole on our money and on Mt. Rushmore…
They would have had the country built shrines to the guy if they had their way. They have zero shame.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandals_of_the_Reagan_administration
In the near future American children will not be told about the crap Nixon did at all.
You know Vance said that openly, right?
“I think that his historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance — but I think deservedly so,” Vance said of Nixon. “As I joked … backstage, if Watergate happened tomorrow, it would be like a 12-hour news story. Like, the idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.”
https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/26/politics/jd-vance-richard-nixon-corruption
Great. Then they can’t plead the fifth when questioned by Congress.
What are they going to do? Charge him with something he already has a pardon for? Besides, the last Democrat controlled Congress has shown multiple times that if you ignore a subpoena they won’t actually do shit about it.
The charge would be for contempt.
