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Romney says he would have immediately pardoned Trump

JayUtah said:
I may be wrong about this, but I think accepting a pardon is tantamount to an admission of guilt. Not that it matters.
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I seem to remember it being discussed in various threads around here and you're right in that people view it that way, but there's nothing actually stating such. So without it Trump could still say, "I got pardoned cause he knew I did nothing wrong."

theprestige said:
Seems lame. If you want to use the presidential pardon, use it. Don't pussyfoot around playing nonsense games with it.
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Thank you for your feedback. It's appreciated.

There is no nonsense game, it's getting someone who perpetually lies to take responsibility for what they did. I get that to you and the GOP that is pretty lame, it's just weird seeing it said out loud.
 
JayUtah said:
I may be wrong about this, but I think accepting a pardon is tantamount to an admission of guilt. Not that it matters.
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I believe that was part of the reasoning that Ford used when he gave Nixon his pardon.

But, as another poster has said, there is nothing in law that indicates that accepting pardons admits to anything. (And anyways, how would that apply to blanket pardons anyways? "I pardon Trump for all crimes"... "Even the crime of climbing a tree at the supreme court, and transporting dentures across state lines?" (both of which are real crimes)... "Yeah Trump must have done those things since he accepted a pardon for them"
 
plague311 said:
I seem to remember it being discussed in various threads around here and you're right in that people view it that way, but there's nothing actually stating such.
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That's probably the case. Burdick v. U.S. confirms that you are not required to accept a pardon you are offered. In the case dictum it is opined that accepting it may impute guilt, but that's not part of the finding of the court. In most pardon cases, the recipient has already been convicted, so a legal determination of guilt is moot. Nixon's case confirmed that a pardon is effective between the commission of an action and some indictment and possible conviction for it.

So without it Trump could still say, "I got pardoned cause he knew I did nothing wrong."
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And that's likely. Trump has a history of jumping to a finding of "total exoneration" every time someone declines to try to hold him accountable.

theprestige said:
Seems lame. If you want to use the presidential pardon, use it. Don't pussyfoot around playing nonsense games with it.
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Putting conditions on clemency really does violence to its original intent. The idea was that such an act of grace would come with no strings attached, as an expression of sovereign prerogative that can include (but is not limited to) correcting an improvident conviction. Using it as a means of coercing a confession or of baiting a recipient into agreeing to a lesser punishment that has not been adjudicated against him is not really in keeping with the political philosophy of clemency.
 
There is one argument for pardoning Trump that I find worth considering:

Bad Cases make for Bad Precedence.

The Trump Federal Trials were always going to be incredibly messy, and the chance at best 50/50 that the Judges would end up extending Presidential Immunity rather than curtailing it.

Does Trump deserve to get locked up and thrown away the cell?
Absolutely.

Does it create a bad precedent if he gets pardoned?
Yes.

Is that still better than having a Supreme Court ruling that selling nuclear secrets falls squarely within the core duties of a President?

It probably is.

We can't have our cake and eat it, too.
 
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The Great Zaganza said:
There is one argument for pardoning Trump that I find worth considering:

Bad Cases make for Bad Precedence.
...
Does Trump deserve to get locked up and thrown away the cell?
Absolutely.
Does it create a bad precedent if he gets pardoned?
Yes.
Is that still better than having a Supreme Court ruling that selling nuclear secrets falls squarely within the core duties of a President?
It probably is.
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True, issuing a pardon would probably mean the supreme court would end all discussion of presidential immunity because it is "moot".

But, I think there is some benefit to knowing what exactly the rules are (even if we don't like the implication), instead of finding years from now we are in another situation with a corrupt president and a bunch more legal proceedings to determine if immunity actually applies.
 
Segnosaur said:
True, issuing a pardon would probably mean the supreme court would end all discussion of presidential immunity because it is "moot".

But, I think there is some benefit to knowing what exactly the rules are (even if we don't like the implication), instead of finding years from now we are in another situation with a corrupt president and a bunch more legal proceedings to determine if immunity actually applies.
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but by definition, such a trial would never stop such a President.
If nothing else Trump has already established the Precedent that only Congress can remove a President, even if he is suspected of, in essence, Treason.

As long as Presidential Immunity is in Limbo, it might deter some of the less sociopathic Presidents from abusing it too much.
 
Romney should have realized that lots of Democrats would have abandoned Biden had he pardoned Trump.
 
JayUtah said:
Putting conditions on clemency really does violence to its original intent. The idea was that such an act of grace would come with no strings attached, as an expression of sovereign prerogative that can include (but is not limited to) correcting an improvident conviction. Using it as a means of coercing a confession or of baiting a recipient into agreeing to a lesser punishment that has not been adjudicated against him is not really in keeping with the political philosophy of clemency.
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Which I find to be hypocritical (the idea of attaching conditions, not your stance) considering it's a cornerstone of the legal process. You can't plead guilty or take a plea agreement without first acknowledging and taking responsibility for the crimes you're accused of and we see people take them all of the time. Even for things they didn't do.

As you said, he can always turn the pardon down if he feels he's truly innocent and committed no crimes. He has the absolute right to go through the trial and be found innocent by a jury of his peers. No one is forcing the pardon on him.
 
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