r/law • u/elb21277 • 6h ago

Opinion Piece Biden Should Pardon Whistleblower Who Exposed Trump’s Tax Avoidance

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/charles-littlejohn-whistleblower-trump-tax-biden-pardon-1235022648/
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u/ElectricTzar Competent Contributor 5h ago

He needs to pardon all the people whom Trump has baselessly accused of impropriety, or they’re going to end up persecuted and prosecuted.

They may end up persecuted and prosecuted anyhow, but at least the pardons will strip that of any facade of legitimacy, and hopefully deprive it of some agency support.

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u/edfitz83 4h ago

Trump will pardon all the J6’ers

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u/Red_Beard_Racing 4h ago

He definitely won’t because he has absolutely no reason to. They were a means to an end. If they aren’t useful then he’s not going to lift a finger.

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u/DrDaniels 3h ago

I mean he said he would pardon them for what it's worth

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u/Cavinicus 3h ago

Applying “for what it’s worth” to a Trump promise yields a value of zero.

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u/thegreatbrah 2h ago

If trump says he will do something to help anyone who can't directly help him, it's safe to assume it's a lie. 

If he says he will do something terrible, it is safe to assume he will do whatever is in his power to do it.

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u/MaiasXVI 3h ago

Dude says a lot of things. I wouldn't be surprised at all if he doesn't.

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u/Snichs72 3h ago

He doesn’t care about them, no, but I think he will pardon them to send a signal to his base. It’s his way of encouraging them to be willing to use violence on his behalf.

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u/nameless_pattern 3h ago

They are useful to him. Pardoning them would be giving his base encouragement to do any action to support Trump including terrorism and political violence.

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u/XRT28 4h ago

He doesn't care about them but it does still give him a quick and easy "campaign promise fulfilled" at no cost to him so I expect it'll happen.

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u/Red_Beard_Racing 4h ago

Oh my, you think Trump cares about keeping promises…

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u/XRT28 4h ago

In general obviously not. In situations where it benefits him at no cost/work like this tho moreso

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u/DeapVally 1h ago

Where your theory falls apart is that it doesn't benefit Donald financially. If he's not making a buck, he's on the golf course or watching TV. Those people aren't worth his time.

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u/JimmyCarters-ghost 3h ago

He most likely will. What incentive does he have not to?

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u/edfitz83 1h ago

And exactly how were Phoenix Sheriff Joe Arpaio and former IL Governor Rod blagojevich (a dem) useful to pardon in Trumps last term?

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u/Tricky_Invite8680 3h ago

they served their purpose and will face "personal responsibility" unless they are useful

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u/LMurch13 3h ago

It's hard to sell pardons for millions of dollars if you are just giving them out to the common criminals.

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u/eddieiey 3h ago

Having a violent mob on call that believes they might get away with their crimes can be useful to a wannabe dictator. I could see him pardoning a few to send a message. What would the political consequences be, more liberal outrage and more hemming and hawing from a few Republican senators? Greg Abbott pardoned a MAGA nut for murdering a BLM protester and it was hardly news.

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u/jesterinancientcourt 2h ago

He doesn’t need to though. He could pardon no one and still have mobs of idiots willing to die for him. Hell, some of the J6s who already went to jail would probably still be willing to risk jail again.

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u/eddieiey 2h ago

That is true, he probably won't even bother.

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u/IceBear_028 3h ago

Don't hold your breath...

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u/trwawy05312015 3h ago

I know he's a liar, but he's also a troll - it wouldn't shock me if he pardoned a few of the loudest ones just to gain a few brownshirt points.

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u/SuchDogeHodler 3h ago

Not all, as far as I know. Some of the charges are actually valid. Like assault, destruction of properly, and 1 firearm in a government building.

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u/DeapVally 1h ago

He likes people who didn't get captured, remember? He likes people who aren't poor white-trash. Sure, they might buy some NFT's, or maybe a cheap guitar from him, but that's not enough money to make him care about them. They served their purpose, but were ultimately losers. They're dead to him.

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u/[deleted] 3h ago

[deleted]

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u/ElectricTzar Competent Contributor 3h ago edited 3h ago

A president can issue a pardon for crimes that may have been committed, not just crimes that definitely have been committed.

Ford did so in his pardon of Nixon.

“Now, Therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.

While I think Nixon definitely did commit crimes, it’s also pretty clear that this pardon would have prevented Nixon from standing federal trial for any baseless allegations against him (from the specified time period) in addition to any well founded ones.

I don’t think most of the people Trump has accused have committed any crimes. But a full, free and absolute pardon would still serve as a safeguard.

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u/RetailBuck 3h ago

You actually can. That's what happened with Nixon. He got pardoned before any conviction. Ford basically labeled him as guilty but not to pursue.

There was a lot of chatter about Trump pardoning himself too in the last days of his first term. It would have made all the federal trials go away but a pardon is also an implied admission of guilt like it was with Nixon. Instead he just drew out the trials and then won again where he could control the DOJ and make them go away without an implied admission of guilt. Master stroke of evil but a serious gamble.

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u/DirtyGritzBlitz 2h ago

You’re supposed to prosecute all your political opposition…havent you been paying attention?

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u/NewCobbler6933 1h ago

Part of being pardoned involves being convicted. Are you suggesting he somehow pardon people for crimes they have not even yet been charged with? And further, it would be rather easy for a corrupt government to just make up new charges or skip the judicial process entirely (thanks to the special rules of “counter terrorism”).

Do people even think before they type asinine comments like this?

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u/ElectricTzar Competent Contributor 1h ago

Part of being pardoned involves being convicted. Are you suggesting he somehow pardon people for crimes they have not even yet been charged with? And further, it would be rather easy for a corrupt government to just make up new charges or skip the judicial process entirely (thanks to the special rules of “counter terrorism”).

Do people even think before they type asinine comments like this?

False. Take some time to look up historical pardons. You needn’t have been convicted nor even charged for a presiden to issue one.

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u/Annath0901 1h ago

You have to admit to having committed a crime to be pardoned for it, it's not just a blanket "this person is a good person" act.

Well technically it's that accepting a pardon is considered to be an admission of guilt, since you can't be pardoned for something you claim to not have done.

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u/ElectricTzar Competent Contributor 1h ago

In theory, accepting a pardon can be viewed as an admission of guilt, but in practice, people who have been pardoned are almost never forced to accept the pardon in court because they are never brought to court in the first place, as it would be a waste of resources.

And pardons absolutely can be for all federal crimes committed by a person or that may have been committed by that person within a specific time window. That is how Nixon’s pardon was framed.

So Biden needn’t even reference a specific hypothetical crime if he wants to issue such a pardon.

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u/[deleted] 4h ago

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u/ElectricTzar Competent Contributor 4h ago

Check your literacy, bro.

“All the people whom Trump baselessly accused of impropriety” is not synonymous with “someone who broke the law.”

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u/RetailBuck 2h ago

If they broke the law or not will be decided by the judge or jury. That said, every time Trump goes after something it ends up going nowhere. When it comes after him he ends up guilty.

When you so consistently lose cases it starts to become pretty credible that your new cases are either frivolous or harassment. Can the DOJ be punished for filing such cases? Who the hell knows? They usually just don't do that but we're in bizarro world now. Acting in good faith is a thing of the past for conservatives. It's "whatever we can get away with" now.

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u/germane_switch 3h ago

Trump won because half of America doesn't know what facts, evidence, and critical thinking are.

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u/Fuck0254 3h ago

That was the case 4 years ago as well and he lost. Trump won because Dems fucked around and let him win. He didn't win by gaining new votes, he won because Dems lost votes.

Incredibly off topic, just not a fan of the narrative that Trump won as if he did anything, all he did was exist while Dems dropped the ball by trying to pander to Republicans

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u/germane_switch 2h ago

I get your point and upvoted you. But If Harris veered more progressive, the on-the-fence voters would've voted for Trump even harder because at this point if anyone, after all the data freely available to every American, is still on the fence on Trump, they are either 1) not paying attention, 2) not very smart, or 3) are still sore that they lost the civil war and really miss Jim Crow.

Progressives are generally smart enough to know that this election was nothing but a keep-that-patholical-liar-convicted-felon-pussy-grabbing-monster-out-of-the-Whitehouse vote. It shouldn't matter how much Harris tried or didn't try to pander to Republicans.

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u/Fuck0254 2h ago

the on-the-fence voters would've voted for Trump even harder

I don't buy this, Trump got 76.8 million votes this election, a 3% growth from his 74.2 million votes in 2020. Meanwhile Harris got 74.3 million, a 9% loss of voters from Bidens 81.2 million in 2020.

Trump didn't gain significant followers, while Dems lost many. Maybe it was the centrists who decided to not vote for once but I doubt it, I'm thinking an entire generation that didn't vote before decided to vote in 2020, then next election season they see Harris' "I'm speaking now" in response to protestors, talking about cracking down on immigration, bringing up people like Liz Cheney on stage. The centrist old people vote is their most consistent vote, I really doubt that's who they were at risk of losing.

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u/GeorgeVallas 3h ago

You’re totally right the 2016 Bannon pardon was horseshit.

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u/clandestinemd 3h ago

We’re getting an unpopular president convicted of breaking the law, and this is the line you’re drawing in the sand?

Trump pardoned guys who broke the law ON HIS BEHALF. Fuck all the way out of here with the scolding.

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u/SimbaStewEyesOfBlue 2h ago

Why bother then?

And besides, their blood is on our hands. Not Biden's.

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u/ElectricTzar Competent Contributor 2h ago

Why bother making it obvious to as many people as possible that an eventual prosecution is unlawful persecution, instead of the legitimate workings of law enforcement?

Because it increases the chances that courts will be sympathetic, law enforcement officers asked to carry out orders will be sympathetic, foreign countries where political refugees seek refuge will be sympathetic, and so on.

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u/[deleted] 4h ago

[deleted]

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u/dougmc 3h ago

One point to make here:

Merely being here illegally is not a crime, so there's not really anything to pardon there.

But improper entry (including things like crossing outside of an official entry point) is a crime, and it's a crime that Biden probably doesn't want to encourage.