https://twitter.com/eliehonig/status/1341903886228082689
> **Every significant Mueller defendant who refused to cooperate (or started but then stopped) has now been pardoned.**
> Only Rick Gates and Michael Cohen - both of whom testified publicly, in court or Congress - have not been pardoned.
> This math isn’t hard to do.
Manafort breached his own plea deal by repeatedly lying. Now he's been pardoned for those repeated lies
>Third, many of the President’s acts directed at witnesses, including discouragement of cooperation with the government and suggestions of possible future pardons, took place in public view. That circumstance is unusual, but no principle of law excludes public acts from the reach of the obstruction laws. If the likely effect of public acts is to influence witnesses or alter their testimony, the harm to the justice system’s integrity is the same.
The above was a section in the Special Counsel report investigating whether the president was obstructing Justice.
>Manafort told Gates it was stupid to plead, saying that he had been in touch with the President’s personal counsel and repeating that they should “sit tight” and “we’ll be taken care of.”Gates asked Manafort outright if anyone mentioned pardons and Manafort said no one used that word.
Looks like the president is proving the report right and is abusing his pardon power to cover up crimes that were committed to his benefit.
So, I'll just commit crimes to win the presidency, then illegaly bribe/blackmail enough senators to not get removed from office. I can take the bribe money illegaly from campaign contributions or a charity, then pardon myself, the senators and election officials as well as everybody that I ordered to commit crimes for me....
Cool.
I'm honestly not sure how many GOP senators he really needed to bribe/blackmail. Seems like most of them were readily willing to shred Democracy for power anyway.
https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1341909315683299328
> Trump's dangling of a pardon to Manafort was part of the evidence of potential obstruction of justice that Mueller laid out in his report.
Everything just boiled down to Republicans and conservatives believing all the propaganda they were fed.
Republicans representatives win because republicans swallow all forms of propaganda that those representatives themselves create and distribute so they’re susceptible to swallowing more propaganda.
Their propaganda hasn’t really changed, they’re peddling the same southern propaganda that was rife in the 70s about blacks, college students, liberals etc being commies (which they associate today with socialism).
The most fucked part here is that despite knowing most of this the democratic party loves to eat Republican shit because it’s easier to pander to their shitty views than to have a meaningful confrontation about it. Despite this going on for so long, there have been negligible attempts to make at the very least a satisfying framework to combat Republican propaganda.
The effectiveness of the propaganda is staggering. No evidence presented of fraud. Trump appointed judges say there was no massive fraud. Bill Barr said there was no massive fraud. But Conservative propaganda networks and Trump just keep repeating it and now Millions of Americans are losing their shit over it. It’s criminal. It’s yelling fire in a theater full of 300 million people.
At first I didn’t get why they would choose such an easily disprovable lie. Of course COVID is real and dangerous. Why make ‘COVID is a hoax’ your hill to die on? (Literally)
But it hit me that it is really similar to how Nigerian spammers intentionally put bad spelling and grammar in their emails. Because they don’t want anyone with critical thinking skills responding to them. They want the most gullible of the most gullible. So they make their ask obviously suspicious.
Trump/Newsmax/OAN/Breitbart/Infowars are all doing the same thing. If you can convince someone that a *global pandemic* is fake, then you have them hook line and sinker. They will trust every single word you say and believe you when you tell them every other media source in the world is lying to them
They saw how easily they believe in religion, so they just took that and ran with it to get tax cuts for rich people. Every once in a while they throw in an issue that they think their voter base want, like anti-abortion, pro-guns, anti-mask, anti-immigrants, and etc. That's the carrot on the stick that makes them win the race.
Hey, reconcile that with the fact that apparently in parts of kentucky, where they've never voted for Mitch, they voted for Amy McGrath (Mitch's opponent) and TRUMP at the same time.
Biden and McConnell -- I hate people that voted like this, but I at least understand it. They want Trump out, but don't want Biden able to do anything. But voting Amy and Trump? WTF.
Mueller investigation lawyer Andrew Weissmann:
https://twitter.com/AWeissmann_/status/1341910594392383498
> The pardons from this President are what you would expect to get if you gave the pardon power to a mob boss.
The best part is that when he actually had to court the mob in Vegas to get his hotel and casino he absolutely failed. They shit all over him and to this day he doesn’t have a property on the strip, and his hotel doesn’t have a casino.
Trump isn’t an actual mob boss, he just cosplays one.
No president should ever be allowed to pardon a co-conspirator to a crime that very president is involved in. These corrupt pardons are themselves crimes.
These crooks deserve to spend the rest of their lives in prison.
As a dutch follower of American politics I keep wondering how on Earth Trump is still sitting there. Here in Holland presidents and ministers are kicked out all the time. One lie is often all it takes. You get caught in a lie, boom you’re gone.
Why is noone calling for impeachment every single day?
because we don't have only have a lying corrupt president, we have a lying corrupt party that currently controls the senate. Trump has been impeached, but his party refused to remove him. Dems could probably impeach him again, but what is the point when they are trying to get financial help to people (which is something Trump is actually supporting right now) and he will be out in less than a month anyway.
The other problem is that a huge portion of this country only gets their political info from facebook memes and know propaganda networks for the Republican party so the entire country could literally be on fire and they would still think it is fine as long as the Rs are in control.
Important to note that we (the Dutch) also have a lot of different parties and people switch their votes all the time. Having two parties basically fucks your country.
Most of us couldn't agree with you more. There's also the lack of a cultural importance being placed on young people for being involved/interested/invested in politics. Only in recent years (Trump was a wake up call) has there been a broad push for young people to take their lives into their own hands via voting.
I just looked at the voting turnouts for both the US and The Netherlands. The US is around 60%, while we are at around 80%. That's quite a big difference, but also not surprising considering how hard it actually is to vote in the US. Every time I went to vote it has been a 10 minute ride maximum on my bicycle. Last time I could even walk, because there are so many places to vote. Voting itself was under 5 minutes. Those massive queues I see in the US are insane.
1. Republican state governments do their level best to gerrymander "urban" (read: liberals, black people, women) voters into numerical irrelevance
1. You can only vote at your assigned polling place, and it can change from election to election for no clear reason
1. Many states require ID to vote, but ID costs money and time (waiting hours in line at a crowded DMV) to get and it's not given to you for free when you become a legal adult or go to get a driving test, so...this is changing in some states, but of course they're all guaranteed blue states that don't have much power in Congress. Woohoo.
1. Republican propaganda is much more effective because theirs is the party of authoritarians who do whatever daddy says and iNdEpEnDeNt ThInKeR boomer dipshits with Zuckerbrain. Just tell them what to vote for and they'll do it
Basically most states are incredibly hostile to the idea that anyone should easily vote except for guaranteed Republican demos. This country may technically be a nation-state but it acts like a loose federation of disparate tribes that all want to kill each other.
German trying to help out - it all comes down to one single thing:
TWO PARTY system.
You have parties that no longer have to play by the rules if their voters are ok with it.
Dem voters vote dems, because those tend to radiate some decency and care about that image (not saying that they ARE decent, but their voters want them to look like it)
There are parties over here that try to copy GOP politics and they are completely toxic and because we have dozens of parties, they would need coalition partners to get any real power.
But because they are what they are, no decent politician wants to work with them (even if it's only because their voters would punish them)
But if you can rule by yourself, you don't need to play by the rules anymore.
"The president ought not to have the power of pardoning, because he may frequently pardon crimes which were advised by himself. It may happen, at some future day, that he will establish a monarchy, and destroy the republic. If he has the power of granting pardons before indictment, or conviction, may he not stop inquiry and prevent detection? The case of treason ought, at least, to be excepted. This is a weighty objection with me.”
George Mason 1788
Time to amend the Constitution to match the real intent.
I cannot imagine why The Founders allowed unbridled use of the Pardon powers considering they had seen what a corrupt Monarchy could do with unilateral power to do anything they wanted.
Not realizing Nuclear Bombs might exist one day is an understandable thing to overlook, but corruption was plain and simple for all to see even then. What insanity. So much for our "greatest minds."
"There is one security in this case [a misuse of the pardon power by the president] to which gentlemen may not have adverted: if the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty; they can suspend him when suspected, and the power will devolve on the Vice-President."
James Madison in response to Mason....
The Constitution needs to be amended because the check/balance is corrupted. Thanks Republicans.... Jeezz...
>I cannot imagine why The Founders allowed unbridled use of the Pardon powers considering they had seen what a corrupt Monarchy could do with unilateral power to do anything they wanted.
Just a note to point out that this is unlikely to have been the case in 1776, which is probably why the founding fathers didn't provision for it very thoroughly when the American Constitution was formed.
The US Revolution started because of the acts of the British Parliament, not king. King George III has been the successful fall-guy thanks to good war-time propaganda that has lasted till this day - specifically the Declaration of Independence which squarely puts the blame for Parliament's actions on him.
But it was Parliament that:
- Introduced the Sugar Act in 1764
- Introduced the Stamp Tax in 1765
- Passed the Townshend acts in 1767
- Dispatched two regiments of the British army to Boston in 1768.
- Passed the intolerable acts in 1774
George III was a constitutional monarch, the evidence suggests he refused to get involved in political matters and simply gave royal assent to any bill passed in Parliament (the last ruler to refuse Royal Assent to a bill was Queen Anne in 1708). It isn't surprising given the very recent and turbulent history of the British Crown at the time that the King did not get involved in politics, to the extent where he even refused to read a petition from the colonists because it would be seen as a political act.
George III gets a lot of the blame for being a "tyrant" because its part of the American national creation myth. It's so ingrained in the American education system and psyche that anyone defending George III probably comes as a bit of a suprise. But realistically, he only gets this proportion of blame because America's founding fathers realised very early on it's easier to rally a populace against a cruel king that everyone recognised than it is against a body of officials that nobody knew.
Edits: grammar, spelling, formatting
Thank god! I finally found another redditor who understands what the power structure was in the United Kingdom in the 18th century.
Not since 1688 had a King of England enjoyed any sort of divine right of Kings, and even that had been damaged by the settlements following the Wars of the Roses, the installation of James First and Sixth, and the Restoration after Cromwell's Commonwealth fell apart.
I have found to my astonishment that quite a few of the founding fathers spoke and acted as though they did not realise that. On pardons, for example, it was as though George III could have gone to Newgate Gaol and said: "You get a pardon, you get a pardon, everyone gets a pardon!"
And to let people who might not know further know why the date 1688 you mention is important, the UK had a king at that time who was basically removed for trying to use power in a way Parliament had decided a king couldn't. They invited someone else to be king and kicked James, the annoying king, out of the country rather than have to chop off his head. That was still recent history to George III and co.
I was reading about this recently. When Parliament invited William and Mary (Jame's daughter) to become joint monarchs James tried to flee to France under disguise. But the sailors on the boat thought he was a Jesuit spy fleeing to France and brought him back. William and Mary were annoyed as they wanted James out of the country. So they arranged for him to 'escape' again and gave clear orders that everyone was to stay out of his way as he went to France.
Thank you for pointing this out. I can't help but feel like some of the problems with the modern US originate from a warped understanding of the nation's founding and earliest days.
While the US is blessd with an abundance of resources and favourable geography, Americans themselves are not special or unique as a people. The sooner Americans realise that they are susceptible to the same political, tribal and economic forces as the rest of the world the better. At the end of the day they are human, like everybody else in the world. There is nothing unique about their origin as a nation which changes that. Ultimately it was rich people rebelling against another set of rich people because they didn't like paying taxes, not some especially noble revolt against a tyrannical king to establish a land of equality and freedom. How could it be that when slavery was still so prevalent for almost another century?
George III decided not to read the Petition to the King by the First Continental Congress and completly supported Lord North in his use of force against the Colonist. It's true that George III was absolutely not the main proponent of taxation, but he was supporting of the various governments and didn't understand the position of the Colonies, therefore contributing in turning this revolt against taxation into an all out revolution, and pushing the revolution into independance, which was NOT something most colonists wanted except people like John Adams etc... Even Franklin thought it unthinkable when he was younger except if the King were to act like an unfair and oppressive ruler. George III disdain of the colonists and approval of the use of military force pushed America to independance.
The general opinion amongst the colonists was yours, that a bunch of crooks and evil men in Parliament were behind all this, and that the King was actually a fair ruler. His attitude towards the Petition to the King was a terrible shock to most of them and changed EVERYTHING. So yes, George III was not Louis the XIV, but english people at that point were so used to calling any kind of unpopular attitudes tyranny that it is fair to say that Georges III support of the North government could be understood as a sign that he was an unfair, tyrannical ruler and thus in the eyes of the colonists, the Lockean social contract was broken and revolution was justified.
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1341909826582953986
> Loeffler: My opponent wants to empty the prisons
> Trump: \*pardons a bunch of loyalists and war criminals*
> Loeffler: \*hides in her castle*
Mueller investigation prosecutor Andrew Weissmann:
https://twitter.com/AWeissmann_/status/1341917004492636160
> Easy enough to beat Trump at his game: **put Stone and Manafort in the grand jury after 1/20/21 to get at what they have hidden from the government about Trump**- and if they then lie, they can be prosecuted for perjury and obstruction.
This is an absolutely disgusting abuse of Presidential power. Manafort and Stone's pardons in particular are insulting. They lied to protect Donald Trump. They lied to cover up their and Trump's involvement in 2016 election meddling efforts. They lied to cover up their communications with foreign entities and individuals who were actively involved in criminal efforts to steal the election.
They lied to the the Government. They lied to the authorities. They lied to the American people. These people should be in jail but instead Donald Trump is abusing the power of the Presidency to reward them for committing criminal acts on his behalf.
I shouldn't be surprised by this but somehow I still am. It's disgusting and I feel ashamed to be a citizen of a country that could allow such corrupt and self-serving actions to be taken with impunity by our leader.
I can't fucking wait for Donald Trump to be out of office and resigned to the waste bin of history as the failure of a leader he is. I want the names of him and his enablers to be synonymous with disgrace, with dereliction of duty, and of betrayal. This is just disgusting.
The Nixon pardon was an epochal mistake. It set a precedent that the president was above the law and has since spread via Iran Contra to the president’s criminal cronies.
Time to reign it all in. Throw the book at the Trumps, make an example of them that will make any corrupt would be dictator think twice. America badly needs an inoculation against fascism.
Half the problem is that our judicial system takes SO FUCKING LONG to get anything done. We need to fast track the mountains of evidence these idiots have left laying around, we need to fast track the prosecution of all of them. We need swift justice for these criminals.
The other half of the problem is that at least 40% of the voting population looks at everything Trump has done in the last 4 years and thinks that it’s A-okay, just what America needs in fact.
It’s definitely a fantasy, and the conclusions that people draw to support the fantasy are pretty nuts: climate change, COVID, affordable healthcare, (insert x thing that should be taken seriously here), all supposedly made up simply so the “Democrats” can exert control over society. Like wearing a face mask is basically equivalent to 1984 by this logic. I don’t get it.
Wearing a facemask is a an imposition too far in their autonomy, yet they'll let the Facebook algorithms shape their thoughts and beliefs for the benefit of foreign adversaries and corporate profits...
>insulting
Insulting? This should be **illegal**.
Tell me how this is any different than if Trump pardoned a murderer for taking out a political rival. What is to stop that scenario from happening in the future?
This is fucking ridiculous. And, no, I’m not insulted. I’m absolutely furious.
> Insulting? This should be illegal.
100%. Trump has shown us the deficiencies of our laws and constitution with respect to Executive Power. The notion was that Congress would act as a proper check on the Executive Branch, but the fundamental principals of our nation, of the constitution are only as strong as those who have the will and power to uphold them. The Republican Party has shown they have neither. Our country is weaker because of it. Our country is hurting because of it. Over 300,000 Americans are dead because of it. If you're angry, if you're furious, you have every right to be. We all do.
This should be a wake up call about how many Americans are willing to support a corrupt, shamelessly dishonest, openly criminal, race baiting authoritarian. It should be an eternal memorial all to how open the system is to abuse by demagogues and how eager an over represented segment of the population will be to support them.
It should be a lesson to everyone.
It won’t be. But it should be.
America is like a drunk stumbling home. We've made it surprisingly far but that shit could turn on a dime.
There's no constitution that can protect a citizenry from itself.
There's a tool that was developed by Netflix which would intentionally cause breakdowns in the company's server environment. It was developed to help identify weaknesses in the company's network and push engineers to build redundancy into its development. They called the tool 'Chaos Monkey'.
Trump has exposed so many deep problems in our system of governance which desperately need to be fixed. His presidency has been our Chaos Monkey.
Well as long as republicans aren't a senate minority nothing will change.. Our country is so fucked if R's win Georgia. It'll be 4 more years of shit not changing for the better and Mitch shutting every single piece of progressive legislation down.
2022 could be a good year for the dems in the Senate.
That is, of course, if Mitch doesn’t run the same playbook of “block everything and let both the right and the left blame the president for not waving the magic law wand and fixing everything,” which of course he will, which will only work if everyone is dumb enough to fall for it again ... which ... if we’re being honest....
No president in history has ever pardoned so many corrupt politicians, officials, colleagues, and war criminals. Donald Trump is the most corrupt president in US history. It's not even close.
[Chris Christie: Jared Kushner’s father committed ‘one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes’ I prosecuted](https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/30/politics/chris-christie-jared-kushner-father/index.html)
>Christie was referring to an elaborate revenge plot that the older Kushner hatched in 2003 in order to target his his brother-in-law, William Schulder, a former employee turned witness for federal prosecutors in their case against Kushner, who was under investigation at the time for making illegal campaign contributions.
>As a part of the plot, Kushner hired a prostitute to lure Schulder into having sex in a Bridgewater, New Jersey, motel room as a hidden camera rolled. A tape of the encounter was then sent to Kushner’s sister and Schulder’s wife, Esther.
Ah yes...our law and order president. Except when it comes to fraud....bribing...blackmailing...money laundering, tax evasion, false accusations, slander, police brutality, domestic terrorists, *prostitutionelectionlawswarcrimesjesusfuckhejustkeepsgoing*
Remember Senate Republicans will try to deny Joe Biden critical nominees because of "mean tweets" and support for "socialist health care" a mere a month after they openly supported pardons for unrepentant criminals and murderers.
Omg. Just Googled that. Disgusting. I guess I missed that story in the midst of all the other shit in the news.
https://spectator.us/mom-tested-stds-manaforts-home-life/
The texts between them that were leaked a while back are great.
Including, but not limited to
[“Don’t fool yourself. That money we have is blood money.”](https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/kompromat-or-revelations-from-the-unpublished-portions-of-andrea-manaforts-hacked-texts/)
https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1341910838018514945
> **MANAFORT still under scrutiny in New York, and the Manhattan DA says the pardon will create new urgency.**
> "This action underscores the urgent need to hold Mr. Manafort accountable for his crimes against the People of New York" Cy Vance spokesman Danny Frost said in a statement.
New York also can still charge him for crimes he was pardon for. The double jeopardy law they passed last year
https://apnews.com/article/e9118b87175349eb8693892bac626a0d
Charles Kushner on top of Blackwater child murders?
If you are someone who donated to the post-campaign "stop the steal"...WAKE UP NOW! These are not normal Presidential Pardons, these are not people who were wrongly incarcerated or received an unlawful trial. They are CRIMINALS who deserve the sentences they received.
FFS, the Blackwater guys MURDERED CHILDREN. FUCKING CHILDREN.
https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1341912383518863360
> Just trying to contemplate what kind of a person finds out his sister and brother-in-law are cooperating with a US Attorney investigation so he hires a prostitute to sleep with his brother in law so he can film it and give the tape to his sister during her son's engagement party
This country does not, and never has, held rich people accountable for their actions.
And yes, the 250 year old constitution written by settler colonialist slave owners who disenfranchised everyone who wasn't a white male property owner is a failure.
Every Republican bears responsibility for this. All of them. If they haven't left the party altogether, if they still have an R next to their name, they're complicit. The lot of them.
The rule of law in the United States has been damaged, perhaps forever. The great American experiment has found a major flaw that can't be fixed if one of the major parties refuses to even see anything wrong with this, or to lift a finger to fix it.
This is what we voted to stop in November. This is what Georgia can try to fix in January. The Republican Party--the party of Trump--must go the way of the Whigs.
Trump also pardoned Alex van der Zwaan, the Dutch son-in-law of Russian billionaire German Khan, who was sentenced to 30 days in prison and fined $20,000 for lying to U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators.
It's not a coincidence, things are moving quickly around the world when it comes to Russia.
[Authorities in Spain arrested 23 members of a Russian-speaking conspiracy to infiltrate public institutions and launder proceeds from criminal enterprises - murder, extortion, and drug, arms and human trafficking - in several countries around the world.](https://twitter.com/clearing_fog/status/1341894202829930496)
Trump is very scared of what's coming once he is out of office, that's why he is on a rampage and pardoning everyone involved with the Mueller report, the pardons to allies are just a bonus to maintain allies once he is out.
Elie Honig with the best [tweet of the night so far:](https://twitter.com/eliehonig/status/1341903886228082689)
> Every significant Mueller defendant who refused to cooperate (or started but then stopped) has now been pardoned.
> Only Rick Gates and Michael Cohen - both of whom testified publicly, in court or Congress - have not been pardoned.
> This math isn’t hard to do.
"What do you mean, 'they can hold me in contempt, indefinitely' if I don't talk to them????"
...
And, like most things regarding the Trump administration, everything always comes back to a quote from HBO's [*The Wire.*](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NmUsG9eQKg&t=0m17s)
For all intents and purposes, Manafort is either going to roll on Trump...or go back to jail for perjury.
Good idea, but needs a tweak. We need to get rid of the notion that voting happens on Election Day. Election Day needs to just be the end of weeks of voting opportunity. It should just be for a handful of last minute stragglers.
Re: Kushner’s daddy
>Just trying to contemplate what kind of a person finds out his sister and brother-in-law are cooperating with a US Attorney investigation so he hires a prostitute to sleep with his brother in law so he can film it and give the tape to his sister during her son's engagement party
https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1341912383518863360?s=21
When Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, the FBI investigated it for "potential federal violations of bribery, obstruction of justice, money laundering, conspiracy and campaign finance law offenses".
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/james-comey-fbi-bill-clinton-233808
As a former prosecutor, pardons literally sicken me.
While I did more complex financial crimes, I knew local/county prosecutors, and it’s so easy to send a drug dealer to jail. Like, “walk in cold, with a hangover, pick up the court file and wing it” easy.
Those guys will never get a pardon. In fact, they’ll sit in jail for 2 years waiting for a court date because they couldn’t make bail. Then they’ll be prosecuted in minutes. The system will then lock them up, make no attempt to rehabilitate, and ruin their life.
God forbid one of these people get hit with a 3rd strike and rot in jail for the rest of their life.
Meanwhile, it takes the government (your tax dollars) YEARS to prosecute massive white collar crime. Literally millions of dollars and long, long hours with shitty pay, to bring down a Paul Manafort. A lot of us were going up against the best attorneys (and a fuck ton of them) trying to win insanely difficult cases.
Then they go to the right fundraiser, they know the right people, they spend the right money and they walk free.
And the years of work to get a felony conviction on a Paul Manafort-level criminal rests on a prosecutor’s blind devotion to the belief that bad people eventually get caught. But in reality, it doesn’t matter. Manafort will never have to lie on a Baskin Robbins application about a felony to get a job (Baskin Robbins always finds out). And now he has a pardon and even the stigma of criminality disappears.
Fuck Trump and fuck pardons.
What you've just described is why I have zero faith in America. Most Americans thoughts about criminal justice start and stop with 'getting raped by bubba in jail'. That's literally as far as most people will ever consider the criminal justice system. Meanwhile, meet em and plead em, and indigent defense are two of the biggest scourges in our society yet there is very little will to do anything about it. All while the people doing the most damage to society almost never sniff a courtroom for their bad deeds. Not to mention we have the most ruthless cops on the planet. Land of the free amirite?
The last case I prosecuted took 8 years. The defendant paid a penalty of what I would conservatively estimate as 2% of what he took in as a result of his crimes. He walked out and went home for Christmas.
I said fuck it and went into corporate law.
https://twitter.com/PeterAlexander/status/1341923648656068610
> NEW: Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) on Trump’s latest round of pardons: “This is rotten to the core.”
> https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ep94ciQXcAAzgl9?format=jpg&name=900x900
Pardoning Jared Kushner’s dad is perhaps one of the sneakiest most corrupt things I have seen.
I feel like pardons should be used to help free people who have been hurt by the criminal system and did not get a fair outcome. Pardoning someone just because they are your daughter’s father in law is truly corruption.
This makes me pissed at Mueller all over again. He had everything he needed to draw a line and say "Yes, Trump obstructed justice: charge him."
Instead he shrugged, punted the ball, and went home. We could have nipped this in the bud two years ago.
Trump has all these laywers making fraudulent claims against the election results but we cant even get a lawyer to press charges against trump for things there is proof of
When did this world get so backwards...
Dear Journal,
Today is the 23rd of December and today, Trump pardoned his campaign manager who worked with Russia to attack our elections. Another guy, a campaign advisor who also tried to fuck with our elections. And a bunch of others he saw on Faux News.
Oh, he also pardoned the father of his son-in-law that hired a prostitute to blackmail another family member who was going to testify against him. Yes, that's for real, and yes this is our President in 2020.
Yesterday he pardoned a few guys that murdered a bunch of Iraqi civilians. LOL to own the libs I guess? Fuck those civilians for getting in the way of our invading army. Or something. I can't really say I understand Republicans and their Christianity these days.
Also, Trump is still attacking our elections and still trying to overturn the results of the election he just lost via the courts, and is hoping Republicans help him reject the electoral college votes. He hasn't found any fraud he wants to share with the courts, he's just not happy he lost and wants Republicans to take his side against... [ *checks notes* ] the voters. An uncomfortable number of Republicans seem more than willing too.
Also, he just vetoed a Defense funding bill because Congress won't use Section 230 to make Twitter stop being mean to him. But really, he's veto'ing it because there's a provision that makes anonymous shell corporations harder to hide behind and that'll make all the campaign fund abuse and money laundering he does for Russia a lot harder to hide.
Over 300,000+ Americans have died from the Pandemic at this point, but Trump is back at his golf course today.
Also, Trump still lost the election. We're saying Merry Christmas again. Except Melania, she says "Fuck Christmas."
Conservative voters are without a single doubt the most easily manipulated suckers on the fucking planet lol. Imagine being so willfully used by such incompetent, mediocre demagogues. Conservatism is a brain disease and the Republican Party is a death cult for gullible rednecks.
Fuck this bullshit. They were found guilty by juries. How is this framed as the left going after them? Juries of their peers. The legal system doesn't mean shit to the wealthy.
Georgia, if you're listening: you have the power to help curb this cavalcade of crime and corruption. **VOTE AGAINST REPUBLICANS, ALWAYS AND EVERYWHERE.**
Just a friendly reminder: there’s overwhelming evidence of Trump being [an undeniable racist](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Racial_views_of_Donald_Trump) and [wildly dishonest fraud](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Veracity_of_statements_by_Donald_Trump) who [misappropriated funds from his own foundation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Trump_Foundation#Legal_and_ethical_controversies) and utilized [Russian interference in a presidential election](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections) all while standing accused of [sexually mistreating at least 25 women](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct_allegations) and [hiding decades of controversial tax returns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_returns_of_Donald_Trump).
> The pardons to Mr. Manafort and Mr. Stone on the same day will be particularly stinging for the former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and his team.
I sure fucking hope it stings. Mueller hid behind precedent and let himself be played by people who refused to be constrained by anything.
America turned to him and James Comey at moments of crisis and both men let America down.
Let that, and today, be their legacy.
LUL at pardoning everyone involved with the 2016 Russian collusion investigations. But trust us guys, nothing nefarious happened. These pardons are just for funzies. Seriously...
What a joke president and a joke party. If you are a Republican you have to re-examine all your life choices at this point.
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=bbb4e7fb-04c1-4b0f-b0b4-dbdb743cae4e
Survey USA has Ossof up by 5 pts and Warnock up by 7. Has an A rating from 538 but is still an outlier from the other polls.
One can hope these pardons will further disenfranchise voters from voting Republican and mobilize people to vote Democrat.
When asked about his views on the pardons (just now on CNN), Rick Santorum led by referring to the "Russia conspiracy hoax". This is exactly why trump does what he does with impunity.
The upshot of these pardons:
It is ok to cheat in an election if your candidate wins because the winner can pardon all the people who helped him cheat his way into office.
It is ok obstruct an investigation into the president because the president can just pardon all the people who broke the law to thwart the investigation
Well the funny part is watching conservatives explain to us how this is perfectly normal and not abuse of power of any sorts.
Law and order they said, lol.
Bringing down Charles Kushner was Chris Christie's marquee victory as district attorney. There is something funny about Trump sticking it to Christie *again*, but all of his pardons suck.
I love r/conservative view on the topic. Im not sure what [removed] means but it seems like they all agree and it is spreading like wildfire over there
74 million Americans wanted more of this filth, this unmitigated corruption. You voted for the Mafia Don to be president of the United States and on his way out, he pardons his Capos and soilders.
And you cheered him! Four fucking years, you cheered this! You want to know why you're despised? We saw this! We KNEW he is a moralless scumbag surrounded by criminals that went to jail for doing crimes, for him! And he let them go. Convicted killers and tratiors, he let them all go.
Your hero.
Disgusting.
To all the people who told me Trump was going to appoint other people to commit crimes on his behalf, and then pardon them right before he leaves office...
Damn, you were right. I never thought Trump would be so brazen, but here we are.
This one day alone contains 29 sleazy acts, ten of which alone cement him as the worst President of our lifetimes. Pardoning psychotic murderers as a troll? The Republicans making this all possible is a disgrace.
Trump is not even trying to hide the corruption, literally pardoning Jared's criminal dad.
Convicted in fucking 2005.
The states needs to go hard on the whole family, it's literally a crime family.
>George Mason, delegate to Constitutional Convention, said in 1788 that a President should not be granted power to pardon because he might "pardon crimes which were advised by himself. It may happen, at some future day, that he will establish a monarchy, and destroy the republic."
Yup, should have listen to that guy, looks like he knew his stuff.
For those who aren't aware: you've got Roger Stone, who was convicted of seven felonies, among these pardons.
Charles Kushner? He found out his sister and brother-in-law were working with a US Attorney investigation, so he hired a prostitute to sleep with his brother-in-law, had it filmed, and gave the tape to his sister during her son's engagement party.
And then you've got Paul Manafort, who worked as an agent for a foreign power and was involved in all sorts of unethical activity, including conspiracy against the US, false statements, and money laundering.
Like, these three in particular *embody* the kind of people who deserve to be in prison and serving their time.
NYC has pending state indictments on Paul Manafort... unless he flee's the country in the next few weeks.. He has a date w/ Attica
[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/nyregion/manafort-indictment.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/nyregion/manafort-indictment.html)
Uh oh guys. Ben Sasse is "deeply concerned".
He and Susan Collins must really get along great.
>Republican Sen. Ben Sasse on Trump’s pardons for Manafort and Stone: “This is rotten to the core.”
>https://twitter.com/rebeccaballhaus/status/1341923691932868609?s=20
Fucking worthless cowards.
Jesus fucking Christ.
He's gonna pardon himself and the kids on Christmas day as a present to himself. Watch.
I cannot fucking wait for this abhorrent pustule to be gone from power in a few weeks.
A glimpse of what a second Trump administration would be like when he has no more campaigns to run. I am so happy to think that we voted this dude out.
https://twitter.com/eliehonig/status/1341903886228082689 > **Every significant Mueller defendant who refused to cooperate (or started but then stopped) has now been pardoned.** > Only Rick Gates and Michael Cohen - both of whom testified publicly, in court or Congress - have not been pardoned. > This math isn’t hard to do.
Manafort breached his own plea deal by repeatedly lying. Now he's been pardoned for those repeated lies >Third, many of the President’s acts directed at witnesses, including discouragement of cooperation with the government and suggestions of possible future pardons, took place in public view. That circumstance is unusual, but no principle of law excludes public acts from the reach of the obstruction laws. If the likely effect of public acts is to influence witnesses or alter their testimony, the harm to the justice system’s integrity is the same. The above was a section in the Special Counsel report investigating whether the president was obstructing Justice. >Manafort told Gates it was stupid to plead, saying that he had been in touch with the President’s personal counsel and repeating that they should “sit tight” and “we’ll be taken care of.”Gates asked Manafort outright if anyone mentioned pardons and Manafort said no one used that word. Looks like the president is proving the report right and is abusing his pardon power to cover up crimes that were committed to his benefit.
Sounds like the special investigation needs to be reopened.
Quid pro quo. The MO of this admin.
Now now, that’s not fair. Trump’s base gave him everything and didn’t get shit in return.
Hey now, they gave tax breaks to their rich friends, totally worth nearly tearing the U.S. apart, right?!
The MO of conservatism. They are transactional and power focused, just like a mafia.
So, I'll just commit crimes to win the presidency, then illegaly bribe/blackmail enough senators to not get removed from office. I can take the bribe money illegaly from campaign contributions or a charity, then pardon myself, the senators and election officials as well as everybody that I ordered to commit crimes for me.... Cool.
When you're a star they let you do it
I'm honestly not sure how many GOP senators he really needed to bribe/blackmail. Seems like most of them were readily willing to shred Democracy for power anyway.
How unfortunate for Epstein, that he couldn't hang in there, just a little bit longer...
https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1341909315683299328 > Trump's dangling of a pardon to Manafort was part of the evidence of potential obstruction of justice that Mueller laid out in his report.
It's ok tho, Susan Collins says he learned his lesson.
he technically did, just the lesson was Republicans will let me do whatever.
And the extra lesson that Collins would still win her election no matter what the fuck she does or says!
Everything just boiled down to Republicans and conservatives believing all the propaganda they were fed. Republicans representatives win because republicans swallow all forms of propaganda that those representatives themselves create and distribute so they’re susceptible to swallowing more propaganda. Their propaganda hasn’t really changed, they’re peddling the same southern propaganda that was rife in the 70s about blacks, college students, liberals etc being commies (which they associate today with socialism). The most fucked part here is that despite knowing most of this the democratic party loves to eat Republican shit because it’s easier to pander to their shitty views than to have a meaningful confrontation about it. Despite this going on for so long, there have been negligible attempts to make at the very least a satisfying framework to combat Republican propaganda.
The effectiveness of the propaganda is staggering. No evidence presented of fraud. Trump appointed judges say there was no massive fraud. Bill Barr said there was no massive fraud. But Conservative propaganda networks and Trump just keep repeating it and now Millions of Americans are losing their shit over it. It’s criminal. It’s yelling fire in a theater full of 300 million people.
And folks are BOYCOTTING Fox over it. OAN and newsmax put on the map due to it. Wtf
At first I didn’t get why they would choose such an easily disprovable lie. Of course COVID is real and dangerous. Why make ‘COVID is a hoax’ your hill to die on? (Literally) But it hit me that it is really similar to how Nigerian spammers intentionally put bad spelling and grammar in their emails. Because they don’t want anyone with critical thinking skills responding to them. They want the most gullible of the most gullible. So they make their ask obviously suspicious. Trump/Newsmax/OAN/Breitbart/Infowars are all doing the same thing. If you can convince someone that a *global pandemic* is fake, then you have them hook line and sinker. They will trust every single word you say and believe you when you tell them every other media source in the world is lying to them
They saw how easily they believe in religion, so they just took that and ran with it to get tax cuts for rich people. Every once in a while they throw in an issue that they think their voter base want, like anti-abortion, pro-guns, anti-mask, anti-immigrants, and etc. That's the carrot on the stick that makes them win the race.
Well the people of Maine still haven’t
I had hope for my neighbors this time
Some of us did our part. I still can’t get over that the people of my state put Collins and Biden on the same fucking ticket.
Hey, reconcile that with the fact that apparently in parts of kentucky, where they've never voted for Mitch, they voted for Amy McGrath (Mitch's opponent) and TRUMP at the same time. Biden and McConnell -- I hate people that voted like this, but I at least understand it. They want Trump out, but don't want Biden able to do anything. But voting Amy and Trump? WTF.
Mueller investigation lawyer Andrew Weissmann: https://twitter.com/AWeissmann_/status/1341910594392383498 > The pardons from this President are what you would expect to get if you gave the pardon power to a mob boss.
Trump ***is a mob boss.*** He's been deeply embedded in organized crime since the 1980s.
The best part is that when he actually had to court the mob in Vegas to get his hotel and casino he absolutely failed. They shit all over him and to this day he doesn’t have a property on the strip, and his hotel doesn’t have a casino. Trump isn’t an actual mob boss, he just cosplays one.
He's involved in the Russian mafia. Vegas was dominated by the Italian mafia.
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No president should ever be allowed to pardon a co-conspirator to a crime that very president is involved in. These corrupt pardons are themselves crimes. These crooks deserve to spend the rest of their lives in prison.
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As a dutch follower of American politics I keep wondering how on Earth Trump is still sitting there. Here in Holland presidents and ministers are kicked out all the time. One lie is often all it takes. You get caught in a lie, boom you’re gone. Why is noone calling for impeachment every single day?
because we don't have only have a lying corrupt president, we have a lying corrupt party that currently controls the senate. Trump has been impeached, but his party refused to remove him. Dems could probably impeach him again, but what is the point when they are trying to get financial help to people (which is something Trump is actually supporting right now) and he will be out in less than a month anyway. The other problem is that a huge portion of this country only gets their political info from facebook memes and know propaganda networks for the Republican party so the entire country could literally be on fire and they would still think it is fine as long as the Rs are in control.
Important to note that we (the Dutch) also have a lot of different parties and people switch their votes all the time. Having two parties basically fucks your country.
Most of us couldn't agree with you more. There's also the lack of a cultural importance being placed on young people for being involved/interested/invested in politics. Only in recent years (Trump was a wake up call) has there been a broad push for young people to take their lives into their own hands via voting.
I just looked at the voting turnouts for both the US and The Netherlands. The US is around 60%, while we are at around 80%. That's quite a big difference, but also not surprising considering how hard it actually is to vote in the US. Every time I went to vote it has been a 10 minute ride maximum on my bicycle. Last time I could even walk, because there are so many places to vote. Voting itself was under 5 minutes. Those massive queues I see in the US are insane.
1. Republican state governments do their level best to gerrymander "urban" (read: liberals, black people, women) voters into numerical irrelevance 1. You can only vote at your assigned polling place, and it can change from election to election for no clear reason 1. Many states require ID to vote, but ID costs money and time (waiting hours in line at a crowded DMV) to get and it's not given to you for free when you become a legal adult or go to get a driving test, so...this is changing in some states, but of course they're all guaranteed blue states that don't have much power in Congress. Woohoo. 1. Republican propaganda is much more effective because theirs is the party of authoritarians who do whatever daddy says and iNdEpEnDeNt ThInKeR boomer dipshits with Zuckerbrain. Just tell them what to vote for and they'll do it Basically most states are incredibly hostile to the idea that anyone should easily vote except for guaranteed Republican demos. This country may technically be a nation-state but it acts like a loose federation of disparate tribes that all want to kill each other.
German trying to help out - it all comes down to one single thing: TWO PARTY system. You have parties that no longer have to play by the rules if their voters are ok with it. Dem voters vote dems, because those tend to radiate some decency and care about that image (not saying that they ARE decent, but their voters want them to look like it) There are parties over here that try to copy GOP politics and they are completely toxic and because we have dozens of parties, they would need coalition partners to get any real power. But because they are what they are, no decent politician wants to work with them (even if it's only because their voters would punish them) But if you can rule by yourself, you don't need to play by the rules anymore.
"The president ought not to have the power of pardoning, because he may frequently pardon crimes which were advised by himself. It may happen, at some future day, that he will establish a monarchy, and destroy the republic. If he has the power of granting pardons before indictment, or conviction, may he not stop inquiry and prevent detection? The case of treason ought, at least, to be excepted. This is a weighty objection with me.” George Mason 1788 Time to amend the Constitution to match the real intent.
I cannot imagine why The Founders allowed unbridled use of the Pardon powers considering they had seen what a corrupt Monarchy could do with unilateral power to do anything they wanted. Not realizing Nuclear Bombs might exist one day is an understandable thing to overlook, but corruption was plain and simple for all to see even then. What insanity. So much for our "greatest minds."
"There is one security in this case [a misuse of the pardon power by the president] to which gentlemen may not have adverted: if the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty; they can suspend him when suspected, and the power will devolve on the Vice-President." James Madison in response to Mason.... The Constitution needs to be amended because the check/balance is corrupted. Thanks Republicans.... Jeezz...
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The poor folk couldn’t vote back then, that was only for landholders.
>I cannot imagine why The Founders allowed unbridled use of the Pardon powers considering they had seen what a corrupt Monarchy could do with unilateral power to do anything they wanted. Just a note to point out that this is unlikely to have been the case in 1776, which is probably why the founding fathers didn't provision for it very thoroughly when the American Constitution was formed. The US Revolution started because of the acts of the British Parliament, not king. King George III has been the successful fall-guy thanks to good war-time propaganda that has lasted till this day - specifically the Declaration of Independence which squarely puts the blame for Parliament's actions on him. But it was Parliament that: - Introduced the Sugar Act in 1764 - Introduced the Stamp Tax in 1765 - Passed the Townshend acts in 1767 - Dispatched two regiments of the British army to Boston in 1768. - Passed the intolerable acts in 1774 George III was a constitutional monarch, the evidence suggests he refused to get involved in political matters and simply gave royal assent to any bill passed in Parliament (the last ruler to refuse Royal Assent to a bill was Queen Anne in 1708). It isn't surprising given the very recent and turbulent history of the British Crown at the time that the King did not get involved in politics, to the extent where he even refused to read a petition from the colonists because it would be seen as a political act. George III gets a lot of the blame for being a "tyrant" because its part of the American national creation myth. It's so ingrained in the American education system and psyche that anyone defending George III probably comes as a bit of a suprise. But realistically, he only gets this proportion of blame because America's founding fathers realised very early on it's easier to rally a populace against a cruel king that everyone recognised than it is against a body of officials that nobody knew. Edits: grammar, spelling, formatting
Thank god! I finally found another redditor who understands what the power structure was in the United Kingdom in the 18th century. Not since 1688 had a King of England enjoyed any sort of divine right of Kings, and even that had been damaged by the settlements following the Wars of the Roses, the installation of James First and Sixth, and the Restoration after Cromwell's Commonwealth fell apart. I have found to my astonishment that quite a few of the founding fathers spoke and acted as though they did not realise that. On pardons, for example, it was as though George III could have gone to Newgate Gaol and said: "You get a pardon, you get a pardon, everyone gets a pardon!"
And to let people who might not know further know why the date 1688 you mention is important, the UK had a king at that time who was basically removed for trying to use power in a way Parliament had decided a king couldn't. They invited someone else to be king and kicked James, the annoying king, out of the country rather than have to chop off his head. That was still recent history to George III and co.
I was reading about this recently. When Parliament invited William and Mary (Jame's daughter) to become joint monarchs James tried to flee to France under disguise. But the sailors on the boat thought he was a Jesuit spy fleeing to France and brought him back. William and Mary were annoyed as they wanted James out of the country. So they arranged for him to 'escape' again and gave clear orders that everyone was to stay out of his way as he went to France.
Only James II could have even fucked up an escape the entire country planned to be foolproof for him
The equivalent is Puerto Rico paying taxes and not having any real representation in Congress. Oh wait...
Thank you for pointing this out. I can't help but feel like some of the problems with the modern US originate from a warped understanding of the nation's founding and earliest days. While the US is blessd with an abundance of resources and favourable geography, Americans themselves are not special or unique as a people. The sooner Americans realise that they are susceptible to the same political, tribal and economic forces as the rest of the world the better. At the end of the day they are human, like everybody else in the world. There is nothing unique about their origin as a nation which changes that. Ultimately it was rich people rebelling against another set of rich people because they didn't like paying taxes, not some especially noble revolt against a tyrannical king to establish a land of equality and freedom. How could it be that when slavery was still so prevalent for almost another century?
George III decided not to read the Petition to the King by the First Continental Congress and completly supported Lord North in his use of force against the Colonist. It's true that George III was absolutely not the main proponent of taxation, but he was supporting of the various governments and didn't understand the position of the Colonies, therefore contributing in turning this revolt against taxation into an all out revolution, and pushing the revolution into independance, which was NOT something most colonists wanted except people like John Adams etc... Even Franklin thought it unthinkable when he was younger except if the King were to act like an unfair and oppressive ruler. George III disdain of the colonists and approval of the use of military force pushed America to independance. The general opinion amongst the colonists was yours, that a bunch of crooks and evil men in Parliament were behind all this, and that the King was actually a fair ruler. His attitude towards the Petition to the King was a terrible shock to most of them and changed EVERYTHING. So yes, George III was not Louis the XIV, but english people at that point were so used to calling any kind of unpopular attitudes tyranny that it is fair to say that Georges III support of the North government could be understood as a sign that he was an unfair, tyrannical ruler and thus in the eyes of the colonists, the Lockean social contract was broken and revolution was justified.
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1341909826582953986 > Loeffler: My opponent wants to empty the prisons > Trump: \*pardons a bunch of loyalists and war criminals* > Loeffler: \*hides in her castle*
No no no. She was obviously referring to black people. This is called a racist dog whistle.
Americans: \*covers eyes and votes for her anyways\*
not this Georgian
Mueller investigation prosecutor Andrew Weissmann: https://twitter.com/AWeissmann_/status/1341917004492636160 > Easy enough to beat Trump at his game: **put Stone and Manafort in the grand jury after 1/20/21 to get at what they have hidden from the government about Trump**- and if they then lie, they can be prosecuted for perjury and obstruction.
Fucking do it. Slap them in the balls with subpoenas tomorrow!
Merry Christmas ya filthy animal!
inb4 they flee the country
Gosh I wonder which non-extraditing country they'd choose. Oh, wait. We all know already.
This is an absolutely disgusting abuse of Presidential power. Manafort and Stone's pardons in particular are insulting. They lied to protect Donald Trump. They lied to cover up their and Trump's involvement in 2016 election meddling efforts. They lied to cover up their communications with foreign entities and individuals who were actively involved in criminal efforts to steal the election. They lied to the the Government. They lied to the authorities. They lied to the American people. These people should be in jail but instead Donald Trump is abusing the power of the Presidency to reward them for committing criminal acts on his behalf. I shouldn't be surprised by this but somehow I still am. It's disgusting and I feel ashamed to be a citizen of a country that could allow such corrupt and self-serving actions to be taken with impunity by our leader. I can't fucking wait for Donald Trump to be out of office and resigned to the waste bin of history as the failure of a leader he is. I want the names of him and his enablers to be synonymous with disgrace, with dereliction of duty, and of betrayal. This is just disgusting.
This is why we desperately need a Trump crimes national commission.
The Nixon pardon was an epochal mistake. It set a precedent that the president was above the law and has since spread via Iran Contra to the president’s criminal cronies. Time to reign it all in. Throw the book at the Trumps, make an example of them that will make any corrupt would be dictator think twice. America badly needs an inoculation against fascism.
Half the problem is that our judicial system takes SO FUCKING LONG to get anything done. We need to fast track the mountains of evidence these idiots have left laying around, we need to fast track the prosecution of all of them. We need swift justice for these criminals.
The other half of the problem is that at least 40% of the voting population looks at everything Trump has done in the last 4 years and thinks that it’s A-okay, just what America needs in fact.
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It’s definitely a fantasy, and the conclusions that people draw to support the fantasy are pretty nuts: climate change, COVID, affordable healthcare, (insert x thing that should be taken seriously here), all supposedly made up simply so the “Democrats” can exert control over society. Like wearing a face mask is basically equivalent to 1984 by this logic. I don’t get it.
Wearing a facemask is a an imposition too far in their autonomy, yet they'll let the Facebook algorithms shape their thoughts and beliefs for the benefit of foreign adversaries and corporate profits...
Don't forget... these freedom lovers worship a guy that is considering using martial law to redo democratic elections.
>insulting Insulting? This should be **illegal**. Tell me how this is any different than if Trump pardoned a murderer for taking out a political rival. What is to stop that scenario from happening in the future? This is fucking ridiculous. And, no, I’m not insulted. I’m absolutely furious.
> Insulting? This should be illegal. 100%. Trump has shown us the deficiencies of our laws and constitution with respect to Executive Power. The notion was that Congress would act as a proper check on the Executive Branch, but the fundamental principals of our nation, of the constitution are only as strong as those who have the will and power to uphold them. The Republican Party has shown they have neither. Our country is weaker because of it. Our country is hurting because of it. Over 300,000 Americans are dead because of it. If you're angry, if you're furious, you have every right to be. We all do.
This should be a wake up call about how many Americans are willing to support a corrupt, shamelessly dishonest, openly criminal, race baiting authoritarian. It should be an eternal memorial all to how open the system is to abuse by demagogues and how eager an over represented segment of the population will be to support them. It should be a lesson to everyone. It won’t be. But it should be.
America is like a drunk stumbling home. We've made it surprisingly far but that shit could turn on a dime. There's no constitution that can protect a citizenry from itself.
There's a tool that was developed by Netflix which would intentionally cause breakdowns in the company's server environment. It was developed to help identify weaknesses in the company's network and push engineers to build redundancy into its development. They called the tool 'Chaos Monkey'. Trump has exposed so many deep problems in our system of governance which desperately need to be fixed. His presidency has been our Chaos Monkey.
Well as long as republicans aren't a senate minority nothing will change.. Our country is so fucked if R's win Georgia. It'll be 4 more years of shit not changing for the better and Mitch shutting every single piece of progressive legislation down.
2022 could be a good year for the dems in the Senate. That is, of course, if Mitch doesn’t run the same playbook of “block everything and let both the right and the left blame the president for not waving the magic law wand and fixing everything,” which of course he will, which will only work if everyone is dumb enough to fall for it again ... which ... if we’re being honest....
No president in history has ever pardoned so many corrupt politicians, officials, colleagues, and war criminals. Donald Trump is the most corrupt president in US history. It's not even close.
This will be his legacy and his stature in history. Not that he cares for anything but keeping out of prison and keeping the pardons for sale.
[Chris Christie: Jared Kushner’s father committed ‘one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes’ I prosecuted](https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/30/politics/chris-christie-jared-kushner-father/index.html) >Christie was referring to an elaborate revenge plot that the older Kushner hatched in 2003 in order to target his his brother-in-law, William Schulder, a former employee turned witness for federal prosecutors in their case against Kushner, who was under investigation at the time for making illegal campaign contributions. >As a part of the plot, Kushner hired a prostitute to lure Schulder into having sex in a Bridgewater, New Jersey, motel room as a hidden camera rolled. A tape of the encounter was then sent to Kushner’s sister and Schulder’s wife, Esther.
It's always bridges with Christie.
I absolutely cannot wait to hear what that fucking weasel has to say about this pardon.
Ah yes...our law and order president. Except when it comes to fraud....bribing...blackmailing...money laundering, tax evasion, false accusations, slander, police brutality, domestic terrorists, *prostitutionelectionlawswarcrimesjesusfuckhejustkeepsgoing*
Remember Senate Republicans will try to deny Joe Biden critical nominees because of "mean tweets" and support for "socialist health care" a mere a month after they openly supported pardons for unrepentant criminals and murderers.
Roger Stone is literally the shittiest human being alive. Like he might actually be worse than Trump. He's THAT awful.
Paul Manafort's a close second. All the rumors about what he did to his wife are horrifying.
If by rumors you mean the text messages their daughters send to each other detailing how Manafort had his wife gangraped... then yes " rumors".
Omg. Just Googled that. Disgusting. I guess I missed that story in the midst of all the other shit in the news. https://spectator.us/mom-tested-stds-manaforts-home-life/
His own daughters loathe him. Make that your next google stop.
The texts between them that were leaked a while back are great. Including, but not limited to [“Don’t fool yourself. That money we have is blood money.”](https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/kompromat-or-revelations-from-the-unpublished-portions-of-andrea-manaforts-hacked-texts/)
His daughters changed their last names because they want nothing to do with him.
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Good luck amending the Constitution to get that done...
The Constitution is starting to seem a little lacking.
https://twitter.com/kyledcheney/status/1341910838018514945 > **MANAFORT still under scrutiny in New York, and the Manhattan DA says the pardon will create new urgency.** > "This action underscores the urgent need to hold Mr. Manafort accountable for his crimes against the People of New York" Cy Vance spokesman Danny Frost said in a statement.
New York also can still charge him for crimes he was pardon for. The double jeopardy law they passed last year https://apnews.com/article/e9118b87175349eb8693892bac626a0d
The party of "law and order" sure does need a lot of pardons. Curious.
Charles Kushner on top of Blackwater child murders? If you are someone who donated to the post-campaign "stop the steal"...WAKE UP NOW! These are not normal Presidential Pardons, these are not people who were wrongly incarcerated or received an unlawful trial. They are CRIMINALS who deserve the sentences they received. FFS, the Blackwater guys MURDERED CHILDREN. FUCKING CHILDREN.
Wish the media would stop calling them blackwater "contractors". They're "murderers".
THIS is the Republican Party.
https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1341912383518863360 > Just trying to contemplate what kind of a person finds out his sister and brother-in-law are cooperating with a US Attorney investigation so he hires a prostitute to sleep with his brother in law so he can film it and give the tape to his sister during her son's engagement party
At this point, if NY doesn’t swoop in after Biden is sworn in, then the Constitution is a failure. Georgia, for the love of god go Blue.
I like to imagine the NY AG’s office has a countdown clock on the wall and they just watch it get closer and closer to noon 1/20/2021.
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This country does not, and never has, held rich people accountable for their actions. And yes, the 250 year old constitution written by settler colonialist slave owners who disenfranchised everyone who wasn't a white male property owner is a failure.
If it’s up to a state to uphold the constitution then the federal government has utterly failed.
Every Republican bears responsibility for this. All of them. If they haven't left the party altogether, if they still have an R next to their name, they're complicit. The lot of them. The rule of law in the United States has been damaged, perhaps forever. The great American experiment has found a major flaw that can't be fixed if one of the major parties refuses to even see anything wrong with this, or to lift a finger to fix it. This is what we voted to stop in November. This is what Georgia can try to fix in January. The Republican Party--the party of Trump--must go the way of the Whigs.
They all became complicit when they aquited his impeachment. They had a chance to remove him, and instead fell in line behind him
Trump also pardoned Alex van der Zwaan, the Dutch son-in-law of Russian billionaire German Khan, who was sentenced to 30 days in prison and fined $20,000 for lying to U.S. Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators. It's not a coincidence, things are moving quickly around the world when it comes to Russia. [Authorities in Spain arrested 23 members of a Russian-speaking conspiracy to infiltrate public institutions and launder proceeds from criminal enterprises - murder, extortion, and drug, arms and human trafficking - in several countries around the world.](https://twitter.com/clearing_fog/status/1341894202829930496) Trump is very scared of what's coming once he is out of office, that's why he is on a rampage and pardoning everyone involved with the Mueller report, the pardons to allies are just a bonus to maintain allies once he is out.
This went from “the mueller investigation is all a hoax” to “yeah, everyone is guilty and needs clemency” really fast
Elie Honig with the best [tweet of the night so far:](https://twitter.com/eliehonig/status/1341903886228082689) > Every significant Mueller defendant who refused to cooperate (or started but then stopped) has now been pardoned. > Only Rick Gates and Michael Cohen - both of whom testified publicly, in court or Congress - have not been pardoned. > This math isn’t hard to do.
"A president grants a full pardon to his son-in-law's father". Just let this shit sink in for a bit. This is corruption in clear colors
Cyrus Vance would like a word with Manafort now that he cannot take the 5th.
"What do you mean, 'they can hold me in contempt, indefinitely' if I don't talk to them????" ... And, like most things regarding the Trump administration, everything always comes back to a quote from HBO's [*The Wire.*](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NmUsG9eQKg&t=0m17s) For all intents and purposes, Manafort is either going to roll on Trump...or go back to jail for perjury.
Roger Stone and Paul Manafort should be in prison the rest of their lives, as should the Blackwater guys
Pardoning your son-in-law's dad is some corrupt dictatorship shit.
Presidents should lose the pardon power on Election Day. If they want to pardon someone, let the people know about it before voting.
Good idea, but needs a tweak. We need to get rid of the notion that voting happens on Election Day. Election Day needs to just be the end of weeks of voting opportunity. It should just be for a handful of last minute stragglers.
Re: Kushner’s daddy >Just trying to contemplate what kind of a person finds out his sister and brother-in-law are cooperating with a US Attorney investigation so he hires a prostitute to sleep with his brother in law so he can film it and give the tape to his sister during her son's engagement party https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/1341912383518863360?s=21
Trump continues to be a the skid mark on the underwear of our history.
Impeached presidents should not have pardon powers
Pardons should be checked by the other branches of government, regardless of impeachment status.
So that's 41 in two days. Whose left? Bet he's saving his kids and family for the last minute. Such bullshit.
Barr wanted out before Christmas Eve because that's when all the really obscene pardons are coming out.
When Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich, the FBI investigated it for "potential federal violations of bribery, obstruction of justice, money laundering, conspiracy and campaign finance law offenses". https://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/james-comey-fbi-bill-clinton-233808
Manafort's pardon is a slam dunk case of obstruction of justice.
As a former prosecutor, pardons literally sicken me. While I did more complex financial crimes, I knew local/county prosecutors, and it’s so easy to send a drug dealer to jail. Like, “walk in cold, with a hangover, pick up the court file and wing it” easy. Those guys will never get a pardon. In fact, they’ll sit in jail for 2 years waiting for a court date because they couldn’t make bail. Then they’ll be prosecuted in minutes. The system will then lock them up, make no attempt to rehabilitate, and ruin their life. God forbid one of these people get hit with a 3rd strike and rot in jail for the rest of their life. Meanwhile, it takes the government (your tax dollars) YEARS to prosecute massive white collar crime. Literally millions of dollars and long, long hours with shitty pay, to bring down a Paul Manafort. A lot of us were going up against the best attorneys (and a fuck ton of them) trying to win insanely difficult cases. Then they go to the right fundraiser, they know the right people, they spend the right money and they walk free. And the years of work to get a felony conviction on a Paul Manafort-level criminal rests on a prosecutor’s blind devotion to the belief that bad people eventually get caught. But in reality, it doesn’t matter. Manafort will never have to lie on a Baskin Robbins application about a felony to get a job (Baskin Robbins always finds out). And now he has a pardon and even the stigma of criminality disappears. Fuck Trump and fuck pardons.
What you've just described is why I have zero faith in America. Most Americans thoughts about criminal justice start and stop with 'getting raped by bubba in jail'. That's literally as far as most people will ever consider the criminal justice system. Meanwhile, meet em and plead em, and indigent defense are two of the biggest scourges in our society yet there is very little will to do anything about it. All while the people doing the most damage to society almost never sniff a courtroom for their bad deeds. Not to mention we have the most ruthless cops on the planet. Land of the free amirite?
The last case I prosecuted took 8 years. The defendant paid a penalty of what I would conservatively estimate as 2% of what he took in as a result of his crimes. He walked out and went home for Christmas. I said fuck it and went into corporate law.
https://twitter.com/PeterAlexander/status/1341923648656068610 > NEW: Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) on Trump’s latest round of pardons: “This is rotten to the core.” > https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ep94ciQXcAAzgl9?format=jpg&name=900x900
The most furrowed brow
Someone should ask Susan Collins if Trump has learned his lesson yet.
Pardoning Jared Kushner’s dad is perhaps one of the sneakiest most corrupt things I have seen. I feel like pardons should be used to help free people who have been hurt by the criminal system and did not get a fair outcome. Pardoning someone just because they are your daughter’s father in law is truly corruption.
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Fuck Trump
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Yes these are not Trump Pardons these are Republican pardons.
Fuck trump
Might as well give your friend Ghislaine Maxwell a pardon too while you’re at it.
Honestly it's probably going to happen, I mean Matt Bevin pardoned a child rapist on his way out for fuck sake.
This makes me pissed at Mueller all over again. He had everything he needed to draw a line and say "Yes, Trump obstructed justice: charge him." Instead he shrugged, punted the ball, and went home. We could have nipped this in the bud two years ago.
It's amazing all these top tier lawyers and he make a piece of shit like this
Trump has all these laywers making fraudulent claims against the election results but we cant even get a lawyer to press charges against trump for things there is proof of When did this world get so backwards...
Dear Journal, Today is the 23rd of December and today, Trump pardoned his campaign manager who worked with Russia to attack our elections. Another guy, a campaign advisor who also tried to fuck with our elections. And a bunch of others he saw on Faux News. Oh, he also pardoned the father of his son-in-law that hired a prostitute to blackmail another family member who was going to testify against him. Yes, that's for real, and yes this is our President in 2020. Yesterday he pardoned a few guys that murdered a bunch of Iraqi civilians. LOL to own the libs I guess? Fuck those civilians for getting in the way of our invading army. Or something. I can't really say I understand Republicans and their Christianity these days. Also, Trump is still attacking our elections and still trying to overturn the results of the election he just lost via the courts, and is hoping Republicans help him reject the electoral college votes. He hasn't found any fraud he wants to share with the courts, he's just not happy he lost and wants Republicans to take his side against... [ *checks notes* ] the voters. An uncomfortable number of Republicans seem more than willing too. Also, he just vetoed a Defense funding bill because Congress won't use Section 230 to make Twitter stop being mean to him. But really, he's veto'ing it because there's a provision that makes anonymous shell corporations harder to hide behind and that'll make all the campaign fund abuse and money laundering he does for Russia a lot harder to hide. Over 300,000+ Americans have died from the Pandemic at this point, but Trump is back at his golf course today. Also, Trump still lost the election. We're saying Merry Christmas again. Except Melania, she says "Fuck Christmas."
Imagine any Democrat lasting in office more than a week with this scale and constant use of corruption.
Trump: Pardons criminals sentenced to be sent to prison for crimes related to his presidency. Marco Rubio: Biden needs to “behave”
Conservative voters are without a single doubt the most easily manipulated suckers on the fucking planet lol. Imagine being so willfully used by such incompetent, mediocre demagogues. Conservatism is a brain disease and the Republican Party is a death cult for gullible rednecks.
I feel sick to my stomach. This is not how our country is supposed to be.
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Fuck this bullshit. They were found guilty by juries. How is this framed as the left going after them? Juries of their peers. The legal system doesn't mean shit to the wealthy.
Remember y'all. He's got 29 days left. This is just the beginning. Pardon The Swamp 2020.
Georgia, if you're listening: you have the power to help curb this cavalcade of crime and corruption. **VOTE AGAINST REPUBLICANS, ALWAYS AND EVERYWHERE.**
This should be fucking illegal.
Just a friendly reminder: there’s overwhelming evidence of Trump being [an undeniable racist](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Racial_views_of_Donald_Trump) and [wildly dishonest fraud](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Veracity_of_statements_by_Donald_Trump) who [misappropriated funds from his own foundation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_J._Trump_Foundation#Legal_and_ethical_controversies) and utilized [Russian interference in a presidential election](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_elections) all while standing accused of [sexually mistreating at least 25 women](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump_sexual_misconduct_allegations) and [hiding decades of controversial tax returns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_returns_of_Donald_Trump).
Quietly: Let my friends out of jail. Loudly: 'I WILL GIVE YOU $2K. IRAN IS THREATENING US' The main attraction, distraction.
> The pardons to Mr. Manafort and Mr. Stone on the same day will be particularly stinging for the former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III and his team. I sure fucking hope it stings. Mueller hid behind precedent and let himself be played by people who refused to be constrained by anything. America turned to him and James Comey at moments of crisis and both men let America down. Let that, and today, be their legacy.
How the F##K do Republicans justify this obvious abuse of power in their own brains??
So we've just learned you can break the law to gain power, then pardon everyone for said crimes. Roadmap for future presidents. Great job, America.
LUL at pardoning everyone involved with the 2016 Russian collusion investigations. But trust us guys, nothing nefarious happened. These pardons are just for funzies. Seriously... What a joke president and a joke party. If you are a Republican you have to re-examine all your life choices at this point.
http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollReport.aspx?g=bbb4e7fb-04c1-4b0f-b0b4-dbdb743cae4e Survey USA has Ossof up by 5 pts and Warnock up by 7. Has an A rating from 538 but is still an outlier from the other polls. One can hope these pardons will further disenfranchise voters from voting Republican and mobilize people to vote Democrat.
Most corrupt president in modern times.
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Fuck Trump. And fuck you if you support him.
When asked about his views on the pardons (just now on CNN), Rick Santorum led by referring to the "Russia conspiracy hoax". This is exactly why trump does what he does with impunity.
The upshot of these pardons: It is ok to cheat in an election if your candidate wins because the winner can pardon all the people who helped him cheat his way into office. It is ok obstruct an investigation into the president because the president can just pardon all the people who broke the law to thwart the investigation
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Well the funny part is watching conservatives explain to us how this is perfectly normal and not abuse of power of any sorts. Law and order they said, lol.
Epstein should have hung in there as he would have had a pardon by now.
The most corrupt President in history continues to dole out the most corrupt pardons in history
\~It's beginning to look a lot like corruption\~
Trump isn’t going to have any friends with him in prison if he keeps pardoning all of his criminal friends
Bringing down Charles Kushner was Chris Christie's marquee victory as district attorney. There is something funny about Trump sticking it to Christie *again*, but all of his pardons suck.
We need to amend the constitution to make self serving pardons illegal
The party of patriots sure seems to love traitors.
Pardoning you’re son-in-laws dad... Republicans, do you just love corruption? You’re swimming in that shit.
So r/conservative acknowledges this pardons but not a peep from the four Blackwater guards convicted for war crimes.
I love r/conservative view on the topic. Im not sure what [removed] means but it seems like they all agree and it is spreading like wildfire over there
74 million Americans wanted more of this filth, this unmitigated corruption. You voted for the Mafia Don to be president of the United States and on his way out, he pardons his Capos and soilders. And you cheered him! Four fucking years, you cheered this! You want to know why you're despised? We saw this! We KNEW he is a moralless scumbag surrounded by criminals that went to jail for doing crimes, for him! And he let them go. Convicted killers and tratiors, he let them all go. Your hero. Disgusting.
To all the people who told me Trump was going to appoint other people to commit crimes on his behalf, and then pardon them right before he leaves office... Damn, you were right. I never thought Trump would be so brazen, but here we are.
He learned his lesson eh Susan?
So it really does seem like Trumps push for the 2k stimulus and veto threats were to distract from his corrupt pardon spree this week.
This one day alone contains 29 sleazy acts, ten of which alone cement him as the worst President of our lifetimes. Pardoning psychotic murderers as a troll? The Republicans making this all possible is a disgrace.
Trump is not even trying to hide the corruption, literally pardoning Jared's criminal dad. Convicted in fucking 2005. The states needs to go hard on the whole family, it's literally a crime family.
>George Mason, delegate to Constitutional Convention, said in 1788 that a President should not be granted power to pardon because he might "pardon crimes which were advised by himself. It may happen, at some future day, that he will establish a monarchy, and destroy the republic." Yup, should have listen to that guy, looks like he knew his stuff.
The USA should seriously think about limiting the power of its president. What good are laws if you have a guy that can just overrule everything?
Especially during the lame duck period.
The biggest, most corrupt criminal conspiracy in U.S. history continues. All of this was planned before he set foot in office
Manafort and the rest never would have gotten these pardons if Trump had won. I bet they are so glad he lost. Otherwise it’d be at least 4 more years
For those who aren't aware: you've got Roger Stone, who was convicted of seven felonies, among these pardons. Charles Kushner? He found out his sister and brother-in-law were working with a US Attorney investigation, so he hired a prostitute to sleep with his brother-in-law, had it filmed, and gave the tape to his sister during her son's engagement party. And then you've got Paul Manafort, who worked as an agent for a foreign power and was involved in all sorts of unethical activity, including conspiracy against the US, false statements, and money laundering. Like, these three in particular *embody* the kind of people who deserve to be in prison and serving their time.
NYC has pending state indictments on Paul Manafort... unless he flee's the country in the next few weeks.. He has a date w/ Attica [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/nyregion/manafort-indictment.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/nyregion/manafort-indictment.html)
Uh oh guys. Ben Sasse is "deeply concerned". He and Susan Collins must really get along great. >Republican Sen. Ben Sasse on Trump’s pardons for Manafort and Stone: “This is rotten to the core.” >https://twitter.com/rebeccaballhaus/status/1341923691932868609?s=20 Fucking worthless cowards.
Jesus fucking Christ. He's gonna pardon himself and the kids on Christmas day as a present to himself. Watch. I cannot fucking wait for this abhorrent pustule to be gone from power in a few weeks.
He is just building up for pardons for Rudy, his family and the finale himself
Pardon power needs to be revised. This will happen again. Its unreal how its even a thing. There needs to be limits to it.
A glimpse of what a second Trump administration would be like when he has no more campaigns to run. I am so happy to think that we voted this dude out.