Analysis by WorldTribune Staff, December 5, 2024 Real World News
Preemptive pardon fever is apparently spreading through the Swamp.
According to a Dec. 4 op-ed by Politico’s Jonathan Martin, the Biden White House in its waning days is considering pardons for Adam Schiff, Liz Cheney, and Anthony Fauci.
“Biden’s aides are deeply concerned about a range of current and former officials who could find themselves facing inquiries and even indictments, a sense of alarm which has only accelerated since Trump last weekend announced the appointment of Kash Patel to lead the FBI. Patel has publicly vowed to pursue Trump’s critics,” Martin writes.
“The White House officials, however, are carefully weighing the extraordinary step of handing out blanket pardons to those who’ve committed no crimes, both because it could suggest impropriety, only fueling Trump’s criticisms, and because those offered preemptive pardons may reject them.”
Blanket pardons for three individuals who have “committed no crimes”? Why?
Martin’s piece “might be the first of the era that needs to be read entirely between the lines,” Matt Taibbi wrote in his Dec. 5 Racket News blog. “White House officials are ‘carefully weighing’ preemptive pardons really means White House officials already decided, but are publicly floating the idea. Pardons for ‘those who’ve committed no crimes’ means those who’ve committed crimes.”
A pardon for Schiff would preemptively let the Congress member President-elect Donald Trump refers to as “pencil neck,” off the hook for pushing the phony Christopher Steele dossier that led to the Russiagate hoax.
Cheney, before losing her Wyoming House seat in humiliating fashion, was a key cog in the Select Committee which allegedly investigated J6. Trump has said that Cheney “should go to Jail along with the rest of the Unselect Committee!”
Fauci only played a key role in starting the Covid pandemic.
Taibbi noted: “If Anthony Fauci gets a ‘blanket’ pardon, he’ll wrap himself and sleep in it. Plan B was living under an assumed name in Argentina, dressed in the Anthony Hopkins vacation suit from Silence of the Lambs. Throughout the pandemic the NIAID head showed he was willing to do anything, from shuttering schools to lying to Congress to making private campaign stops at intelligence agencies to urge investigators off his path, to keep the ick of scandal off his person. He won’t reject squat.”
“It’s an attempt to move the goalposts one more time. But it won’t be the last time: There’s still (sigh) 47 days to go,” Scott Pinsker wrote for PJ Media.
It all started with Joe Biden’s granting a universal pardon to his son Hunter, who had been convicted of and was awaiting sentencing on gun and tax charges.
Breitbart’s senior senior legal contributor Ken Klukowski noted: “Understanding this growing scandal of Biden Family corruption requires understanding Hunter’s crimes as well as how presidential pardons work and how they don’t. Media stories have been hit-or-miss in explaining this scandal and have not yet discussed how this pardon could actually blow the doors open on every questionable event that involves anyone with the last name ‘Biden.’ ”
Presidential pardons do not cover state crimes.
Klukowski noted: “(Or at least the courts have never held that it does, and from a federalism standpoint it would likely violate state sovereignty if the president – a federal officer – could unilaterally overthrow a state prosecution of a private citizen.) Criminals often do not contain their lawless behavior to discrete categories. Depending on the statute of limitations for state crimes, it is possible – unlikely, but possible – that between Hunter’s drugs and prostitutes and guns and shady associates that state charges could be brought on something.
“For another – and this is a big one – Hunter can now be required to testify before Congress or in court. His sole defense against subpoenas thus far has been that he wanted to invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to say anything under oath that could incriminate him. Now that he cannot be charged for any federal crimes, he can no longer meet the legal threshold of showing a reasonable fear that answering questions would provide evidence that could be used in court to convict him of a crime.”
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Floated by the reliably helpful Politco: Preemptive pardons for Schiff, Cheney, Fauci added by Editor Two on
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