Dump can pardon for federal things. But, just thinking out loud here, what if the state or county were to pin something on him?
Yeah, I’m a spiteful bastard sometimes.
With all the pardons Trump will need soon for his cronies, buddies, family, himself, there should be some sort of “bag limit” 
Does this pardon set up the precedent that the president of the United States can act above the Constitution? I mean, can a Democratic president encourage law enforcement to confiscate guns under cover of pardon?
As I said on another thread:
Trump said, via the White House: “after more than fifty years of admirable service to our Nation, he is worthy candidate for a Presidential pardon,”
Yeah, admirable service that had critical editors of the local press arrested and then released because the charges were stupid, for wasting time and state money with other stupid abuses of power, for doing racial profiling, abusing prisoners, for investigating the wife of the judge in his last trial.
Trump’s Bird of a feather indeed, no wonder Trump loves him. And as I pointed before: what Arpaio did in Arizona, Trump expects to do for America.
This, together with his defense of confederate monuments while Nazis act up, demonstrates how the defenders of Trump are just chumps or worse: that they do like what Trump is doing indeed.
We have entered the abyss.
Count me in among those who say that Trump not only can be impeached, he must be impeached if we are to save the United States as we have known it.
So has it already been hashed out if this is constitutional or not? Just because one guy says it doesn’t mean it is, but it does mean that apparently some kind of argument can be made.
The President pardoning federal crimes is not above the Constitution. It’s right there in it.
It’s Constitutional, technically speaking. But it’s wrong, and the letter of the Constitution’s text cannot prevent the consequences of bad judgment.
As Americans, we are taught to worship our Constitution as though it were some sort of bible or scripture, ignoring the fact that it already failed so badly that it resulted in a civil war. The Union’s victory allowed us to paper over the fact that the Constitution has many flaws that will be revealed unequivocally in a matter of time. I think that time is now just beginning.
Called it.
This pardon, albeit constitutional, was nonetheless a despicable act by Trump, and I believe enacted, at least partially, to send a message to a specific cohort of his base not to be too concerned about possible ramifications from illegally targeting or detaining ethnic minorities in the service of US immigration policy goals. In other words in Trump’s US the ends always justifies the means. Disgraceful.
Has anyone ever been pardoned for contempt of court before? That seems pretty damn unusual, since it’s a crime specifically about the authority of courts.
Didn’t say it wasn’t. Just that this sets up an interesting precedent for the president to go around the Constitution for anything he or she feels like. Feel free to make abortion illegal, because I’ll just pardon abortion providers when they defy judges orders. Second amendment is meaningless when we can just pardon sheriffs who decide to confiscate all the guns.
“Thank you @realdonaldtrump for seeing my conviction for what it is: a political witch hunt by holdovers in the Obama justice department!”
Doesn’t sound like he is accepting his guilt.
The Constitution isn’t some kind of magic bible. You can’t allow executives to violate just because there’s nothing in the Constitution that explicitly prevents them from doing so and expect there to be no consequences. Constitutions fail all the time. Democracies fail all the time. The American Constitution failed once before and it took the costliest war that Americans ever fought to rectify it. American democracy can still fail. We’re not that special.
Meh. On the scale of 1-10 of bad things Trump has done, this is like a 3 or 4 as far as I’m concerned. Arpaio is trash, but he is out of office and an 85 year old man that was excused from what would have probably been about a one month sentence. It’s a nasty, gristly bone to the more radical anti-immigrant side of his base, but ultimately not worth much more than a disgusted shrug.
Silver lining is that the Democrats should have no trouble turning out the Latino vote in Arizona for awhile.
Quite a bit of law is selectively enforced for political reasons. That’s the reality we live in.
As I keep pointing out in various threads, people like Trump or Joe don’t give a flying fuck whether you think they are guilty or not, as long as they are free and get to keep the money and/or power. IF Congress censured the Prez, he wouldn’t give it a moments notice-he already holds them in contempt.
But the presidential pardon requires a confession of guilt. He just declared that he’s not guilty. Can he go into a court and say he’s guilty to get his pardon if he just declared on twitter that he’s not guilty?
Of course that vote will probably be suppressed or thrown out for a while.
I think I’ve said it before: a majority of white America will have to reject the GOP/fascism/ conservatism.
This is the start of a hot Civil War. And I am ready.