As Ford later noted, Nixon by accepting that pardon effectively admitted his guilt. (See Burdick v US, 1915: A pardon carries an “imputation of guilt”, and accepting a pardon is “an admission of guilt”.)
Donald Trump, for his part, has certainly imputed guilt before now to Hillary Clinton; but Clinton, for her part, has not admitted it, and has no reason to, since the imputations are utterly baseless. You may or may not recall that even the latest (Nov. 6) Comey letter said the same.
IMO President Obama should preemptively pardon Clinton for any email-related matters. (I’m not as sure about Clinton Foundation related matters, since that’s not been as closely investigated.)
Ordinarily this would not be necessary, since there’s already been a decision to refrain from prosecution. But Trump has said he’s going to look into prosecuting her, and while I doubt if he’d really do it, you never know with that guy. And I think enough is enough. We already know enough about it as we need to. Make this go away.
Politically, Obama should refrain from doing this – it puts the “damage” on him. It’s extremely unlikely that such a prosecution would succeed, and I think it would politically backfire for Trump to go forward with it, so in terms of political motivations, Obama should hold off.
That’s just a judgement on the politics of it, though.
But I’ll admit that I’m far less confident in my instincts on political matters after this election’s results.
Thread in Elections.
Hadn’t seen it. Mods can close or merge if they see fit.
Meanwhile, I just saw this: Christie: Trump call to prosecute Hillary Clinton just politics.
So I guess calmer heads are prevailing.
Calling for the imprisonment of your political opponent during the campaign and then throwing up you hands and saying “just joking” is disgustingly corrosive.
Trump is on the way to break all his campaign promises before he even takes office.
I did not realize that accepting a pardon was an admission of guilt. Interesting.
I also mis-read the title, and thought you meant Obama, not Trump.
I have been thinking a pre-emptive pardon might be good thing. I’m sick of the witch hunt.
Moved and merged. Enjoy.
The thing is, though, that if it is a blanket pardon a-la Ford/Nixon, there’s an implicit recognition of guilt about something but the parties do not delve further into what.
I agree.
But we’re talking about Trump here.
Trump has the mentality and sophistication of a guy who calls in to a radio talk show to give his opinions about things.
Obama is a lame duck, and he (and probably Hillary Clinton) are never going to run for office again. Pardoning her isn’t going to hurt him, or her.
It wouldn’t succeed; you are correct.
It might backfire on Trump if he tries to prosecute, both because it wouldn’t (probably) find anything and because it looks vindictive. Pardoning her might come across as Obama saying “I don’t trust that bastard any further than I can throw him”. How much that would resonate with the public is hard to say. People like you and me might say “I don’t blame you”. Many Trump supporters might say “just another example of the Washington hoitie-toities getting away with shit” but it wouldn’t change their opinion of Obama or Clinton.
Regards,
Shodan
If the whole Trump zeitgeist is “fuck the elite and how they can get away with anything and I can’t” giving a pardon to Clinton would be like dousing a fire with LOX.
I was under the impression he had already walked the Muslim immigration ban back.
Like Sunny Daze, I did not realize there were legal reasons to say that a pardon was an admission of guilt. In light of that, no way no how should Obama pardon Hillary.
Regards,
Shodan
My point about damage was about legacy and to the party as a whole, not just Obama.
Utterly baseless overstates it. Comey said in his original statement “there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.” and “there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information”.
I’m curious, when a pardon is issued does the recipient have to actually formally accept it? If a pardon was issued and Hillary did indeed say “I don’t need your stinking pardon”, would her refusal have any legal effect?
The best thing for the country is to pardon her. Yes Obama would be somewhat tainting himself, with the implication he knew of wrongdoing and let’s assume he did not. Yes it would tend to taint HRC and we are all free to have our opinions how unlikely it is she really committed a crime (I see no likelihood of changed minds from debating it further). But it would positively put the issue away.
IM perhaps jaded O, the main reason it’s unlikely is not how ‘obvious’ it is HRC did nothing wrong. It’s the positive desire to set a political trap for Trump hoping he can’t let it go and he wastes political capital on it. Whether he could find Justice/FBI people to try to make the case, or even succeed, it would still be political capital not used to undo the Obama legacy. And HRC’s personal welfare isn’t probably actually high on Obama’s list of concerns after she failed to get elected and protect his legacy that way.
The political optics of Obama pardoning her vs Trump issuing the pardon are different enough that I don’t think it was quite right to merge these two threads. It also seems to have led to a bit of confusion amongst posters. Oh, well.
Absolutely not. She’s a war criminal on top whatever she did with those emails. I say hand her over to Iraq for waging terror on that country.
Uh, being a criminal isn’t usually a reason to deny someone a pardon. It’s often a prerequisite.