# Trump planning a bunch of pardons? **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 6, 2018, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547 "2018-06-06T15:27:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2018, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547/21 "2018-06-07T06:40:47Z")
> [@Mr.Bill](#): > > Can somebody tell me what Kim Kardashian has to be pardoned for? Not sure. Domestic terrorism, maybe? I understand she keeps [breaking the Internet.](https://www.cleveland.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2016/05/10_times_kim_kardashian_absolu.html) ---
**Author:** ![GoodOmens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@GoodOmens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GoodOmens)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2018, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547/22 "2018-06-07T10:01:48Z")
Next, he’ll be pardoning Kim Dotcom. Truth is, he just really likes the name “Kim.” ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2018, 10:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547/23 "2018-06-07T10:05:32Z")
He’s pardoning people in hopes that his stooges currently under investigation will refuse to cut a deal with Mueller and instead simply wait for a pardon. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2018, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547/24 "2018-06-07T12:42:56Z")
> [@pool](#): > > I notice you didn’t actually give any props to Trump, its ok man you can say he did something good, lol. If it was his own decision, the result of his own thought, I would have. But he just does whatever the last person he talked with said, especially if she’s hot. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2018, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547/25 "2018-06-07T20:15:42Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Trump commuted the sentence of Alice Johnson. > > [https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/06/politics/alice-marie-johnson-commuted-sentence/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/06/politics/alice-marie-johnson-commuted-sentence/index.html) I thought Trump wanted the death penalty for drug dealers. Now he’s pardoning them? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2018, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547/26 "2018-06-07T22:31:39Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > Give props to Kim Kardashian for making this happen, too. Yes, credit where due, whatever else you may think of her and our celebrity culture. Okay, I’ll concede that reality shows are now one and one on sending people to the White House. ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2018, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547/27 "2018-06-08T19:23:28Z")
How do you define a “bunch of pardons”? Is 3000 [enough](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-pardons/muhammad-ali-family-lawyer-to-trump-thanks-but-no-pardon-needed-idUSKCN1J41SR)? At the end of the linked article from Reuters… > [@](#): > > Trump said many of the 3,000 people he was considering for pardons were treated unfairly or given unfairly long sentences. I think the more interesting question might be “Will Trump pardon a Russian?”. Now that Manafort has a superseding indictment with a Russian co-defendant, wouldn’t it be hard to pardon one and not he other? ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2018, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547/28 "2018-06-08T20:32:19Z")
I think I also heard somewhere that pardoning is something Trump actually enjoys doing because it is one of the few presidential powers he can exercise unilaterally without getting Congressional approval or getting hung up in court. I suspect he also likes the whole Emperor Nero thumb up or thumb down, I hold you life in my hands, thing. ---
**Author:** ![Delicious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@Delicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delicious)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2018, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547/29 "2018-06-08T20:42:34Z")
[https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/qz.com/887420/obamas-presidential-pardons-edward-snowden-marcus-garvey-and-bowe-berdahl-havent-made-the-cut/amp/](https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/qz.com/887420/obamas-presidential-pardons-edward-snowden-marcus-garvey-and-bowe-berdahl-havent-made-the-cut/amp/) This says Obama did 212 pardons total…Trump’s is gonna be biglyer ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2018, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547/30 "2018-06-08T20:58:32Z")
I’m waiting for some investigative reporter to check into the financials of the people receiving pardons and seeing if anyone has made some recent donations to Trump. Not all of them obviously; I doubt Jack Johnson has made any recent “campaign contributions”. But a substantial amount of these pardons could be a smoke screen for the ones that were paid for. ---
**Author:** ![enipla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/54ee81/32.png) [@enipla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/enipla)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2018, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547/31 "2018-06-08T20:59:28Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > I think I also heard somewhere that pardoning is something Trump actually enjoys doing because it is one of the few presidential powers he can exercise unilaterally without getting Congressional approval or getting hung up in court. I suspect he also likes the whole Emperor Nero thumb up or thumb down, I hold you life in my hands, thing. And it makes at least one person like him. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2018, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547/32 "2018-06-08T21:00:03Z")
> [@jasg](#): > > How do you define a “bunch of pardons”? Is 3000 [enough](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-pardons/muhammad-ali-family-lawyer-to-trump-thanks-but-no-pardon-needed-idUSKCN1J41SR)? Even a thousand pardons would be like the punch line to a bad joke… ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2018, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547/33 "2018-06-08T21:40:34Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#): > > I think I also heard somewhere that pardoning is something Trump actually enjoys doing because it is one of the few presidential powers he can exercise unilaterally without getting Congressional approval or getting hung up in court. The same can be said of setting tariffs unilaterally because of “national security”. I can’t decide if this is expected behavior because of his business experience as the sole decider or if it is more like a toddler who has just mastered a new skill and won’t stop showing off with it. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2018, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547/34 "2018-06-08T21:49:43Z")
> [@jasg](#): > > How do you define a “bunch of pardons”? Is 3000 [enough](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-pardons/muhammad-ali-family-lawyer-to-trump-thanks-but-no-pardon-needed-idUSKCN1J41SR)? How many did Obama consider? How many has Trump actually pardoned to date? How do the rates compare? ---
**Author:** ![Deeg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/deeg/32/2955_2.png) [@Deeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deeg)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2018, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547/35 "2018-06-08T22:09:11Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > I thought Trump wanted the death penalty for drug dealers. Now he’s pardoning them? That’s actually a good point. Johnson isn’t claiming innocence, right? Just that the sentence was too long. How is Trump’s base handling this? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [June 8, 2018, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547/36 "2018-06-08T23:53:05Z")
Indeed: as mentioned earlier what Alice Johnson received was a _commutation_, \*\*not \*\*a pardon. It means that your \*sentence \*is \*reduced \*NOT that your conviction is lifted and record cleaned. It’s a “s/he has had enough already, lay off” decision. So the base seens to be taking it fine so far. Of course, Mr. Tremendous then floated posthumously pardoning Muhammad Ali, and the Ali family lawyer had to point out that his conviction was vacated on appeal by the Supreme Court so there is nothing to pardon. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2018, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547/37 "2018-06-09T00:16:53Z")
> [@pool](#): > > I notice you didn’t actually give any props to Trump, its ok man you can say he did something good, lol. Right; that’ll never happen. This gang is so predictable that if Trump walked on water, somebody (probably **ThelmaLou** ) would start a thread called “Trump Can’t Swim!” ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2018, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547/38 "2018-06-09T00:47:10Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > Right; that’ll never happen. This gang is so predictable that if Trump walked on water, somebody (probably **ThelmaLou** ) would start a thread called “Trump Can’t Swim!” To me the examples of good that he is doing in the pardon front are an attempt to hide the very rotten people that he has or will try to pardon next. It is like a riff of what Agatha Christie did in a Poirot mystery (“The ABC Murders”) where the killer actually framed a bloke to be captured and accused to be a serial killer, but his real target was almost lost in the noise that the killer produced. ---
**Author:** ![Delicious](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/dbc845/32.png) [@Delicious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Delicious)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2018, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547/39 "2018-06-09T00:54:58Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > How many did Obama consider? How many has Trump actually pardoned to date? How do the rates compare? The article I linked above says Obama received nearly 3400 requests for pardons. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2018, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547/40 "2018-06-09T01:01:23Z")
> [@Deeg](#): > > How is Trump’s base handling this? Trump could start dealing drugs and his base would only praise his skills as a businessman. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/trump-planning-a-bunch-of-pardons/815547.md?page=3)