I’m being a little facetious here, but…why can’t he? I understand that the DOJ office exists, and that there is a procedure in place that previous Presidents have used, but if the President grabs a napkin and a Sharpie and writes, “I, President Donald J Trump, hereby pardon Ivanka Trump for any and all potentially criminal acts carried out prior to today, Jan. 20, 2021,” and then signs it and hands it to the acting AG, or some other DOJ official, or tweets out a photo of it, would that not be a valid Presidential pardon?
You know, beside the fact that Trump couldn’t put that many words together himself. Maybe Ivanka writes it and he signs it.
That has been the typical process, but there’s no requirement that a pardon has to go through the Office of the Pardon Attorney. In fact, Trump has issued several pardons on his own without DOJ review or recommendation. The Constitution gives the power to pardon to the President, and doesn’t proscribe any particular process or format that it must take.
With Twitter being his primary outlet for unfiltered communications and commentary, is there a real possibility of this being taken away from him after 1/20? Because if that is the case, he will have to rely on Newsmax/OAN/Parler to get his messaging out, so the exposure he may have enjoyed will be severely curtailed (and limited to his most rabid base). The way he thrives on stirring shit up on Twitter, I can’t see the removal of his largest megaphone being anything but total castration.
Will Twitter finally be able to silence him - to take away the megaphone?
Short answer: yes, they can, and there’s a reasonable chance that they will.
The main reason he still has a Twitter account is that Twitter has a policy where they allow heads of state to violate their terms of service, under the thinking that people want to see what those leaders have to say. As of January 20th, Trump will no longer be shielded by that policy.
I would guess the answer is yes, the plane would return to Washington without him. As of noon on 1/20/21 he ceases to be President and would presumably no longer have access to government property for his personal use. This was the first thing I thought of when I saw this. He will still retain some SS protection but the pilots will no longer take orders from him.
Not a stretch to imagine there will be an “alternative inauguration” on Jan 20th. Trump may very well declare himself “the real, legitimate president in exile”.
Hostilities with Iran may escalate on the way outside the door.
Self-pardon for Trump and the Trumplings and Jared Kushner. I expect the scope will be fairly audacious… for any crimes committed during his presidency, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to broaden it to an even bigger timeframe.
In the theme of gross self-serving pardons, all high-profile enablers and causes celebre get pardons or other soft landings. Ghislaine Maxwell walks. Kyle Rittenhouse gets a pardon (he has no fed charges, but that’s not the point).
Trump doesn’t leave the country this year, but I’d give 8:1 he does leave in the next 4 years.
Needless to say, he’s finished doing his job after Wednesday (but what else is new).
Continued attempts to plant a Hunter Biden timebomb in the justice dept for Biden to juggle.
Oh yes, and more nutso lawsuits.
And I am 90% sure Biden doesn’t do jack shit about any of this. I predict the nutso lawsuits will continue for years, as they’re a great source of income for a man who may be about to lose it all.
I can see some tense conversations and moments on the airplane around this, between the crew of the plane and the Secret Service. Maybe Trump will find a way to escape while arguments are being made and just disappear (D.B. Cooper style) over the Atlantic.
Not terribly unlikely; minus the shredder and substituting appointments to federal office for pardons, wasn’t that (President signs orders at the end of his term but leaves them undelivered, subsequent President refrains from delivering them) the occurrence underlying Marbury v. Madison? Jefferson was a lot brighter than Trump but managed to screw it up.
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If Trump decides to skip off to Russia, are the S.S. agents assigned to him required to go along? What does it take to get agents assigned to a ex-Pres removed from that assignment?
I was thinking about one possible way to have his cake and eat it regarding a self pardon would be to announce a vague blanket pardon for “any actions taken in support of Trump by any member of his administration.” That way he could argue that he’s pardoning other people in his administration who will be targeted by the witchhunting Democrats, and that he had to be vague because he doesn’t know what charges they are going to invent or who they are going to target. But if worst comes to worst and he does get hauled in to federal court his lawyers could argue that since he is part of his own administration, the pardon covers himself as well.
I’ll give him this – he’s the only president who could keep people awake wondering whether the attempted coup is to be launched through the Electoral College or the Defense Department.
I’m sorry; I was working fast and had to go to a different project before I saw that the link was flawed. Just got back ( hours later) so thank you to Telemark, who fixed that.
A different article put a cheerful face on it, indicating that he was just going on a golf outing. This may well be the case.
But, given the rush to get enough fuel there to fully fuel that plane, isn’t it fun to speculate where a fully fueled 757 could fly to from there?
( This is for fun only )
“What is the flying radius of a president on a fully fueled Airforce One 757?”
“Well, is that a regular president or a treasonous president?”
“Well, I don’t know…”
< Whaaaaaaaa…! >
