RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Trump and Rudy selling pardons at 2 million per...

inb4: "Rudy and Trump didn't know about this, this was a lone person", etc etc etc...

I’m sure those that helped Trump commit crimes got some type of discount.

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There was never a shred of truth to this. If there was, it would have been exposed by now. Trump didn't even give pardons to many he was expected to, and it sure wasn't pay-to-play, like, y'know, The Clinton Foundation... or Hunter Biden and "the big guy" Joe Biden. Where the Bidens got $10 million dollars alone (half going to "the big guy") just for introducing Chinese communist party oligarchs to federal officials in the Obama administration.

I saw a report comparing the sheer numbers pardoned by multiple presidents over the last 40 years at the end of their presidencies. Trump's were a few hundred. Bill Clinton and Obama both had in the neighborhood of 2,000 pardons, some of whom were clearly wealthy donors who paid Clinton off, or marxist cop-killers who would be odd picks for anyone but a Democrat Cultural Marxist to set free.

I wonder how much fatter Steve Bannon is going to get now that trump pardoned him. Or did he lose all that fraud money?

Until recently Steve Bannon had a show on Newsmax. I dont' dislike the guy, but much of his conspiracy theory borders on Alex Jones territory.

Well he’s now a trump pardoned fraudster that fleeced republicans.

No partisan emotion behind that comment at all.

At least Steve Bannon wasn't an FALN or Weathermen terrorist, or a military traitor who turned over thousands of documents to Wikileaks that betrayed our military.


Here's a lengthy history of the presidential pardon, going back to its inclusion in the Constitution in 1787, its purpose, the history of pardons through multiple presidents, and a far more fair comparison. As I recall, both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had quite a few controversial pardons.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/how-presidential-pardon-really-work

I was a bit surprised that W. Bush didn't pardon Scooter Libby (since he was doing a jail sentence for what Richard Armitage admitted HE was to one who inadvertantly revealed clues to reporter Robert Novak to the identity of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative, not Libby. Like so many convicted by Fitzgerald, Comey, Rosenstein and Mueller, he was jailed by a process crime and intimidated into taking a plea deal he should not have) . And I was glad when Trump did pardon Libby.

A list of Obama pardons, with links to pardons by W. Bush and Bill Clinton.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_granted_executive_clemency_by_Barack_Obama

And by Trump
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_granted_executive_clemency_by_Donald_Trump



Here's a critical perspective of Trump's pardons by Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley:
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/trump-list-pardons-jonathan-turley


I'd argue that Trump, not being a lawyer and being a famous person in media fishbowl his whole life, is more sympathetic to people who are similarly in the public spotlight, or people he knows personally. And not being a lawyer or career public official, Trump is less conscious of, and has less far-reaching vision of, any kind of overall message with the pardons he has given. Which Turley is critical of.


Two pardons not mentioned in either article that surprised me:

1) Gordon Liddy -pardoned by Jimmy Carter, he refused to make a deal, and was therefore given the maximum sentence. He served longer than any other convicted Watergate criminal , about 7 years. I once looked up all the names of those convicted in Watergate, most served about 18 months, some maybe 2 and a half or 3 years. Carter believed Liddy was disproportionately jailed, and pardoned him as a way to put the Watergate scandal behind the nation.

2) Alice Marie Johnson - who seems like a really kind person, who was drawn into a desperate situation where someone offered her easy money from drug trafficking to get out of it. It was a case that showed (against propaganda that Trump is a racist) Trump has an awareness and compassion for those, particularly in the black community, who are over-sentenced for crimes, and would benefit, and benefit society, by being given a second chance and having their sentences reduced. And the larger reform by Trump that has released tens of thousands who were similarly given mandatory overly long sentences disproportionate to their crimes. A move that many other presidents have virtue-signalled about, but never actually done, until Trump.