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PaperclipPerfector  13hr ago (text post)   2916 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 20, 2025

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Compare and contrast the operative text of these pardons (e.g.):

BE IT KNOWN, THAT THIS DAY, I, JOSEPH R. BIDEN, JR., PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, PURSUANT TO MY POWERS UNDER ARTICLE II, SECTION 2, CLAUSE 1, OF THE CONSTITUTION, HAVE GRANTED UNTO GENERAL MARK A. MILLEY A FULL AND UNCONDITIONAL PARDON FOR ANY OFFENSES against the United States, including but not limited to any offenses under the United States Code or the Uniform Code of Military Justice, which he may have committed or taken part in during the period from January l, 2014, through the date of this pardon arising from or in any manner related to his service as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army or Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

with the Nixon pardon, (from Ford's online Presidential library):

Now, THEREFORE, I, GERALD R. FORD, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, have granted and by these presents do grant a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9,1974.

So this looks like the standard form of pardon for pardoning a pattern of behaviour if you don't know what specific crimes it could be charged with. These pardons are actually narrower than the Nixon pardon, because they are restricted to acts taken in relation to specific offices held. (So if the Trump admin is determined to do that, they could go after Liz Cheyney for campaign finance violations or some other three felonies a day bullshit).

The argument about the political wisdom of the Nixon pardon is a pot-boiler, but AFAIK nobody has ever challenged its constitutional regularity.

In terms of the wisdom of this one, the Fauci pardon seems an obviously good idea - I don't know why the anti-lockdown movement has chosen to make criminal charges against Fauci it's preferred strategy for relitigating COVID, but Fauci didn't commit the substantive crimes - the lockdowns etc. were ordered by other people (mostly at State level). Prosecuting advisors based on technical disagreements over the quality of advice is a bad idea. Prosecuting advisors based on how other people used their scientific advice is a very, very bad idea if you want honest advice. This applies whether Pam Bondi can find a three felonies a day process crime he is actually guilty of or just uses meritless criminal investigations for process-is-the-punishment reasons.

The whole thing about prosecuting the members and staff of the Jan 6th committee is silly, including the pardon, but I think the pardon is reasonable given the Republicans started the silliness. A moron in a hurry can see that the business of the committee is protected from criminal prosecution by the Speech and Debate clause.

The pardon of the witnesses is mildly improper, given that the only crime it could plausibly cover is perjury, which is inexcusable. But no more so than the Iran-Contra or Scooter Libby pardons.

All in all, these seem fairly low down the list of bad pardons.

Re: The Fauci pardon, Congress instituted a ban on Gain of Function in research in 2014. Fauci's work with the CCP to circumvent this ban and the efforts of his office to conceal this work (not the lockdowns) is presumably what he is being pardoned for.

Fauci did a lot of bad things and some of them were criminal (eg perjury, attempt to get around FOIA, conspiracy to do the same). We can’t stop the next one if we can’t agree on what caused the first.

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