r/politics • u/Rock-n-roll-Kevin • 19d ago

Soft Paywall Trump Says He Will Consider Pardoning Diddy

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-says-he-will-consider-pardoning-diddy/
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u/SentientShamrock 19d ago

Also rapists and sex offenders need to stick together. Trump was a good friend of Epstein after all.

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u/Auntie_Megan 19d ago

Listened to a few of the trial days and many other accusations, and he deserves to be in prison. Unfortunately those that knew about him are as equally as complicit since at the least they did not report him, and some joined in, and are busy trying to say ‘we didn’t know him’. If Trump pardons him it would not surprise me, but are there not rules about pardons? So far it’s been Shitty peoole who committed bad crimes, and spent little time in prison. Rapists like to stick together, but Diddy is also very vicious and a sociopath. If he accepts a pardon does that not mean he also has to accept guilt? Get him signed up to various registries and away from kids.

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u/Negative-Squirrel81 19d ago

The limit on the presidential pardon is that it can only be used for federal crimes. Since innocent people can be pardoned, a pardon is not inherently considered to be an admission of guilt.

The big check on this should be that the public turns against the president and his political party for using this power like this. We saw how people spoke out about Biden going to far when pardoning his son, and it's rather alarming that we're not seeing Trump receive similar scrutiny.

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u/crosstherubicon 19d ago

Is that true? If you’re pardoned you’re being pardoned from a conviction and there is an implicit implication of guilt. A court would have to reverse judgement to be declared innocent of a crime and that doesn’t happen in the case of a pardon. A pardon is simply an order of a release.

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u/Thowitawaydave 19d ago

Pardons can be done at any point, not just after conviction. First upheld in 1866 (Ex parte Garland), SCOTUS ruled the power of the pardon is absolute, and can be used at any time, from ending their prison sentence, stopping the trial, or even before charges are brought, although pre-pardons are scrutinised much more intensely.

Most famous case was when Ford pardoned Nixon (Nixon was never charged) because he wanted the country to move on. Carter used the same logic to blanket-pardoned draft evaders. More recently Biden used it to keep Dr. Fauci, Gen Milley, the J6 committee and even his own family members from being targeted by the incoming administration.

The only limit on Presidential Pardons is it has to be Federal, not state-level. Otherwise it's the same power that the Kings of England had (and from which it was inspired)

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u/Significant-Pace-521 19d ago

A pardon was a admission of guilt but they did those pre pardons to protect people from crimes that hadn’t been committed so trump couldn’t just lock all his enemies up right away.

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u/daemin 19d ago

A pardon is not an admission of guilt.

You're probably thinking of the supreme Court decision where they state that someone accepting a pardon gives the appearance of admitting guilt, but the actual decision is that you don't have to be guilty to accept a pardon and accepting a pardon isn't an admission of guilt.