So he's using the word "liars" without knowing if people are lying. It makes me want to just call him a liar and be done with it. If the aides were using the autopen somewhere outside of his presence, how would he necessarily know what they were doing? He's saying trust me — trust me or else I'll call you a liar.
The article continues: "'I made every decision,' Mr. Biden said in a phone interview on Thursday, asserting that he had his staff use an autopen replicating his signature on the clemency warrants because 'we’re talking about a whole lot of people.'"
How does he know he made every decision? We're not liars if we simply doubt that he had the mental capacity to know what was going on. What sort of decision-making was it? Am I a liar if I presume he did nothing more than rubber-stamp whatever was recommended by the staff? In that light, the autopen is irrelevant. It was "a whole lot of people" who were given clemency, and that's a reason to spare him the effort of wielding the pen, but it's also a reason to wonder if he knew much or anything about what he was doing.
How does he know he made every decision? We're not liars if we simply doubt that he had the mental capacity to know what was going on. What sort of decision-making was it? Am I a liar if I presume he did nothing more than rubber-stamp whatever was recommended by the staff? In that light, the autopen is irrelevant. It was "a whole lot of people" who were given clemency, and that's a reason to spare him the effort of wielding the pen, but it's also a reason to wonder if he knew much or anything about what he was doing.
At least we can say that he takes ownership now of the decisions that were made. And yet the reasons to take ownership after the fact are completely different from the reasons to make the decision in the first place.
By the way, Biden did hand-sign his full and unconditional pardon of his son Hunter. Note the tragic struggle over the inscription of the capital B:
Posts
96 comments:
Yeah, he's lying.
Now what?
That's the rub, isn't it. You know he's lying. I know he's lying. He knows he's lying. They know he's lying.
Now what?
Biden issued pardon guidelines, his aids took it from there. Biden had no clue who he pardoned beyond his inner circle.
No one is going to ever be able to prove that Biden didn't make 100% of the decisions that were signed by auto-pen. This really isn't a legal issue but a political one. I suppose it is possible to give Biden a list of orders auto-penned mixed with fake one and see if he knows which is which but it still wouldn't matter legally.
calling President Trump and other Republicans 'liars' for claiming his aides had used an autopen to do so without his authorization.
So his aides were lying too, when they admitted that they used the autopen without running the particular pardon past him?
How about someone asking why he chose the particular people to pardon?
It makes me want to just call him a liar and be done with it.
@Althouse, what’s preventing you? Please don’t try to tell us that you, of all people, are getting entangled in civility bullshit.
A phone interview? So the autopen acquired an AI voice … the machine is aliveQ
If JoeBiden didn't know what happened, then he can't be lying.
Joe Biden IS a liar. He lied about Trump constantly in the 2020 campaign. His lying (and plagarism) destroyed his first run for the Presidency. He's lied throughout his life about his educational achievements, his travels, his accomplishments and who he's known.
We know from his aides that Cabinet Heads couldn't meet with him without a list of prewritten questions and topics that were to be discussed. He didn't hold Cabinet meetings. He required pre-approved questions before press conferences.
Did the NYT's give him the questions for this interview in advance? Probably.
And there's no point in doing a detailed rebuttal. POTUS' arent supposed to limit their responsibilities to "Giving oral instructions". A President's personal signature indicates his approval and his knoweldge of the documents contents.
Althouse, as usual, is right on target. Given he's a liar, why should we believe him now?
The only recourse here is to make sure that an auto-pen can NOT EVER be used for official documents. If the arse isn't aware enough to sign each document, then they don't need a pardon.
"Now what?"
I think we all know that nothing can be done to revoke the actions taken. The most that can happen is to seek to bring the truth into the light, but I think even that will peter out.
There's nothing to be done about Biden's abuse of the autopen but I think going forward the use of the autopen should be tightened considerably if not outright banned. At the least, there should be written authorization required, and then why not just sign the bill? The only reason I see is if it needs to be signed immediately and the president is not in DC.
Oh and never put another democrat in power, their propaganda apparatus is too strong. As we have seen, we only get transparency and a questioning press when we have a republican in office.
Biden issued 773 pardons and 936 commutations during his term. Are we supposed to believe some aide told him the 1700 or so names, and Joe said "Yeah, give him a pardon", 1700 times. LOL.
How do we ever know if the President is in charge of the executive branch? At some level of detail, he can't possibly be doing the work?
In the case of Biden, the people around him could have invoked the 25th Amendment. That was the safeguard, and it was not used. We should try to find out why not.
There was also the next election, and that worked to drive him out of office, but only at the end of his term.
"@Althouse, what’s preventing you?"
I speak in my own voice.
“So he's using the word "liars" without knowing if people are lying. It makes me want to just call him a liar and be done with it.”
What’s holding you back is that then by your definition of lying, you’d be a liar too.
“Am I a liar if I presume he did nothing more than rubber-stamp whatever was recommended by the staff?“
Maybe, because his staff did the rubber stamping with the autopen. But presuming by itself would not make you a liar, in the absence of an assertion.
Yes, look at that signature. It is crystal clear why Biden used the autopen so much. He struggled to sign his own name and the staff didn't want the country to see that. It was part of the coverup.
"Tragic struggle"... Pardon me while I fucking puke. Biden deserves to be tortured to death in the most drawn out, painful method possible. Maybe force him to listen to the tape of speeches Obama gave Queen Elizabeth until he kills himself.
What am I not signing, Radar?
"How does he know he made every decision?" He can't. As the post implies, the fact that he says he did without realizing such a statement cannot be conclusive only confirms his cluelessness and therefore raises further doubt about the validity of the pardons.
I speak, therefore I think.
“It makes me want to just call him a liar and be done with it.”
In any conflict, a proportional measured response is required to prevent escalation. Here are some suggestions to match the current level of discourse:
- I’m rubber and you’re glue…
- It takes one to know one.
- I know you are, but what am I?
If you want to escalate, there is the Kirk maneuver:
- Well, a double dumbass on you!
There needs to be hard limits on autopen use. This is ridiculous. The autopen operator, Neera Tanden, said she did not often know who signed off on use of the fake signature.
Grok: She did not know who in Biden’s inner circle provided final approval for autopen use, as she followed an inherited system from previous administrations.
This is typical Dem Overton window BS. Previous admins didn’t use autopen for important docs such as pardons etc.
Neera Tanden is as rabid a partisan as you're going to find. That she was in control of the autopen is deeply disturbing.
So is he finally admitting he used his autopen on Tara Reade?
@Althouse, your comment at 10:28 doesn’t seem responsive, but the question was meant rhetorically. My apologies.
When I first heard that it was Tanden who was in control of the autopen my first thought was "well, of course she is". They picked someone without scruples.
I think it’s telling that the one pardon Biden actually signed was the one for Hunter. He couldn’t let there be any doubt about that one. He knew the autopen was being misused.
Ann Althouse said... "In the case of Biden, the people around him could have invoked the 25th Amendment."
That was never going to happen. Those "people around him" were in charge, drunk on power, and knew the legacy media was fully on board with the charade. And you know what? They did and will get away with it.
Yes, indeed Original Mike. Tanden is unscrupulous, a liar, a criminal and an enemy of the USofA.
Professor,
You wrote, "In the case of Biden, the people around him could have invoked the 25th Amendment. That was the safeguard, and it was not used. We should try to find out why not."
Biden would never have been removed that way. The VP and a majority of the cabinet would have to publicly say he was unfit. An act of political suicide. Then congress gets involved.
Never ever going to happen. Maybe if a president has a stroke, otherwise, not a chance.
Did the Auto-pen get to keep the payments made by the pardon seekers?
It's hard to see how limits on the autopen are going to be put into place, considering whose signature it is. I think the best we can achieve is to avoid electing senile or demented people to the office of the Presidency. The Biden presidency is a sterling case-in-point of how badly an electorate can fail itself, how imperfect the process is. Not an easy thing to improve upon, but it can be done.
He's saying trust me — trust me or else I'll call you a liar.
That's our Scranton Joe!
At least he left out the "dog-faced pony soldier," which is nice.
Biden issued 773 pardons and 936 commutations during his term. Are we supposed to believe some aide told him the 1700 or so names
At some point, Trump must have simply trusted that DoJ gave him a complete list of J6er’s to be pardoned. I doubt Trump could personally vouch for each one. Now, Trump’s order could be simpler “pardoned all those prosecuted related to being at the Capitol on January 6, 2021” then DoJ interpreted the rest.
I only make the point to clarify the problem, so as not to restrict the current or future Presidents.
That’s the real deal, Jack…and you’re lying dog-faced pony soldier if you say otherwise.
I'll see your autopen, and raise you a rubber stamp.
You don't have to name people. Jimmy Carter did a blanket pardon of Vietnam draft dodgers.
But it's sloppy as shit to delegate your pardon power to your aides and let them fill in the blanks. Especially as rich people like to buy pardons.
I'm a strong believer in the non-delegation doctrine. Congress can't make the President stronger than he is. Congress can't give the President law-making authority. That power rests with you, Congress.
Similarly, the president cannot delegate his pardon power to his wife, his son, his lying advisors, or whoever else was running the Biden administration. Only the president has authority to pardon people for federal crimes.
IIRC, Jimmy Carter pardoned all Vietnam Era draft dodgers. I assume he didn't personally sign a separate pardon for each affected individual.
More fundamentally, I don't see anything in Articles 1 or 2 of the Constitution that expressly indicates that presidential acts generally have to been SIGNED in order to take legal effect. The only exception is that the president has to sign a bill passed by Congress in order for it to become law (unless a presidential veto is overridden, of course).
Unless this has already been addressed by the Supreme Court, it seems to me that the only legal argument for a presidential signature requirement on pardons would be if the original understanding of an executive's or sovereign's pardon authority at the time of the Founding was that it HAD to be written and signed in order to take effect.
If there's no signature requirement for pardons and other presidential orders, is there nevertheless a competency requirement? I think that'd be a hard sell only because the 25th Amendment is the only constitutional mechanism that deals with a president's diminished capacity. It would seem that, in cases where there's reason to question a president's mental competency, the burden is on the VP, the Cabinet, and Congress to take advance steps to take away the president's powers.
Perhaps this experience with Biden warrants a constitutional amendment that would prevent potential fraud and abuse in the purported exercise presidential authority.
However, this was an unfortunate perfect storm in which not only was the president mentally incompetent, but also the people around him were so venal and so contemptuous of constitutional norms and our traditional civic values that they would exploit his mental incompetency for their own deranged partisan ends.
Phone interview?
Dana Carvey couldn't be reached for comment.
So basically there is no mechanism for verifying that POTUS has in fact reviewed and duly approved pardons? And now we have people involved who say that Biden did not personally pardon some of these individuals, and we're supposed to act like that's okay? The experts seem to agree the pardons can't be undone, but how do they prove they were ever appropriately granted? Even if the pardons end up standing, force them to reveal what was going on behind the scenes. Make them defend this in a court of law.
Follow up questions:
"OK, so you personally authorized each of the pardons and commutations?"
What was your reason for pardoning [X person]?"
I strongly suspect that the "10-minute interview" was very tightly controlled and limited (with the NYT's knowing consent) so as to simply derail/discredit the claims that Biden didn't authorize various autopen actions. Full stop.
"All the News That's Fit to Print."
We can't do much about what was done, but we can make changes for the future. I don't really care if an autopen is used, as long as the president approves each item it is used for.
Why can't they live stream the approval process? Have one person put forth the reason a pardon should be granted, have another say if there's any reasons not to. Have the president approve, deny or defer pending more information. I want more openness before the signature goes on.
the people around him could have invoked the 25th Amendment. That was the safeguard, and it was not used. We should try to find out why not.
It's possibly the cabinet had no idea how bad he had gotten. He only had one cabinet meeting in 2024. Months would go by, and nobody would be allowed to see him.
Obviously, the way you circumvent the 25th Amendment is by freezing out your cabinet.
Biden's tenure mirrors what happened during the Wilson administration. Wilson had a stroke, and his wife froze out his cabinet.
The 25th Amendment opens the door to a coup, without actually solving the problem of an incapacitated president who doesn't want to relinquish power.
Biden said that he had orally granted all the pardons and commutations
And the selector switch was set to semi-auto.
"Biden issued 773 pardons and 936 commutations during his term."
it would have been interesting, if the interviewer had asked the voice on the phone to NAME several of the people that Biden's autopen pardoned..
How many names would the voice have been able to name?
Joe Biden has consistently lied throughout his entire political career. You know how you can tell if he's lying?
His lips are moving.
Not a joke!
His well known sloth as President makes his claim physically impossible, much like his ability to tell the truth about anything. Just ask Cornpop, who kicked his ass that day way back in ancient times.
I have to expect that the Democrats will eventually run out of things to lie about, ways to violate the Constitution, and precedents to wipe their feet on.
Tell me something a Democrat has told the truth about in the last 8 years. I'll wait.
I believe him. After all, it was the best Biden ever, and F.U. if you can't handle the truth.
If he personally signed Hunter’s pardon and autopenned the bulk that, to me, means that he believed that a personal signature was more proper and safer for the recipient. Let the other less important pardonees suffer. Beiden is corrupt to the core.
I have to get 10 pages notarized to get a refi. Beiden pardons thousands with no chain of custody. This is how corruption thrives. We could have a blockchain for approval of these docs.
But we stumble through it all because every other way is worse. And we teach kids that there is justice, bulshit, there is no justice but there is always a final outcome, no matter how wrong.
There's nothing to be done about Biden's abuse of the autopen but I think going forward the use of the autopen should be tightened considerably if not outright banned. At the least, there should be written authorization required, and then why not just sign the bill? The only reason I see is if it needs to be signed immediately and the president is not in DC.
I'll one additional step. First opportunity that the president has, they need to include an addendum to the original that says I approve the use of autopen for this document, then have the real signature.
Of course with Biden, it would have been a case of Radar and Blake. where someone tells him sign here, initial here, etc. Biden would just do as he was told.
How do we ever know if the President is in charge of the executive branch? At some level of detail, he can't possibly be doing the work?
In the case of Biden, the people around him could have invoked the 25th Amendment. That was the safeguard, and it was not used. We should try to find out why not.
We already have evidence that the President is not in charge of the executive. The deep state is in charge. The DS ran Biden, and used his skinsuit to make it look legitimate. But when Trump is in charge, they use malicious compliance or file suit in friendly court.
The autopen is a constitutional issue--some things the president cannot delegate--and the supreme court needs to step in and set some ground rules. That is especially true now when we know that Biden issued general guidelines and not specific approvals.
Yancey Ward said...No one is going to ever be able to prove that Biden didn't make 100% of the decisions that were signed by auto-pen.
I thought that early on, but now we have that "impossible" proof. It seems to me this revelation flips the burden in specific instances--Biden had a right to the presumption that he signed the autopenned documents he said he signed, but he no longer has it. In which case, we are left with the opposite presumption--that Biden did not sign the autopenned documents. It's up to him to show he did.
There are logs. There are records.
Biden is a Quitter.
They just shook Joe and the he would say something like "Signs point to yes", "Reply hazy try again", or "You may rely on it"
Didn't Trump orally declassify documents?
As pointed out several times by me and others- there is no process for declassification by POTUS- and if the President says he declassified something, it's declassified. And if a former president in possession of "classified" documents, marked as such, who says he declassified them before leaving office, they're declassified- even if current POTUS declassified them.
Even if he's lying.
Same is true with theses pardons. Only a few differences. Anyone with any awareness knows Biden wasn't aware of most of them and is lying. Second- no court will even entertain the idea of issuing any search warrant or writ to try and determine otherwise. Whereas way too many costs did recognize and today continue to recognize a Trump exception to the Constitution and law. He can't do what he wants no matter the law and Constitution says and they can determine any act of his illegal if they so choose.
BTW, I utterly detest automiscorrect. Courts not costs. I find it far more difficult to post using my phone...
"First opportunity that the president has, they need to include an addendum to the original that says I approve the use of autopen for this document, then have the real signature."
That's what I mean. He needs to sign a document while he's in Timbuktu, or wherever he is, that says "I authorize the use of the Autopen to sign Bill #1234". He should do this BEFORE the Autopen can be used on that bill.
Are we willing to let Bondi change one of the people purportedly pardoned by autopen and let SCOTUS rule?
Random thoughts on the subject
Duty of Inquiry is correct. People keep talking about the 25th as if it is a remedy for a mentally incompetent but still sentient President. Read the entirety of Section 4, twice. It's not. It was designed to deal with a President who was *physically* incapacitated or missing but whose death had not occurred or been confirmed during a time when the need for National Command decisions on the release of nuclear weapons could be hours at best. Even then the attempt on Ronald Reagan's life resulted in utter chaos among top government officials.
Be careful going down the road of insisting the President has to be aware of the decisions made by every Executive Branch functionary.
Mass pardons of unnamed individuals go all the way back to George Washington's pardons for people involved in the Whiskey Rebellion. What distinguishes many of Biden's actions was giving preemptive pardons to many individuals for all Federal crimes possibly committed over broad time periods. Those have been, to this point, exceedingly rare and almost always involved individuals whose conduct had at least been investigated enough to provide a broad outline of what they might have been guilty of.
You know Biden is lying based on his typically exaggerated claim of "I made every decision". Every President knows he relies on the work of staff people in most situations. It's a red flag that Biden isn't crediting the research his staff obviously would have to have done to prepare documentation. He doesn't know what they did.
What am I signing, Radar?
If he didn't give his word as a Biden then all bets are off.
“Just ask Cornpop, who kicked his ass that day way back in ancient times.”
Yes, indeed… right after Joe submitted to having his leg hair stroked!
"Liars. I checked with/Jill.
There was no one named Otto in my administration."
We do not know and it has not been settled what exactly can be done about the blizzard of autopenned pardons. I'm willing to give the smart guys on Trump's team time to work out a plan. Face it, we've all been surprised at the depth and breadth of change effected so far.
President trump should have his team review all the Pardons and the grounds for them.
For those that look legit, are only for past conviction not prospective ones, he should issue new Pardons.
Hand sign them with witnesses. Make a short speech casting shade on autopen pardens and autopen in general. Say that this true, presidential signed pardon is to prevent some future president revoking the pabrandon pardon
Master troll level
John Henry , ha
The Autopen needs better messaging.
Senile nasty old man made every decison. You betcha. Pull my other leg.
Am I a liar if I presume he did nothing more than rubber-stamp whatever was recommended by the staff? In that light, the autopen is irrelevant.
I wouldn't have a problem if he were physically presented with the final list, flipped through it, received oral confirmation that the names on the list matched the criteria he had discussed, and then authorised use of the autopen. That's how it usually works -- people (including legislators) sign documents largely sight unseen in reliance on their staff and colleagues all the time, even if they shouldn't. And I also remember how, as a junior associate signing filings on behalf of partners or clients, some people would get irritated that I felt I needed their authorisation on the final text before I applied their signature. But I do attach significance to that process. Even in a case where, arguably, Biden did not consistently have the mental capacity to "sign off." Legally, he was the President, after all.
And it sure sounds like that wasn't the process, and there were substantive changes to the list in between receiving Biden's authorisation. Purportedly in accord with criteria they had discussed, but with no check back. And some total rando saying over email that he authorises use of the autopen.
The autopen should be reserved for Christmas cards and such. Every legal document should be personally signed by the president.
Suppose some aggressive prosecutor decides to indict someone (OTHER THAN HUNTER BIDEN) who received a Biden pardon, and the defendant moves to dismiss based on the pardon. What proof must the defendant present that he's been pardoned? Is the actual pardon document delivered to each pardonee, so he/she can display it to the court? Does the pardonee need to prove that the document is genuine? Could the judge rule that an autopenned document is invalid? If a federal district court judge can block a Presidential order to deport an illegal alien, can't a federal district court judge find that an autopenned Presidential pardon is invalid?
Can we have AI controller autopen? Or neuralinked?
Dogma and Pony Show said:
More fundamentally, I don't see anything in Articles 1 or 2 of the Constitution that expressly indicates that presidential acts generally have to been SIGNED in order to take legal effect.
**********************
Hypothetical: suppose a POTUS announces he has granted a pardon to every person in federal prison convicted of a non- violent federal offense. Several thousand people are thus pardoned.
Would you accept those pardons as "legal"? Even if they were only granted orally?
What if, the next day, the POTUS orally pardons ALL federal prisoners?
What are the limits to your position? Are there any?
"More fundamentally, I don't see anything in Articles 1 or 2 of the Constitution that expressly indicates that presidential acts generally have to been SIGNED in order to take legal effect."
Just thinking about this for a minute, when the Constitution was written, the ability to record the spoken word did not exist. Aside from a signed order, what might constitute evidence the president actually intended to approve a particular act?
Given the technological limitation noted above, someone saying "I heard the president say it" would not be sufficient, would it? So- what would be?
Effinayright, I think the mass pardons you describe in your hypothetical would probably not be deemed invalid merely because they were not written and signed, unless perhaps, as I said, it could be established that the pardon power as it was understood to exist under late 18th Century common law was intrinsically tied to its being signed.
Take another hypothetical: A president at a State of the Union address has a convicted federal convict in the gallery (say someone awaiting sentencing). He has that person stand up, and then before the entire joint session, the Justices of the Supreme Court, everyone else in the chamber, and the entire national TV audience, he announces that he is hereby pardoning the person. But there is no SIGNED pardon. The next week, the president dies. What argument could you make under the Constitution that the absence of a presidential signature means that the person was not in fact pardoned?
Understand, I think it'd be better if the Constitution specified that pardons and other official acts (besides bill-signings, already mentioned) had to be in writing and personally signed by the president. But it seems that the Founders just figured that this would be the practice that future presidents would naturally follow, rather than something that needed to be spelled out.
Mason G, perhaps it would be sufficient if the "someone" in your example was the Secretary of State or the AG, and they certified that the president said it. What if Lincoln told his cabinet on April 14, 1865, that he was pardoning Jefferson Davis, and literally said to Stanton et al, "In case something happens to me tonight at the theater, I hereby pardon Jeff Davis for any crimes he has committed against the United States." If Stanton later certified that this occurred, why wouldn't that be accepted as a valid pardon?
"If Stanton later certified that this occurred, why wouldn't that be accepted as a valid pardon?"
I don't know why not. But you'd still have to get the approval of all the district judges, wouldn't you?
Now what?
Now a prosecutor takes Fauci to Court, and when Fauci tries to pull out his pardon, the prosecutor makes the case that he does not HAVE a Presidential Pardon because it was granted by someone not the President.
And does it in a place where the judge will correctly rule that Fauci can be prosecuted, so the higher level courts can't duck the issue
The Biden years were like something out of Kafka or the last years of Chinese dynasty. Orders came from the castle, or palace, or Forbidden City, and no one was quite sure who gave them. Was it the Emperor? The Empress? A courtesan? A eunuch?
This wouldn't have been a big deal with a competent president. Advisors slip a few extra pardons under the autopen, and the president either lets them get away with it, or raises holy hell, or never finds out about it. With a mental incompetent ostensibly in charge, things are more complicated. If we were a working democracy or republic and had a working press, Biden would never have been nominated or elected or would have left office earlier.
When I signed documents in my jobs I would sign the authorities name then add /s and my name and title. I think this should be used and require a senate confirmed executive officer to sign and note their name and office.
We know he actually signed Hunter's pardon. But why that one? Perhaps the puppeteers, say (not that kind of) Doctor Jill, knew the auto pen without actual recorded direction might be successfully challenged. The actual pen in hand effort would protect Hunter....
He also was as sharp in his presidential years as he ever was. Now that, I believe, but it also saddens me that such elder abuse was allowed by his wife and entourage of powermad leftists.
"Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."
"In the case of Biden, the people around him could have invoked the 25th Amendment. That was the safeguard, and it was not used. We should try to find out why not."
Because they had to protect, as Governor Lepetomane put it, their phoney baloney jobs.
“The experts seem to agree the pardons can't be undone, but how do they prove they were ever appropriately granted? Even if the pardons end up standing, force them to reveal what was going on behind the scenes. Make them defend this in a court of law.”
That’s going to be interesting. Supposedly they have emails from Biden, himself, corroborating the criteria for pardons. Really? How do they know that they were from SLO Joe himself? Could he still type? At 10 pm? Come on - he was usually comatose at that time of day. They often put a Lid, or some such, on him sometime in the afternoon, by his last year. The idea that he would be alert and involved that late is ludicrous.
I suspect that it will be a fact issue, but little different than faced in a lot of White Collar criminal conspiracy cases. The way to attack this is to put those asserting the pardons on the defense. Just deny the possession of a valid pardon on the grounds that everyone (including the NYT) knows that these pardons were not Presidentially signed, but by Autopen, operated by WH staff. That puts the burden of proof on the party trying to assert the pardon to show that Slo Joe actually authorized the pardon, or that others were delegated that power. Start with someone in a Reddish state (like VA) with a less liberal Circuit Court over the trial court. Then, when the DC Circuit says that the pardons were just fine, you have a Circuit split, and likely SCOTUS intervention. Also, go after outliers, like Fauci, first, who have a lesser connection with those running the scam.
Unless you have evidence that Biden was not aware of the Pardons I don't see where this goes in court.
If you want to prove that Biden did not have the intention of Pardoning these people that is a steep mountain to climb. Biden will obviously testify he intended to pardon these people.
And that is all he has to do.
The path forward here politically is to accept the defeat in court but to highlight the obvious injustice of pardoning a mass murderer like Anthony Fauci and to make sure the consequences of a Potato President are obvious to the voters.
After the voter roles are cleared out of illegal voters Democrats will not be viable nationally and they will condense into little blue city shitholes that will serve as their own object lesson over time.
Bruce Hayden said...
“The experts seem to agree the pardons can't be undone, but how do they prove they were ever appropriately granted? Even if the pardons end up standing, force them to reveal what was going on behind the scenes. Make them defend this in a court of law.”
That’s going to be interesting. Supposedly they have emails from Biden, himself, corroborating the criteria for pardons. Really? How do they know that they were from SLO Joe himself?
I don't think the burden of proof is going to be on Biden or the politburo that used him.
You better have some witnesses and corroborating evidence that Joe Biden was not aware of the things being signed in his name.
Particularly with the Pardons Joe Biden merely had to have intent to pardon these people.
Even if he said "bring me a list of people I don't care who is on it so I can pardon them" that would be enough.
Now if you want to argue we should not elect someone with that kind of judgement I would agree with you. But all of that is well within his power.
Bruce Hayden said...
Supposedly they have emails from Biden, himself, corroborating the criteria for pardons.
Even if they do, so what?
Even if they do, so what?
"I personally give Joe Blow a Pardon." If he says that, Joe is Pardoned.
but they've all agreed he didn't say that.
And if he didn't say that, and didn't sign the Pardon himself, then HE hasn't granted the Pardon.
Most of the Pardons / commutations are ripe for a court challenge. Just make sure to do it in the 5th Circuit.
Surprised he didn't offer to fight the reporter.
"He struggled to sign his own name and the staff didn't want the country to see that. It was part of the coverup."
- Original Mike at 10:33
"This is typical Dem Overton window BS. Previous admins didn’t use autopen for important docs such as pardons etc."
- Breezy at 10:58
Joe Biden's signature sin has always been his pride and narcissism. Joe had to personally sign Hunter's pardon because that was important to him. Everything else, all pardoning co-conspirators, opening the border, closing Keystone, abandoning troops and allies in Afghanistan, were just the irritating parts of being President.
There is one concrete thing that can be done while the pardon outrage is fresh:
Start and complete the process of amending the Constitution to limit pardons to clearly defined crimes prosecuted by the federal government.
Short, simple, clear, definitive. Would end the practice of pre-emptive pardons.
“I don't think the burden of proof is going to be on Biden or the politburo that used him.”
Normally, it might not be an issue. But it is now well known that Biden, himself, didn’t actually approve of specific people to pardon. Because of this, the DOJ just has to deny the existence of a valid pardon. And the burden should fall on the party asserting the pardon to prove its validity.
“You better have some witnesses and corroborating evidence that Joe Biden was not aware of the things being signed in his name.”
Why would Biden have to be aware? He was aware of very little by then. What’s important was that documents, etc, were being created in his name.
“Particularly with the Pardons Joe Biden merely had to have intent to pardon these people.”
But how do they prove intent to pardon? Emails? They won’t be able to prove that he sent the emails, just that the emails were sent from his account. who else had access to his email account? Dr Jill? Hunter? We all know the answer to this - that by the end, Slo Joe wasn’t the one emailing from that account. Just as we know that he wasn’t the one engaged enough at 10 pm to make those decisions.
What’s going to be interesting to me are the Evidentiary issues. Much of what the parties trying to assert the pardons are going to have to use is Hearsay. Is it admissible? Normally, the answer would just be to put Biden on the stand. But they obviously can’t do that here. And any video of Biden saying that he authorized the pardons is problematic because there would be no opportunity for cross examination. Moreover, it’s likely that such a video would have been pieced together from pieces of a much longer video. Which means that the DOJ would be entitled to the entire video.
Post a Comment
Please use the comments forum to respond to the post. Don't fight with each other. Be substantive... or interesting... or funny. Comments should go up immediately... unless you're commenting on a post older than 2 days. Then you have to wait for us to moderate you through. It's also possible to get shunted into spam by the machine. We try to keep an eye on that and release the miscaught good stuff. We do delete some comments, but not for viewpoint... for bad faith.