Donald Trump has been an unconventional president to say the least. This pattern has not stopped since he lost the election. This week, preemptive pardons for Ivanka, Don Jr., and Eric Trump, as well as Jared Kushner and Rudy Giuliani are being discussed. According to The New York Times, the sitting president is worried that Biden's justice department will seek retribution by targeting his children. This is very interesting in that a preemptive pardon suggests that his children, as well as Mr Giuliani who made a special appearance in Borat's latest movie, are guilty of something. One can only speculate what the trust funded children of a trust funded tax evading draft dodging nearly ex-president could be guilty of.
According to CNN, Donald Trump Jr. was under investigation for his Russian contacts, but was never charged. Jared Kushner provided false information about his foreign contacts when applying for his security clearance, but was pardoned by Trump. The president thinks he is being, or at least going to be unfairly targeted by his victorious opponent. This is somewhat ironic coming from the person who during the election was slandering Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden for his business dealings in Ukraine.
Personally, I think this is some sort of an admission of guilt. You don't need to be pardoned if you haven't done anything wrong. What do you think? What do you think Trump is guilty of? What do you think his children are guilty of? Do you think this is constitutional? Do you think this is morally correct? Please, leave your thoughts in the comments.
14 comments:
I definitely would not be surprised if Trump's kids were guilty of something. I cannot exactly give a concrete answer of what they are guilty of. I think it would probably do with the election for Donald Jr. Ivanka and Jared Kushner would be guilty of something relate to the running of the government as both are part of the trump administration. I definitely think that trump is attempting to restrict the damage coming to his family. If his kids are found guilty it could harm their ability to get jobs thus harming the trump name. It probably is constitutional but it leads the question why commit crime if only to be pardoned later.
The discussion that President Trump is having is very interesting. From what I understand, President Trump desires to preemptively pardon this group of people before they even commit a crime? It is definitely very odd that he wants to pardon them without distinguishing a specific thing that he is pardoning them for. I think that the timing of the pardon is very suspicious; however, it is hard to deem whether or not he thinks his children are guilty of something.
Trump's act of even discussing a preemptive presidential pardon for his family and Rudy Giuliani is not far from showing that they are guilty of something. I find it really interesting that he is even discussing this plan, especially since it puts him even more in a negative light to the public. The hypocrisy of his actions is embarrassing, and though I understand trying to protect one's family, I find that the extent to which he is trying to protect his children is very unnecessary if they are not guilty of anything.
I too wouldn't be surprised if Trump's kids were guilty or took part in something. That being said, I haven't thought about it enough to come to the conclusion of what it might be and I don't want to make speculative claims at the risk of speaking with uninformed biases. I do find it surprising though that Trump is already looking into ways to protect them because that tends to be a sign of guilt/admission that he/they did something wrong. Trump doesn't strike me as the person to make a preemptive legal move regarding things he has done, as he is pretty headstrong and often refuses to admit wrongdoings or agree with facts that he doesn't like (aka the election results). His kids must have had a pretty strong role in whatever he's concerned about to lead him to do something this uncharacteristic of his usual actions.
(disclaimer: this is based solely on my assumptions and views of Trump since there aren't a ton of facts out yet so it's opinionated and biased to my perceptions)
There is no reason to issue a preemptive pardon to someone who isn't guilty because it appears as an admission of guilt. If they aren't guilty of anything, then a preemptive pardon would just needlessly tarnish their reputations and create rumors. If the pardons are granted, it wouldn't make sense for them to not be guilty of something, especially because pardons aren't being discussed for all of Trump's children, but only a select few. If Trump is actually afraid that Biden's justice department will come after his innocent family as revenge, then why wouldn't he pardon all of his children instead of just 3? On the bright side, I saw the mention of the Biden administration to be a sign that Trump accepts that Biden will be the next president, even though he still refuses to formally concede.
After Trump pardoned Michael Flynn, I’m not surprised that Trump is issuing more pardons as we are entering the “lame duck” period of his presidency. He may as well make the most of his presidential powers for self benefit by pardoning people who are connected to him. It is corrupt but without the prospect of him having a second term in office, nothing is holding him accountable for his actions. I think Trump’s children are guilty of something. Preemptive pardons are constitutional, but whether Trump can pardon himself is another question in dispute that is circling around.
One pardon after another. Trump has wielded his powers in cases that resonate with him personally or for people who have a direct line to him through friends or family, which is morally wrong and unprofessional. With the numerous pardoning occurring at the White House, it is also interesting to see how the Trump administration is dominated by investigation and criminal prosecutions of people who have direct relationships with the president. This just further highlights his administration's guiltiness and makes me wonder how this criminal became the president of the United States.
In 2018, Trump tweeted “...why would I need [a pardon] when I have done nothing wrong.” In the tweet, Trump is agreeing with the opinion of everybody here — that a pardon is an admission of guilt. However, at this point, contradictions and being hypocritical means nothing to Trump. Things like this, and even more serious accounts of hypocrisy make no difference to Trump and his supporters. Technically, pardoning is constitutional. Even Hamilton wrote in Federalist 74 that pardons are a necessary part of the presidency. However, a sitting president pardoning himself is where the rules get a little unclear. Even one of Trump’s lawyers, Sidney Powell, who has made baseless claims of election fraud, has said that “I don’t know about [Trump’s] authority to pardon himself....” From a moral standpoint, it really depends from which perspective you look at it. From Trump’s perspective, he’s protecting his family members. When Bill Clinton was president, he also pardoned his brother who had drug charges. I’m sure most of us would do anything to protect our family. However, from an outsider perspective, yes, it does look slightly corrupt. To address Pariya’s point about pardons being only discussed for 3 of Trump’s children, I’m sure that’s because only three are really involved in politics — Ivanka, Donald, and Eric. I’m not sure what Tiffany does and Barron is only 14, so there isn’t really a reason they would need pardons, as there isn’t a reason Biden would come after them. Out of all the awful things that Trump does on a daily basis, I don’t think pardoning really tops the list.
To address Arnav's point -- I don't think that is what Pariya was trying to say. The way Trump mentions Biden suggests that Biden is going to baselessly target Trump's family, which Biden isn't going to do. If he did, however, he would target Trump's entire family, not just his the three involved in politics, and so it would make sense for Trump to pardon his entire family. The fact that Trump is only discussing three pardons for his family suggests that those three people in particular actually did commit real crimes.
What Arnav said about Trump's tweet hits the nail on the head. First of all, this is very hypocritical. More importantly, though, I think with the realization of his loss of the presidency, Trump is trying to take every opportunity possible to get what he can. He had done so pre-election and has been doing so throughout his presidency through lying and manipulation. That being said, morally speaking, Trump is doing the right thing for his family, but not the right thing for the country. He is quite literally giving his family an advantage over everyone else because they're his family, which is understandable from his perspective but is still unjust. I also think that he wants to believe he is the winner, and now that he has realized he lost the chance of presidency he still wants to show that he will have some sort of power over the government even after he loses office. Do I think it is wrong? Yes. Do I think there is anything illegal or unconstitutional about it? Not really.
Following up on what Pariya and Malia said, I find it interesting that he choose to only pardon 3 of his kids rather than all of them. If he thought Biden was blindly going to come after his family then why would he choose them three specifically? It makes us wonder if there is a reason why he choose those three kids and what he knows they've done that he needs to pardon. Over the past few weeks it has been clear that most political figures are over the election and the re-counting. Trump however has not clearly accepted defeat but reportedly he has admitted to it. It seems like he is using the last weeks of his presidential power to clean the slate as much as he can for him and his family before he leaves office. Like Peter said there may not be anything illegal about this, it does seem unjust.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/15/trump-admits-biden-won-falsely-claims-election-was-rigged.html
It sounds repetitive but I agree with a lot of what has been mentioned... When I think about motive, why he would do this, I can only speculate. What there is to consider, though, is that he will be cleaning his slate and the slates of his more politically involved family members, as well as politically involved associates... Thus I don't find it extremely odd that he is pardoning certain children and not all of them, as usual political targets are the people involved in politics, so, as a personal hypothesis, I would assume it would make sense to pardon these people. I also think that pardoning the politically involved will be important if he were to run for office in four years, as he so claims, so that he can have more unsoiled support towards his campaign. I do think this is a very large speculation and possibly too much so, but I just wanted to point out one of my considerations of the motivation behind Trump's actions.
Personally, I believe Trump and his family are probably guilty of many things. I also believe that it is rather unlikely for Biden's administration to prosecute Trump and his family. However, I am more concerned about the constitutionality of a self-pardon/preemptive pardons. It seems that there is precedent for a preemptive pardon, as President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon before Nixon was formally charged for the Watergate scandal. However, by using intuition and common sense, it seems that a self-pardon should be unconstitutional. I would not be surprised if Trump got away with these pardons, though, as he has not been afraid to challenge presidential norms the last 4 years and he has gotten away with some rather questionable actions.
As was already stated in the article, if Trump believes that his children and closest advisors need to be preemptively given presidential pardons that means he believes they're guilty of something that could be brought up once Trump is out of office, which is a definitely worrying prospect if that "something" turns out to be a completely new behind-the-scenes issue. It's definitely likely that the Trump family is guilty of breaking rules surrounding executive power in the U.S., and the fact that he is able to pardon them for crimes they likely did commit speaks to an unconstitutionality in the usage of presidential pardons, if they are able to bail someone out of consequences this easily. All in all, his motivation for doing so remains a mystery until Trump leaves office and we can find out more about what went on in his administration behind the scenes.
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