Presidential Pardons, what is the idea?

Which is exactly why the pardon came at the 11th hour. Sullivan was out of line ,,, betting on voter fraud to rid the DOJ of an American AG. Two parties that don't have a disagreement don't need a judge. The FBI agents who were sent to target Flynn said Flynn didn't lie to them. Flynn was bankrupted and his son threatened because he knew about the Obama legacy of interfering in the campaign of a threat to his 3rd term.

I think Snowden should be pardoned. He knew the other Obama legacy. The first president to spy on millions of Americans so he could target opponents of his policies by weaponizing the IRS and DOJ against them. Snowden's crime was to blow the whistle on Obama who sent Clapper to Congress to lie about Obama's crimes against the US and its citizens. See the pattern?

 

Can not prove a word of the above and that is precisely the reason for this pardon.

We need to take the power out of the hands of politicians or reduce it to a recommendation for review to a legal body.

 

He acknowledged he plead guilty because he is guilty. Withdrawing charges and a pardon doesn't change that.

 

And that changes what how?

You do know that Trump fired Flynn? For...you guessed it...lying. Please tell me you're not this naive.

 

Proves there was zero reason to prosecute him in the first place. Y’all know so little about this. Must listen to fake news.

 

Because the justice system is not always just. General Flynn, for instance, was indicted and then tried for strictly partisan political reasons and then after a new team of investigators reviewed the antics of both the FBI and the Mueller team the new head of the justice department agreed that there was actually no meaningful evidence against the general. Nonetheless the blatently politically partisan judge decided to sentence the general anyway in DEFIANCE of a higher court ruling on the subject. Thus a presidential issued pardon.

 

The FBI agents who interviewed him said they didn't think he lied. His acknowledgement of lies was motivated by threats from DOJ. There is nothing to change. It is simply the correction of an injustice.

 

He was indicted (by Repubs) because he committed a crime to which he plead guilty.

The Admitted Offense: In his dramatic and surprise guilty plea in U.S. District Court on Dec. 1, 2017, early in Mueller's investigation, Flynn acknowledged that his false statements and omissions in FBI interviews a few days after Trump was sworn in "impeded and otherwise had a material impact on the FBI’s ongoing investigation into the existence of any links or coordination between individuals associated with the campaign and Russian efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election," which the statement of offense he agreed to said. He specifically admitted to lying about asking the Russian ambassador to refrain from responding to Obama administration sanctions against Russia for its election interference and further requested Russia help block a United Nations vote on Israeli settlements which the incoming administration didn't agree with.
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/indictment-michael-flynn/story?id=61147177

 

Nope. But that is one of the enduring lies from Flynn's trial.

https://www.politifact.com/factchec...-did-not-say-michael-flynn-did-not-lie-donal/

 

Counsel is irrelevant. There was no conflict of interest. That's absurd.

There was no exculpatory evidence. Trump told Barr to let him go. That you can't see that, especially in light of the pardon, tells me how little you know about reality. I don't need any news to see this.

Once you plead guilty, it's over. You can retract your guilty plea and go to trial. You can't retract it and go home. The DOJ does not drop charges after a guilty plea. What Trump and Barr did was unprecedented. I'm wondering if it was illegal. I guess we'll have to wait and see. I hope the new AG looks into it. And thanks to Flynn's pardon, he can't take the 5th. Thanks Trump! Again, his own worst enemy.

 

If Flynn acknowledges lying, then the FBI did its job. Whether the agents thought he was lying is irrelevant.

He wasn't threatened. That's hysterical nonsense.

 

We will never know.

 

The President is the head of the Executive branch, which is usually the arm of government charged with enforcing the laws.

So since the President is the head of enforcement of the laws, it makes sense to give the President the power of immunity.

The Presidency is also too important to allow ordinary judges to have too much power over. The power to grant pardon clarifies, in a way, that the president is the head of the government.

Remember, to legally prosecute someone, it takes both a prosecutor (which almost always comes from the Executive branch) and a judge (the courts), so in some ways it makes sense that both the Supreme Court and the President have the power to pardon.

It seems like perhaps the designers of the government system wanted to centralize the ultimate authority of prosecution, so that prosecutions wouldn't run wild.

 

There you go. The normal dueling sets of truths from both sides of the aisle. In politics there are always at least two truths.

 

I don't think that accepting a pardon is necessarily an admission of guilt.

 

We may. Depends what the new AG wants to look into.

 

Nobody who has been found not guilty has ever been pardoned. Only those found guilty, by plea or trial, have been pardoned. Pretty elementary concept.

Flynn has been found guilty by plea. What's included in the plea deal is irrelevant. Legally, whether he actually did it is irrelevant. What matters is that Flynn plead guilty, and that plea was accepted and finalized by the court. Prior to the pardon, it was still in the sentencing phase.

Flynn is admitting guilt (again) by accepting the pardon. Innocent people go to trial. Those who claim a coerced plea retract it and go to trial. Flynn didn't do this. He's accepting a get out of jail free card. It's quite clear that innocent people have no use for such cards. If he were an innocent, honest man, he'd be at trial forcing the state to prove its case. That's what innocent people do. Guilty people get fired by the president for lying to the vice-president.

 

That's still irrelevant to the issue. Let's please use some logic.

 

You snipped the issue. Let's please use some common courtesy and intellectual honesty. Then you can work on your logic, which is entirely missing here. You can try again, or not. Up to you.

 

Sorry, I'm just getting frustrated that you're making me have to waste my time to explain this to you.

You claim that a pardon is an admission of guilt, and to attempt to do that, you bring up the fact that nobody who has been found innocent has been pardoned.

Those don't logically connect.

Someone could be pardoned before they are found innocent, but more often they will never be specifically "found innocent" after being pardoned, because the prosecution typically stops.

 

It very simply is the only check, as tepid as it is, that exists on the judiciary within the checks and balances concept of the separation of powers.

 

Thanks again proving all you know about this is internet chatter.

 

Ridiculous. The FBI agents never said Flynn didn't lie. They said his manner did not indicate he was lying......but he did in fact lie..............as he admitted twice in court.

 

Yet, in bestowing on the prez unilateral power in this regard they did not imagine a day when a prez would so abuse his authority as to pardon men involved in criminal conspiracies with the prez himself.

 

Since neither of us know personally we can simply say that both accounts have been in the media. You can believe the one you want. Personally, I have a tendency to believe that authorities on the prosecution end of things are more interested in prosecutorial success than fairness.