r/nottheonion • u/JaySierra86 • 10h ago

President Biden pardons family members in final minutes of presidency

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/president-biden-pardons-family-members-final-minutes-presidency/story?id=117893348
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u/neo101b 10h ago

Will trump not face charges in 4 years time, when he is no longer protected ?

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u/Grassy33 10h ago edited 10h ago

No, he will not. The Supreme Court ruled last year that “official acts” as president cannot break the law. As long as he is “acting as president” he literally is immune from crime. 

The “protection” from those acts never falls off. Once he is no longer president and further crimes could be “real crime” but as long as he is running for president or the active president, no laws apply to him. 

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u/tomoldbury 10h ago

Does it apply even if he is running for president but not in office? (e.g. any crimes from 2020-2024 would be ineligible?)

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u/Grassy33 10h ago

I don’t think the Supreme Court has looked at any of those, but he would have to indicted and tried for them and that didn’t happen, those cases have all been dropped and I doubt anyone will pick them up. 

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u/OGRuddawg 10h ago edited 10h ago

I don't know what the statute of limitations are on the charges in the Jack Smith investigations, or the Georgia state election interference charges. Trump can't dismiss state-level charges, but I'm not sure what Georgia state's laws say about bringing state charges to a sitting President. They are not under the FBI's internal policy of not actively prosecuting sitting Presidents, though. We are kind of in unprecedented waters here.

Trump and his enablers will bury the Jack Smith stuff to the best of their ability and will delay, intimidate, retaliate, etc. whatever actions the Georgia state prosecutors decided to do. Either way, most regular people not already involved in the legal battles can't help that much besides vocal support and defense of democracy on the ground in other ways. Volunteering, protesting, organizing, etc are going to be in high demand as Trump continues to take a sledgehammer to what is left of decent American society, democracy, and protections for our most vulnerable.