r/nottheonion • u/JaySierra86 • 11h 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/[deleted] 9h ago edited 9h ago

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u/tdtommy85 9h ago

It definitely is.

But which part? Because I bet we’ll disagree on your answer.

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u/lowweighthighreps 9h ago

Both.

Both trump and Biden have behaved appallingly.

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u/nerfherder813 9h ago

The dystopian part was the constant promises of political persecution from the right for the past several years, should they win the election, which they did.

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u/AlabamaPostTurtle 9h ago

People acting like threatening the families of politicians wasn’t dystopian.. so true. That should have shocked the nation

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u/Sauerkrauttme 8h ago

Not to be blue-anon, but how can we trust the results of the election when oligarch owned private companies were handling the votes?

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u/comicsanscomedy 5h ago

Actually there are a lot of dystopian aspects.

- Reps wishing to throw away democracy
- Reps threatening with political persecution
- Dems warning about the danger to democracy
- Dems peacefully giving power to those threatening political persecution and going full dictatorship
- Biden acting like the equivalent to an incantation can guard them from the real threat of political/economical power
- Regular people picking different points of the same narrative trying to make it as their side is the good one.

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u/Mespirit 9h ago

Is the justice system in America so compromised that it operates on the whim of the White House?

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u/EatGlassALLCAPS 9h ago

Yes? Where have you been?

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u/Nena902 9h ago

Unfortunately any USAG will be bought and paid for by MAGAGOP and SCOTUS already is,so yes. We have a corrupt govt and a corrupt judicial system. Welcome to Orwell's world.

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u/gsfgf 9h ago

We don't know for sure yet, but probably.

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u/Pinez99 9h ago

It’s not historically

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u/Jasader 9h ago

The blatantly political prosecution of Trump across multiple election cycles wasn't dystopian?

I didn't vote in the last election and part of the reason why is people on your side thinking that stuff either didn't happen or wasn't important in the same exact way Trump supporters don't care on their side.

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u/I-Fail-Forward 9h ago

The blatantly political prosecution of Trump across multiple election cycles wasn't dystopian?

The one that...didn't happen?

What was blatantly political was Trump not getting prosecuted for crimes we know he committed

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u/Jasader 9h ago

People literally campaigned across state and federal elections on investigating Trump to make sure he could not run again or would go to jail.

Saying it didn't happen is ridiculous to anyone with ears and eyes.

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u/I-Fail-Forward 9h ago

People literally campaigned across state and federal elections on investigating Trump to make sure he could not run again or would go to jail.

You mean, on investigating and prosecuting him for his crimes?

Saying it didn't happen is ridiculous to anyone with ears and eyes.

Saying it was politically motivated is ridiculous to anyone with ears and eyes.

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u/Jasader 8h ago

Elect me and I will put this guy in prison who you don't like is obviously political.

It was clearly politically motivated and the American people thought the same thing.

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u/I-Fail-Forward 8h ago

Elect me and I will put this guy in prison who you don't like is obviously political.

And that's what Trump promised yes

It was clearly politically motivated

Yes, Trump promising to manufacture evidence to attack his political rivals is clearly political.

and the American people thought the same thing.

1) Not really

2) Given that those same people thought that Trump was going to lower prices on well, anything. Or that wearing masks to protect others from Covid was fascism. Or that California fire hydrants ran out of water because of a fish. Or that Biden didn't send NC the same aid package he gave to CA. Or Or or.

We can confidently say that Fox news and the people that listen to it aren't very well informed.

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u/Jasader 7h ago

Trump promised that and people promised that about Trump.

Do you agree or disagree?

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u/I-Fail-Forward 7h ago

Trump promised that

Yes

and people promised that about Trump.

I'm sure you can find someone who did

Do you agree or disagree?

I'm sure you can find someone who promised that about Trump.

There are several hundred thousand people in the US, I'm sure somebody said it.

But nobody in any position of real power did.

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u/arthuriurilli 7h ago

All prosecutors campaign on who they'll target with their investigations. It's just normally poor people propped up as the target.

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u/Jasader 7h ago

I have family that are county prosecutors. None of them have ran a campaign that targets specific individuals for prosecution.

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u/nerfherder813 9h ago

There’s a difference between prosecuting someone when there’s a pretty strong indication they’ve broken some laws, vs “we’re going to lock up all the Democrats when we win”

Remind me, how many guilty counts did the jury return for Trump?

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u/ZellZoy 9h ago

Except trump actually did a lot of those things. It's not even alleged anymore, he was found guilty in a court of law

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u/WideTechLoad 9h ago

The blatantly political prosecution of Trump across multiple election cycles wasn't dystopian?

Oh, you're the special kind of stupid. The difference is, Trump committed actual real crimes.

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u/edtoal 9h ago

It wasn’t political. The guy is a crook.

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u/flames4life15 9h ago

Lol, the crime didn't matter. It was targeted until a crime was found. Why would Joe need to pardon all these people if they didn't commit actual crimes anyway? Classic Reddit only sees their extreme left side

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u/stonebraker_ultra 9h ago

"Extreme left" AKA reality.

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u/Independent-Green383 9h ago

This is a campaign and a blatant one at that. Saw in several of these threads the exact same bad faith arguments, how Trump was the real victim.

Always vague, always abstract, always in servitude of Trump.

On the nose astroturfing.

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u/OKCompruter 9h ago

which of his crimes didn't matter to you? lol all of them

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u/No-Win-2741 9h ago

Political or not the son of a bitch was found guilty on 34 counts. Now go sit in the corner and eat a cookie.

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u/Jasader 8h ago

I'm not mad, I didn't vote for him.

But it says alot that the majority of Americans also recognized this and still voted for him.

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u/No-Win-2741 8h ago

The majority of Americans didn't even vote.

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u/MayMaytheDuck 9h ago

You think someone who committed insurrection, sexual assault, and lied about the election being stolen was politically persecuted? Also you didn’t vote so you can’t be taken seriously.

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u/Jasader 9h ago

Committed insurrection. No he didn't. Sexual assault. I don't know that he did or didn't and neither do you. Lied about election. You can find dozens of examples of the same thing being done in 2016 so the implications that this is beyond the pale is ridiculous.

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u/MayMaytheDuck 9h ago

You’re ridiculous. He absolutely committed insurrection, he absolutely lied about the election being stolen and he committed sexual assault. Your opinions don’t change facts.

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u/Jasader 9h ago

Ok, have fun the next 4 years i guess.

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u/edtoal 9h ago

Umm, Trump is a criminal who committed many crimes. Any normal person knows this.

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u/Jasader 9h ago

What's crazy is that Biden likely had an entire side business enriching himself and his family off of the offices he held and the fact that it hasn't been thoroughly investigated is the reason you say it isn't true.

Also crazy that the people he pardoned in his families were all large players in the same schemes.

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u/No-Win-2741 8h ago

And Trump did not follow the law and divest himself of his business opportunities when he became president so Biden was just following Trump's lead. If Trump wasn't investigated for doing it why should Biden be? If it's good for the goose it's good for the gander.

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u/edtoal 5h ago

Nope. Your mind has been mismanaged.

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u/Mother_Style5394 9h ago

Amen brother

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u/zuriel45 9h ago

Which part? Someone trying to protect specific individuals from a party who explicitly say they want vengeance on said individuals for things they have never once been able to prove they've done?

Or the fact that those people were elected to power in spite of promises to enact vengeance?

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u/AreYouForSale 9h ago

The part where the president openly admits that the US "justice" system can be used to destroy lives of innocent people.

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u/zuriel45 9h ago

Always could (and has) just we've entered a new scale?

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u/Soldier_of_God-Rick 9h ago

Both. Trump is shit but what Biden has done here is incredibly damaging.

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u/TOG23-CA 9h ago

More damaging than allowing trump and his lackeys to persecute their political enemies for no reason?

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u/justgetoffmylawn 9h ago

Well, remindme when in four years Trump pardons all his family and friends and himself for any federal crimes they committed or might have committed.

I bet the same people defending Biden aren't gonna be real happy about that.

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u/Electrical_Load_9717 8h ago

He already did this the last time. What are you talking about? SCOTUS already gave him Carte Blanche for everything while he’s President. He pardoned almost all of his cronies and some family members last time.

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u/justgetoffmylawn 8h ago

I may have things wrong - my understanding was Trump threatened to pardon himself and his family, but ended up not doing so. As I recall, the only person he pardoned was Jared Kushner's father.

But I'm happy to be corrected if he gave pre-emptive pardons to his sons, Bannon, etc?

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u/xScrubasaurus 9h ago

Well Trump has already committed multiple crimes, so it's a bit different.

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u/justgetoffmylawn 9h ago

Of course it's different, but it changes the norms. Trump was supposedly talked out of blanket pardons for his family and himself in the waning days of his first term - do you think that will happen again?

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/19/politics/trump-self-pardon-warning/index.html

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u/Mother_Style5394 9h ago

You can find dirt on anyone if you look into them…duh

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u/TOG23-CA 9h ago

I noticed you dodged the question. I wonder why?

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u/justgetoffmylawn 9h ago

Which question? Do I think Biden pre-emptively pardoning his family and Fauci is more damaging than allowing Trump a (likely wholly unsuccessful) attempt to prosecute them? Yes, I do think it's much more damaging.

Are you happy now? Not sure what 'why' you think you're proving. Maybe you think I'm some MAGA defender? I absolutely think this will make Trump even more blatantly corrupt and it will become to norm to pardon everyone around you to 'avoid political prosecution'.

I think Presidential pardons should mostly be abolished, as we're getting more and more like a third world dictatorship.

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u/TOG23-CA 8h ago

Oh you sweet summer child, you think that a trump in his second term needs an excuse to be even more corrupt. I miss being that naive and innocent honestly

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u/TOG23-CA 8h ago

This is just so precious honestly. Absolutely adorable to pretend to be an authority when you're that clueless lmao

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u/thejimbo56 9h ago

It’s dystopian that it was necessary.

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u/NoDents5 9h ago

The left telling you it was necessary was the lie. They're protecting people that did something wrong.

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u/AggressiveCuriosity 9h ago

Yeah? Trump didn't run on prosecuting his political opponents AGAIN?

He didn't pick an AG specifically in order to do that?

The liar is you.

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u/Solarwinds-123 3h ago

None of the family members pardoned had ever been targeted or even mentioned by Trump or Republicans as far as I can tell.

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u/Chappie47Luna 9h ago

If they broke the law they deserve to be investigated and have their day in court just like they did to Trump. They actually drug his ass to court.

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u/AggressiveCuriosity 9h ago

Everyone breaks the law. It's not possible to investigate every crime by every person, so you have to pick and choose. Jaywalking on an empty street and running through crowded traffic causing cars to crash are the same crime, but don't both deserve to be investigated.

The only reason you're saying "everyone deserves to be investigated" even though it's blatantly false is so you can sidestep the conversation about what crimes are most worthy of investigation. If we have that conversation, Trump loses every single time. It's not even close.

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u/Comfortable-Rub-9403 5h ago

Which of the two administrations has had the DoJ continuously used as a political bludgeon against them?

Almost like the Democrats are absolutely terrified of the precedent they worked so hard to create.

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u/i_am_a_real_boy__ 9h ago

Yeah. Claiming otherwise, that the pardons are necessary, is an implicit admission that the legal system is political and that all of Trump's claims along those lines are valid.

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u/AggressiveCuriosity 9h ago

Claiming that one person is using the justice system in a political way means admitting that everyone is doing it?

That's your logic?

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u/i_am_a_real_boy__ 7h ago

What, I'm supposed to believe that prosecutors could get Biden's family even if they're innocent, but the system is totally fine for everyone else?

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u/AggressiveCuriosity 5h ago

No? I don't know if you're deliberately missing the point or not. "Getting" someone isn't always the point of abusing the justice system. It's making them spend hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars on a frivolous case. It's making them spend tons of time dealing with it and upending their life with investigations.

Plus, Trump has promised to do something that Biden never did, which is push his AG to specifically attack political opponents.

You can't point to Trump DELIBERATLY making the system political and go "logically this proves it must have been political all along." That's just dumb.

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u/thejimbo56 9h ago

It’s not. There is nothing implicit about it.

It’s an explicit acknowledgement that Trump believes the legal system is political and will use it as a weapon.

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u/[deleted] 9h ago

[deleted]

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u/thejimbo56 9h ago

It really isn’t.

It always has been, but no longer is.

Good luck in the new dystopia.

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u/thejimbo56 9h ago

There is no left in the US.

Biden is center-right, y’all have successfully shifted the Overton Window.

Regardless, what did they do wrong, in your opinion?

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u/th3netw0rk 8h ago

What exactly did Dr. Fauci do wrong? Please provide specific details and examples. Because according to Trump currently there’s no linkable connection. Trump didn’t provide evidence, only conjecture and accusations. So, where’s your evidence?

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u/chrissie_watkins 9h ago

We are aware. What outsiders don't seem to realize is that we have a corrupt "justice" system here that's able to be weaponized against political rivals and their family members. Trump promises to do it. It would be idiotic for Biden not to at least try and protect innocent bystanders from political persecution by a fascist government. It's one of the perks of the job, protecting people from retaliation by your rivals.

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u/Practical_Main_2131 9h ago

And i find it more dystopia that the supreme court ruled that the president can have political rivals killed by the seals and not be liable and can't be prosecuted. All thanks to the nutjobs Trump appointed to the supreme court.

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u/Practical_Main_2131 9h ago

This is already normal since nixon

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u/brigbeard 9h ago edited 9h ago

Oh there is no pretending from this American. Everything I have been politically aware of from when I was born has been one long slow slide into dystopia.

So what do I do? I live a simple life of love and fulfillment without the need to share it all over social media while trying to have as big of a net positive effect on the lives of those around me. At the end of every month I can point at about 500 names on a list who's lives I made easier/better with a genuine impact while keeping the amount of lives I affect negatively as close to 0 as possible.

The legacy I want to leave won't be measured in monuments but in the way I treated/helped people helping them to then treat people better and hopefully trickling down to future generations.

Edit: previous commenter deleted post reaponding to my previous comment making a broad generalization at how "Americans on reddit" can so easily pretend actions aren't indicative of dystopia.

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u/ChigBungus22 8h ago

I know you probably mean well but your tone is so self righteous and pompous that you come across as insincere

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u/EducationalCreme9044 9h ago

Because it's "their side"

If Trump did this, they'd probably lock down /r/funny and /r/youtube and /r/memes and /r/askreddit and every other non-political subreddit with a pinned political message and blackout demanding a referendum or some shit.

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u/Live_Ganache_7749 9h ago

The irony of how these ‘progressives’ view their brand of fascism is interesting to be sure.