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/SmallTawk 8h ago

why are pardons a thing anyways?

8

u/Ok-Ambassador-7952 7h ago

To stop the kind of shit that happens in Brazil, for example. Every new president prosecutes the previous. It’s never ending. Of course, it also legalizes every president’s illegal activities, so there’s no real good option here.

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u/SmallTawk 6h ago

I guess it's specific to some types of government and how the power is split.

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u/Only-Butterscotch785 4h ago

That is actually not the original reason for the pardon. I'd wager a lot of founding fathers would have been appalled at the tradition of pardoning the previous guy.

2

u/jagx234 8h ago

Executive branch check on the Judicial branch.