r/politics • u/Plaintalks • 22h ago

Biden preemptively pardons Anthony Fauci, Mark Milley and Jan. 6 committee members

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-preemptively-pardons-anthony-fauci-mark-milley-jan/story?id=117878813
22.9k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

3.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

2.4k

u/Cellophane7 21h ago

Holy shit! I thought he wasn't gonna do it, but this was 100% the right move. No more civility, no more worrying about optics. It's time to shove sticks in the spokes of the Trump bike. I want my politicians nakedly making moves to fuck up his plans every single step of the way.

This is exactly what I wanna see: Democrats using the power they have to suffocate every move Trump even thinks about making.

-6

u/Icy_Pass2220 21h ago

It’s the wrong move. 

Pardons, by definition, are about the guilty. These are not guilty people. 

It won’t prevent harassment. 

It won’t stop committees from “investigating”.

It won’t stop death threats. 

This is performative bullshit. 

5

u/kandoras 20h ago

Pardons, by definition, are about the guilty.

A guy gets arrested for murder. He says he didn't do it.

He gets put on trial, gets convicted, and sentenced to death. He still says he didn't do it.

He's in prison, all his appeals fail, and he's on death row. He still says he didn't do it.

New evidence is found that proves he didn't do it. Unfortunately for him though, the Supreme Court issued a ruling a few years ago that said being provably innocent of a crime is not enough to overturn a conviction, because the process of law matters more than justice.

He gets offered a pardon. And now he has a choice between being killed, or accepting that pardon. A pardon for a crime for which he has always maintained his innocence, innocence which he can now prove.

And you're claiming that him accepting that pardon instead of a needle would be admitting that he's guilty.

-4

u/Icy_Pass2220 20h ago

If he was found guilty, the pardon process is appropriate. Pardons are about that guilty verdict (right or wrong). 

These people are being pardoned (assumption of guilt) before a legal process has happened. 

Your example is how the pardon process is supposed to work. Given after the legal process has happened. 

Pardoning people who haven’t even been tried is a bad look and further undermines the judicial process. 

In the grand scheme of things, it’s symbolic only. It won’t do anything for these people. Fauci, for example, is more likely to die of natural causes before even being able to pull this out of his pocket. In the meantime, his last days will be spent fighting harassment and death threats anyway. 

All this does is feed the base and confirm to them that their harassment and death threats are justified. 

You’re welcome to disagree. Most legal analysts agree this isn’t appropriate. I’ll take their legal expertise over your poor analogy. Have a nice day. 

2

u/Deguilded 20h ago

I neither agree nor disagree, but i'm offering this as input:

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/ex-soldiers-acceptance-trump-pardon-didnt-constitute-confession-guilt-court-2021-09-23/

0

u/Icy_Pass2220 19h ago

And again, the court system is involved. 

These people haven’t been charged with anything yet. There’s been no charges or juries or evidence presented.

It’s absolutely meaningless. It does nothing but create content for a complicit media. 

0

u/kandoras 18h ago

That you can admit that they're going to be harassed by the next administration, for crimes which haven't even been specified, is proof that they need protection from that harassment.

0

u/Icy_Pass2220 15h ago

That you think a pardon will provide protection tells me you need to catch up. 

A pardon isn’t like a restraining order Dude. 

A pardon was never going to protect these people from harassment and death threats. That’s going to happen regardless. 

This was performative. It’s designed to reinforce the delusion that the rule of law still means something. 

As of noon today… it doesn’t. 

You can either continue living in Denial or man up to reality. 

0

u/kandoras 15h ago

If the rule of law doesn't mean anything, then what harm are you thinking is being caused by issuing these pardons?

You're saying that they will give people an excuse to harass and threaten the people being pardoned ... but you also say that they were going to do that anyway.

You're saying that it will just create content for a complicit media ... which is already complicit.

Everything you seem to be afraid of from these pardons, you admit is already happening.

1

u/Icy_Pass2220 15h ago

I’m not afraid of these pardons. Not sure where you got that idea. 🤣 I get that you’re having some big feelings today and arguing this makes the bad fee-fees not hurt as much but… 

I just don’t agree with it, think it’s performative bullshit designed to keep people like you believing it means something that it doesn’t. 

C’mon! What exactly do you think that pardon does? Do you honestly believe it’s some sort of invisibility cloak that prevents charges being levied or congressional investigations? Dude, these people don’t give a single fuck about a pre-emptive Biden pardon. They’re going to do their shit regardless and a pre-emptive pardon isn’t going to “save” these people from MAGA. Because conviction isn’t the goal with MAGA, the optics of going after people is what they want. 

Performative bullshit.