Trump pardons X

Post Reply New Topic

Outgoing US president Donald Trump has just announced a full pardon of former national security advisor Michael Flynn:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/sta ... 5212228608

In December 2017, Flynn pled guilty to "willfully and knowingly making materially false statements and omissions to the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI"), in violation of" 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2).
https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-flynn-64

Such a crime carries a maximum sentence of 8 years.

I left an "X" in the title, as it is possible other pardons will follow...

Flynn is the guy on the left, BTW (he got $ 45,000 from Russia for attending that dinner):

I think this is the first of many very possibly including himself.

Having followed the case for some time, it appears the only reason the pardon was required was that a federal judge had denied the prosecution's request for the case to be dismissed and the judge was doing everything within his power (including personally appealling against an appeals court decision requiring him to dismiss the case) to keep it open.

Had the case been acted upon "with appropriate dispatch" by the judge overseeing the case (as ordered by the full bench of the appeals court), he wouldn't have been in need of the pardon.

That said, it was an interesting case, with the defendent initially represented by a law firm that helped draft some of the charges, then former prosecutors intentionally withheld "Brady" material which should have been provided to the defendant prior to his previous pleadings (quite interesting to read), some of which involved a meeting between the FBI and a former President and Vice President discussing charges that could be used.

Pardoning himself would be a perfect final presidential act for him.

Does not one have to be convicted for a crime in order to be pardoned? Trump's sort of jumping the gun here. When he is convicted by New York state courts, he won't be President anymore.

Trump can only pardon himself of federal convictions. He can’t do that with state convictions.

So his fate lies in the hands of Andrew Cuomo hee hee.