I Did Not Know This
I just found out that Trump cannot pardon Roger Stone.
It appears that the framers of the constitution took Trump into consideration. George Mason was so suspicious of the pardoning power that he threatened to not sign the Constitution unless something was done about a loophole a president could use for evil. He wrote …
It may happen, at some future day, that he will establish a monarchy, and destroy the republic. If he has the power of granting pardons before indictment, or conviction, may he not stop inquiry and prevent detection?”
Thus, this was added to the Constitution.
Both the plain meaning of the Constitution’s text and the historical evidence show that once a president has been impeached, he or she loses the power to pardon anyone for criminal offenses connected to the articles of impeachment — and that even after the Senate’s failure to convict the president, he or she does not regain this power.
I did not know that was glaring out at us. Trump cannot pardon Stone.
I’m sure the Constitutional geniuses over at Fox News will find a loophole in the loophole fixer.
So, when Mom asks you what you learned today at the computer, you got something.
Oh Mis JJ – you have made my day. Please tell me where in the Constitution this is so I can mark it!
1Grandma Ada @1 lest Ms. JJ is too busy today to respond quickly, under Article II, Section II of the Constitution, the president is given the “power to grant reprieves and pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.”
2This, of course, won’t stop him from trying.
3So, if he wants to pardon Stone, the quickest way would be to abdicate and nag Pence to do it?
Other than that, he needs to get a ‘do-over’ on Stones’ trial. That would be a DoJ destroyer, suing themselves to get Stone freed.
Popcorn, anyone?
4I love you for finding this info!
5Someone start a GoFundMe page so we can donate to build o statue of Mr. Mason. The White House lawn would be a good location. donny will be on tv shortly to say that George Mason is “unfair, very unfair”.
6Cheryl @ 6 – you will be happy to know that there is a George Mason Memorial located in East Potomac Park near the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. It is maintained by the National Parks Service. It features a tasteful statute of George resting on a marble bench with a cane, his tricorn hat, and some books.
https://www.nps.gov/nama/planyourvisit/george-mason-memorial.htm
There is another statute on the campus of George Mason University in Fairfax, VA.
Maybe we could send flowers to the statues?
7I’ll bet you anything the DoJ takes it to the Supreme Court, which will back Donnie by 5-4.
Thank you, Federalist Society, for screwing up the country.
8Here is the exact language from Article II, Section 2:
“The President … shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.”
9Read this earlier today.
Looks like Trump’s lawyer knew it. Looks like that’s why they want new trial and the discrediting the jury and the judge.
10IANAL, but when I read that it seems to say that the president can pardon others, except if those others have been impeached.
Anyone?
11Does this also preclude a pardon for Manfort and rest of prosecutions from Mueller white wash?
12Thanks Jane and PKM – I was so excited I didn’t see the link to Politico. I read the quoted sentence and I don’t know if the interpretation will hold. Of course I went to business school not law school. As his majesty says, we’ll see!
13A big thanks to the founders.
14But, couldn’t they have made this thing more sweeping? Taking some other powers away from an impeached president, for instance? Like all of them?
I’d like to think that is what it means but to me it sounds more like the president can’t pardon another person who has been impeached. No constitutional or legal scholar here for sure.
15That’s the best news I’ve heard in 3+ years.
I wonder if anyone’s tried to tell the Donster about this. I think it might just be enough to induce a stroke.
16When have the Republicans ever given a rat’s ass about the Constitution? The Constitution states clearly that the President and the VP must be from different states. George W. Bush and Cheney were both from Texas. Neither was bright enough to actually read the Constitution and check the requirements. When somebody pointed out that the Constitution would not allow them to be Pres and VP, Cheney pretended to be from Wyoming.
This from Wikipedia: ‘A few months before the election Cheney put his home in Dallas up for sale and changed his drivers’ license and voter registration back to Wyoming. This change was necessary to allow Texas’ presidential electors to vote for both Bush and Cheney without contravening the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which forbids electors from voting for “an inhabitant of the same state with themselves” for both President and Vice President.’
17So if he does the pardon, who gets to enforce it not happening?
Is this yet another route to Constitutional Crisis-land? Well, stupid question since we’ve been there since Boss Tweet declared “The Perfect Call”…
18The text in the Constitution means that the President cannot pardon someone that has been impeached, i.e. they cannot make an impeachment go away. It doesn’t say that an impeached President loses the power to grant pardons.
19George Mason, may Heaven bless him, came from my neck of the woods, in Virginia. One of his descendants was the principal of my high school, back in the Dark Ages. He always seemed such a colorless character in Virginia’s history, compared to George Washington, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Jefferson. How could we have been so wrong?
20In the Politico story, imho, paragraphs 5,6, and 7 are the ones that matter.
21James Madison’s words are used. But I don’t think they’re part of the Constitution. Quoted from other writings
Apologies, I hit submit accidentally.
22So Im(extremely)ho. The dark side will argue that those words will hold no more weight or precedent than a personal diary. Intent? Sure.
But I bet the cato institute has reams of writings from other founding fathers that didn’t agree with Madison.
Sorry.
merrigay, IANAL as well but impeachment is a political offense, not a criminal one, so my understanding is that there can be no pardon for an impeachment as there is no crime necessarily with respect to an impeachment.
Example – a federal judge persists in handing out sentences far in excess of the federal sentencing guidelines, The Supreme Court rebukes the judge for his failure to follow the guidelines but the judge continues to hand out these egregious sentences. The House of Representatives draws up Articles of Impeachment for this judge”s failure to follow the guidelines citing the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishment. No law has been broken in this instance but there is a violation of the provision of the Eighth Amendment.
Now it’s true that if someone is impeached for actions that are criminal they can also be arrested, tried and convicted for the crime but that has no bearing on impeachment, although there could, potentially, be a pardon for the crime.
In any event I’m still not a lawyer, so my take could just be moonshine.
23Bob Boland:
24Please understand, I’m not disagreeing with anything you’ve said.
The point is, “except in cases of impeachment” means no pardoning ANYONE connected to whatever the president has been impeached for.
That’s what I got from the Politico story.
Especially paragraphs 5,6, & 7.
But that’s just my opinion. And I’m just as full of shit as anyone else.
Dan@ 19:
25It does mean that an impeached president loses the power to grant pardons.
For ANYTHING RELATED TO THE REASONS HE OR SHE WAS IMPEACHED. But nothing else.
Mike in MO says:
This, of course, won’t stop him from trying.
Trump will pause momentarily, then announce he has the power to grant a Double Secret Pardon.
26Rick, that’s when the spirits of the Framers will visit the WH en masse and do their thing. I have great faith in those guys.
27How exactly does this relate to his impeachment? None of the impeachment charges relate to the campaign and all of the impeachment charges relate to actions taken by Trump in 2019?
28Note that line “the plain meaning of the Constitution.”
The Constitution says nothing about whether or not the President can pardon someone after impeachment. Since when did conservatives care about plain reading of anything?
Moreover, the line in the Constitution reads:
Roger Stone was not impeached. The opinion piece in Politico seems a bit misleading. Roger Stone is connected to Donald Trump’s impeachment.
The original arguments over pardon power were made with the idea that a president trying to set himself up as a monarch could use that power to do it, therefore federal officials who were impeached could not be pardoned.
29Somehow the rest got cut off.
Stone was convicted in a criminal court. If Trump did pardon Stone, he would lose his V Amendment rights, and could directly testify against any alleged crimes by Trump.
That is why Trump has pardoned no one connected to his mess. He’s not about to allow that.
30BS. The word impeachment refers to pardoning the impeachee. In other words, a president cannot reverse a Senate’s conviction. Nothing whatever to do with whether he himself was impeached.
Sheesh.
31There’s already precedent for the President retaining his pardoning power after he himself has been impeached. Bill Clinton, on his way out the White House door, pardoned Marc Rich, the Wall Street manipulator and Clinton friend.
I’m afraid, as others here have pointed out, that the constitutional clause refers only to other impeached people.
Yours very crankily,
32The New York Crank