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Nothing would happen, because SCOTUS decided to grant the president immunity for any crime committed in their official function, which would be the case here. It would literally be possible for the president to order congress killed, offer an automatic pardon to anyone carrying out this order, and establish a monarchy.

This single ruling will haunt the United States for the rest of its existence.

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>SCOTUS decided to grant the president immunity for any crime committed in their official function

That ruling is very broad and vague! I don't think killing Congress is part of POTUS's official job description.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-isnt-immune-from...

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Neither is fomenting a coup. And yet...
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Isn’t the definition of official duties vague and left to the courts?
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It will be interesting to watch what comes next, if there will be next. But people die of natural causes and otherwise anyway.

Will it be the same a-lot-of-empty-talk-from-democrats like after first trump's term, or actually some concrete action? Clearly if next president would be democrat he can do some nice revenge and rebalance, maybe petty but maybe necessary. I would expect republicans do the usual crappy move of sticking with theirs regardless of crimes committed, any actual morals are an afterthought.

Its so weird to watch from outside, illogical, deeply flawed, unfair, and pretty weak system when it comes to handling unscrupulous sociopaths.

All bad is good for some things in hindsight, world desperately needs more decoupling from US. Petrodollars, swift and so on. Compared to this, judging by pure actions, chinese may seem saint in comparison

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The Democrats literally tried like 6 different ways to get Trump in jail, and arrested and jailed many of his supporters and even some of his administration. I highly doubt that the majority of the voting public which elected Trump will sit idle for any sort of unjust retribution to the current administration.
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> sit idle for any sort of unjust retribution

This is genuinely hilarious. I guess you haven't been paying attention but "sitting idle during injustice" is all that Trump supporters do.

No, his base is already collapsing. He overextended with Iran, sent gas prices up, and as a direct result has finally started to bleed support from the know-nothings. I doubt Trump himself will ever face justice for his many crimes - he is likely to die of old age first - but the rest of the administration? Knives are out. They'll be back in prison just like happened in 2020 and 2021, and all those "dedicated supporters" will do nothing because the people who form this administration are petty, uninteresting people who were specifically chosen because they are not popular.

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Pardons only stop the federal government from prosecuting someone, the states would still go after those individuals
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And in theory a future administration could do something like threaten to withhold funding to states that don’t prosecute.
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Congress can propose amendments but it takes 3/4 of the states to ratify them.
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Like most political arguments, if you listen carefully; those who advocate for or against pardons, only want them to go one way.

A pardon is only a protection against a 'vengeful administration' if that administration is not your party.

Pardons are only a miscarriage of justice if those pardoned don't share your ideology.

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My (leftist) opinion is that we don't give enough pardons. By the time people get out of prison, their lives are pretty much wrecked. We should have a lot more clemency and compassion. That's what the pardon is for.

If that means a ton of literal insurrectionists go free, that's fine with me. We elected someone precisely to do that. It's on the voters if we elected someone who was literally treasonous himself.

I hope the insurrectionists take the opportunity to get on with their lives. I gather that quite a few have already been banned for other crimes, and that's too bad.

I don't want prison to be vengeance. I want prison to make us all safer. I'd like the President to take a lot of leeway in finding people who are going to be productive citizens if they were given that gift.

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You sound like you are advocating for commutation, not pardons. Commutation lowers the penalty given to a criminal by executive decree (which the president can also do) A pardon makes it so the conviction never happened.
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You would probably consider me to your right, but I'm right there with you. Prison should be protective: we lock up people from whom the rest of us will not be safe unless they are segregated. Ideally it is also rehabilitatative, and once (if!) prisoners will be safe and productive members of society there is no point to keeping them locked up.

If there are other methods short of prison that can render law-breakers harmless - such as restrictions on certain activities and occupations - then those should be pursued first.

The ghost of this philosophy, however attenuated, can be seen in systems of pardon and parole.

I acknowledge that a desire for retribution - to punish the evil-doer; make them suffer for what they've done - is a strong impulse (I feel it myself!), deeply imbedded in our tribal psyches, but it should be fought, not indulged.

This seems to me to be the only moral basis for a system of justice and incarceration, though I have no idea how to nudge a society towards this model. Some northern European countries approach it.

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I'm a leftist, and a Democrat by necessity (not by choice) and I would be fine if the power of pardon was removed for Presidents who share my ideology. I would rather have working separation of powers and reform the justice system than give one person carte blanche power to nullify it based on their whim.

Not everyone making a political argument is engaging in cynical tribalism. Believe it or not, some people do actually believe in things.

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That’s what ypu tell yourself to feel better. But it’s not true.
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Do you know ANYONE who thinks the same way about Biden's pardons as they do about Trump's?

I certainly don't.

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I think they are both generally ok, but also somewhat sketchy. I don't see them as much different from Clinton's pardons, Fords or Andrew Johnson's Christmas day pardons for confederate soldiers.

What big differences do you see?

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