Tag Archives: pardons

crime news

Criminality: it’s everywhere!

One of the takeaways I am getting from the televised hearings of the 1/6 House select committee on the insurrection is one that I didn’t quite expect.

It’s the presence of criminality in the hearts and minds of many principals involved with the Donald Trump administration during that horrible time in our nation’s history.

You might recall when Trump was running for president how he said anyone who sought to proclaim Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination was certainly guilty of a crime. Then several of his key aides did that very thing when they answered summons to testify before the House select committee.

Now we hear during the televised hearings that many other Trumpkins sought presidential pardons in the immediate aftermath of the 1/6 insurrection that sought to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Trump granted some pardons. Not all of ’em got the mercy extended from the POTUS as he was preparing to exit the White House.

Still, it is worth pondering: Why would anyone ask for a full pardon from the president if he or she didn’t have a fear of being prosecuted for criminal acts? 

It looks as though there was a whole lot of criminality going on in the White House during the insurrection. I feel confident the legal eagles at the Justice Department are paying careful attention.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

legal news, national news

Pardons cross the line

By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Presidential pardons remain the exclusive domain of the individual in power at the top of the U.S. political chain of command. Presidents grant them with literally no checks on their propriety.

Their impropriety often crosses party lines, with presidents of both parties abusing the power laid out in the U.S. Constitution.

However, the busload of pardons handed out by Donald J. Trump all have a peculiar and frightening look of familiarity to them. He has delivered pardons and commutations to people who (a) are friends and political allies and (b) who have committed heinous acts in defense of policies that he favors.

Procedure calls for presidents to run pardon  requests through a series of examinations by the Justice Department. They usually include those who have behaved well under federal custody or who have expressed some level of remorse for whatever deed they did. I am unaware so far of any expression of remorse from the likes of Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, George Papadopoulos or the four Blackwater contractors convicted of killing innocent civilians in Iraq.

Oh, no. They’ve been handed a free get-out-of-jail card by Donald Trump for reasons that have nothing to do with what they are accused — or convicted! — of doing.

Understand, too, that presidents are not bound by law to follow the procedure laid out. They can do whatever the hell they want and that is what Donald Trump has done so far.

This is the kind of exit we all should have expected from Donald Trump as he prepares to leave the White House for the final time; indeed, he might have done so already, having jetted off to Florida to spend the holiday with his family … at least that’s my hope.

This is an astonishing end to an astonishing term as president for Donald Trump. It ain’t normal. If only we had the last of it … if only.

legal news

Trump butchers rule of law

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By JOHN KANELIS / johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

Call me surprised, but not that Donald Trump would enact a scorched-Earth policy on his way out the door of the White House.

I am surprised at the brazenness of it all. Do I fear permanent damage to our democratic form of government. Not just yet, but the A**hole in Chief isn’t done yet.

The pardons he issued this week apparently portend more to come. Of all the pardons and commutations he has delivered, the set of them that gives me chills and fills me with the most rage involves the four convicted killers who worked as defense contractors in Iraq. Trump’s action on their behalf should give all of us serious cause for fear.

These individuals were convicted after a meticulous and thorough prosecution conducted by the Justice Department into reports that they opened fire on innocent civilians in Iraq. Their victims included women and children.

They are killers. They were serving time in federal prison. No longer. They now are free from their much-deserved bondage because the Crook in Chief doesn’t respect the rule of law. He has acted with utter ignorance of the pardon and commutation process and the protocol that served Justice Department officials well since the beginning of our republic.

How in the name of human decency can this man, Trump, live with himself. Oh, I forgot! He is shameless. Trump has no sense of what is just and fair.

I suppose no one should be shocked at what Trump has done on his way out of office. Some of us — such as me — noted long ago that this loon’s pre-politics background was geared toward one goal: self-enrichment. Public service remains to this very day a foreign concept to this individual. The pardons he dished out this week illustrate that cold and hard reality in stark and frightening terms.

I am going to make this point while realizing I likely am spitting into the wind. It is that Republicans in Congress — in the Senate and the House — need to stand up against the guy who lost a presidential election. He is about to leave office. Donald Trump must not be allowed to continue trashing the rule of law.

To think, too, that this was the moron who campaigned for re-election as a “law and order president.”

This individual is a disgrace.