So … he’ll be pardoned again?
Has anyone compiled the statistics of how many of Trump’s pardons have ended up back in jail, and how it compares to other presidents?
I imagine Carter might be high on the list though, simply for being the guy who pardoned everyone who dodged the Vietnam War draft.
I’m curious to see the list for all the presidents.
I think blanket pardons need to be looked at perhaps in a different light, although as I say that I realize it would apply also to Jan 6ers, so maybe only blanket pardons for things I agree with. That’s how we do things nowadays right?
Braun was accused of “swinging an IV pole at a hospital nurse and threatening to kill her, screaming at a member of his synagogue, groping his family’s nanny and evading bridge tolls.”
Really buried the lede there. Evading bridge tolls is serious business.
Like the classic crimes of arson, murder, and jaywalking.
So… How many times can you get a presidental pardon? 🤔
Maybe he’s ‘working’ up to rapes and kiddie fiddling so he can then become the president…
As many times as you want, at least until the auto-pen breaks.
Not bombed on a boat? Got off easy.
A real stand-up guy innit?
Sounds like cabinet material to me.
In fairness, he was assaulted by police and pepper sprayed then shoved aside several times before they eventually bothered to get a warrant for an arrest.
Boys will be boys. /s
“Very fine people on both sides”
Are we really doing Willie Horton style “look at this monster our opponent let back on the streets” tactics. This is how we end up with every politician being afraid to pardon anyone or even let them off on parole because there opponent or the press will yell at them if they ever so much as run a red light.
This guy wasn’t even sentenced for rape or murder or anything violent:
Braun was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2019 for smuggling 220,000 pounds of marijuana.
Trump was right to pardon him, marijuana offenses are BS. Yeah the guy fucked up after he got out but that’s not Trump’s fault. There’s a million things we can criticize trump for, this isn’t one of them.
I get where you’re coming from with wanting a softening in the criminal justice system, I really do, but that’s too much drug dealing to pardon. Shorten the sentence, maybe, but clear the slate? Dude was part of a bigger system, not a kid caught with a bag of pot.
And that much weed is still illegal to possess in my state without the proper paperwork.
Weed is definitely comparatively tame to hard drugs but 220,000 lbs of anything is insane. That’s not just some dude trying to make a living.
Besides Trump is the last person in the world that needs less scrutiny on the people he pardons. Just today the news broke that he pardoned Giuliani and others who tried to help him steal an election. The dude is literally pardoning people who commit crimes on his behalf. If you find yourself saying something that could reasonably be interpreted as defending his use of pardons then there’s a good chance you’re on the wrong side of the issue.
Do you think this guy should still be locked up for smuggling weed in a state where its now legal? I don’t and I’m not going to compromise my morals just so I can disagree with trump on every issue. If you are taking the stance that anything trump does is automatically bad then your letting your politics be defined by him and becoming a sort of reactionary. Your politics should be defined by what you believe in, not what the other side says.
I also believe that trump pardoning his co-conspirators is wrong because it’s corrupt, not just because Trump is doing it. Criticize an action on its substance, not just who is doing it.
It’s kinda complicated, but I do have to say… smuggling on that scale something more is going on. If you told me someone is smuggling 200,000 lbs of cigarettes from a state where they are cheap into a state they are expensive… I’d say there’s a 99.99% chance somewhere in the line there’s some major violent crimes done to enable it. An opperation that large isn’t just a couple guys providing for their friends, that’s clearly dealing with some form of organized crime or gangs… that most likely aren’t holding their territory by friendly agreements.
Ok, then prosecute him for racketeering or murder for hire.
If the point is to just take out the kingpin, for the sake of taking out the kingpin, I don’t think that’s an effective strategy for public safety. When the kingpin goes to jail violence goes up as their underlings usually fight for the throne. Availability of drugs and other illegal services may go down temporarily during the war and reconsolidation but long term they’ll return to antebellum levels. The only thing taking out the kingpin does is boost cops egos.
I think there’s a significant difference between someone who caught a case for having an ounce on them and a guy busted with enough weed to fill a swimming pool, regardless of my personal feelings about marijuana. Framing it the way you are makes it sound like he’s the former and that doesn’t capture the scope of what he was up to.
Either way this guy is clearly a shit head. If you want to make the argument that all marijuana charges should be pardoned and expunged then I suggest you find a different poster boy for the campaign because this guy is not helping your case.
How am I framing it like he got caught with an ounce, my original comment mentioned the amount. Why should the amount matter, it’s legal now, a dispensary is probably moving tons of marijuana a year, should the owners of those dispensaries be prosecuted simply because of the volume of the operation?
I will make the argument that all marijuana charges should be pardoned expunged in legal states because we as a society decided it’s a relatively harmless substance and that we shouldn’t be locking people up for possessing or selling it.
Yeah he’s not the best poster boy, and Willie Horton isn’t the best poster boy for furlough programs, and the guy who killed laken Riley isn’t the best poster boy for immigration reform, hell kilmar garcia has charges equivalent to this guy. That’s the thing about criminal justice reform, you don’t choose your poster boy your opponent does. That’s why you have to defend it on principal not individual cases, because there will always be someone who uses that reform and goes on to commit some atrocious act which your opponents will use as “proof” that the reform is dangerous.
220,000 pounds. It’s not about marijuana, it’s about him being a large scale illegal drug dealer. If Trump wants to first pardon everyone in the US who has minor charges for marijuana, great. And then much later he can go and deal with the major drug dealers.
But look, you asked for criticism based on substance, and the substance here is that the guy had political connections. In other words, this is classic corruption. And I know you know that.
“It was only 220 tons of weed!”
This is the guy who’s in charge as the US obliterates random fishing boats while claiming they’re smuggling drugs. The point is dragging you into an alley and beating you to near death and you’re still completely missing it.
*110 tons but yeah.
Sorry, I’m from Canada and habit kicked in. Oddy, we do use pounds for things like cars, which weigh over a ton, but never really say that a car weighs 1.5 tons or whatever.
Yeah. That’s only like 3 tractor trailers (assuming they’re not just running overweight too)
Trump blowing up boats is bad
Trump commuting non violent drug offenses is good
You can hold these two opinions if you’re mature enough to understand no one is a pure hero or villain and can do both good and bad things
Ok, so he’s going to pardon all the non-violent drug offenses, then? When’s he going to let all those people go?
If the reason he pardoned that guy is a good one then he would want to apply that to everyone in the same circumstances, correct? If he refuses to then it would stand to reason that there is a different intent behind his action. Come now, be serious.
