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2018-05-03 9:32 AM

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Champion
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Alabama
Subject: Above the Law
I keep hearing the cliché 'no one is above the law' as if it was the Rook card and trumps everything, no matter what.

I submit that it's not absolute. The POTUS has the authority to pardon anyone of anything for any reason HE deems appropriate.

Obama pardoned and/or commuted sentences of 1,927 convicted criminals, the most since Roosevelt.

This is not about Obama or Roosevelt or Trump or any other president, I just don't like the POTUS having this king-like power. We have a judiciary and it works. If there is an injustice, there are provisions to appeal all the way to the SCOTUS. But for the king (I mean president) to wave his magical wand (pen) and decide someone does not have to pay his/her dues to (our) society for the crime(s) they committed and were rightfully convicted of is appalling IMO. This is totally unfair to the victim(s) of the crimes these people harmed. And it flies in the face of "no one is above the law". If you have money, power, influence.....you really are above the law.

Just my opinion. YMMV


2018-05-03 4:01 PM
in reply to: Rogillio

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Pro
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Subject: RE: Above the Law

Originally posted by Rogillio I keep hearing the cliché 'no one is above the law' as if it was the Rook card and trumps everything, no matter what. I submit that it's not absolute. The POTUS has the authority to pardon anyone of anything for any reason HE deems appropriate. Obama pardoned and/or commuted sentences of 1,927 convicted criminals, the most since Roosevelt. This is not about Obama or Roosevelt or Trump or any other president, I just don't like the POTUS having this king-like power. We have a judiciary and it works. If there is an injustice, there are provisions to appeal all the way to the SCOTUS. But for the king (I mean president) to wave his magical wand (pen) and decide someone does not have to pay his/her dues to (our) society for the crime(s) they committed and were rightfully convicted of is appalling IMO. This is totally unfair to the victim(s) of the crimes these people harmed. And it flies in the face of "no one is above the law". If you have money, power, influence.....you really are above the law. Just my opinion. YMMV

I certainly understand your opinion, but respectfully disagree.  When a person commits a crime and completes his or her sentence they have indeed paid their dues.  They are then saddled with the negative effects of having a conviction on their record for the rest of their lives.  Many people truly change their ways and turn the negative into a positive to benefit society so we have a system in place that allows Governors and the President to grant a pardon of their offense.  It doesn't change the fact that they were convicted, it doesn't undo their probation or jail time, it doesn't undo their community service.  It simply recognizes that this individual has changed their life for the better and should no longer have to deal with the effects of having a criminal record.

Certainly there are cases where a pardon is granted for somebody who was wrongfully convicted, but the vast majority are for people who were justly and rightfully convicted.  They simply recognize what they did and made an effort to ensure that it doesn't happen again.
A pardon most definitely doesn't constitute being above the law unless there's a blatant example of say Trump Jr. being convicted of something and then Dad immediately pardon's him so that he doesn't have to suffer any consequences.  In that particular case I'd agree with you that it's bad, but I'm not aware of any cases like that.  Even if there are some they're extremely rare.

As for politicians in particular I do believe that quite often they are above the law, or at least held to a much more unobtainable criminal standard because of what they represent.  We're seeing first hand with the FBI love bird texts that they were incredibly biased against Trump and in favor of Hillary and it impacted how they investigated the crimes they were charged with investigating.  That kind of behavior is most definitely wrong, but it's just a symptom of a much bigger problem within the FBI IMHO.

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