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by throwaway0a5e 1976 days ago
That's it. It's also the one where having the record of the prior crime expunged made a huge difference in the potential sentence for the DUI he was being prosecuted for at the time.

I'm not sure if it's better or worse to pardon someone above the table like that or for a president to throw their political weight around behind closed doors to get favorable treatment but it's slimy no matter how you cut it.

1 comments

The drunk driving incident and the following DUI charge came several months after the pardon.

(Correction: it was the dropping of the case was months after the pardon. The drunk driving incident and subsequent prosecution was one month after the pardon)

And the prosecution started before the pardon. He got pardoned because it looked like he wouldn't be able to dodge the charge and was gonna get whacked with the kind of sentence that people with prior felonies get.
Nope. The incident and arrest was on February 17th, 2001 [1]. The pardon was in January 2001.

So it wasn't "months" between them like I originally said (it was months to dropping the case), but it was still after it.

I've added a correction to my comment.

[1] https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-19-me-27395...

I misread the date on the wikipedia page.

In any case it still reeks of some animals being more equal than others.