[lbriner]

Someone might have already pointed it out but for me, the sentence of RA is not the main issue, the issue is allowing a single person to stamp through an entire legal system and undermine all of the time and money that is invested in it, even if that person is a president.

I suspect that the idea originally was to give some safety valve but if it is used more than a few times by a President, it makes a mockery of it and it should be removed as a power. How can a President ever decide that the entire legal process is flawed and their opinion is right? If the sentence was too long then change the sentencing guidelines.

[contravariant]

The main failure here is the failure of the elections system to elect anyone reasonable.

On its own it is not that bad an idea for someone who carries a mandate of the majority of the population to be able to grant pardons.

[falcor84]

Why is it not a bad idea? Isn't it then just an example of Tyranny of the Majority?

Taken to the extreme, we could have an impartial legal system putting in prison criminals from an even mix of society, and then the president pardoning everyone from the majority group, leaving in prison only the minorities.

[lukan]

"Isn't it then just an example of Tyranny of the Majority?"

And how would you call a justice system, so complicated and convulted and therefore expensive that poor people (from minorities) don't really stand a chance to get their justice there?

Obviously Ross was not in that group, but I see presidential pardon as a potential tool to counter the flaws of the justice system.

[Propelloni]

Unjust? Broken? But adding one broken thing to another broken thing will do nothing to fix any one of them.

[lukan]

Do you have concrete ideas on how to improve?

And till those steps are implemented, don't you think you would enjoy it, if the next president would pardon Snowden, or your personal favorite case of unjustice?

[Propelloni]

As if the laws and justice of a nation are a questions of personal favorites! Maybe I have read too much enlightenment philosophers, but I happen to think in terms of general principles in this case.

This might be a good first step, too. Read more books from a time when people were struggling with arbitrary justice.

[stuartjohnson12]

If my server is unreliable, adding an unreliable backup is better than nothing.

[dredmorbius]

That really depends. There are times when adding backups or "safety" features can make circumstances worse.

[Propelloni]

Maybe, but do you think it is good enough?

[oneeyedpigeon]

The justice system is flawed, but I don't see how adding a political dimension makes it any better.

[lukan]

Because fundamentally the idea is to be a democracy.

The laws should represent, what the people want. Not a small caste of lawyers and lobbyist what it often rather seems to be.

Presidential power is a direct way to represent peoples wishes. Or well, could be, if the voting system wouldn't be flawed as well ..

[contravariant]

In a similar situation a majority could simply make it illegal to belong to the minority group. And without a way to pardon them the damage would be permanent.

You want a majority to be able to decide who gets punished and who goes free, and even the best designed laws will have unforseen consequences. If the majority is 'evil', well there's just not all that much that can be done in a democracy. Yes it would be better to live in a dictatorship of the most virtuous person in existence, but if you ever figure out how to do that please let me know.

[oneeyedpigeon]

Which is exactly what we do have: a president pardoning everyone from the majority political group. It's not consolation that the majority/minority groups are roughly equal.

[hamandcheese]

Personally, I view the pardon as a form of veto power on the judiciary. Why is it reasonably that a president can veto controls, but not the judiciary?

[kortilla]

All of the presidents pardon tons of people unpalatable to the other side of the political spectrum. They usually just save it for the end of their term so it doesn’t cause too much noise.

[ArnoVW]

While it is true that there is always controversy, this does not mean that there is equivalency.

Yes, every president has pardons that are arguable (Biden pardoning his son, for example). And anyone pardoned has been found guilty of a crime, by definition. But not all crimes are equal.

Pardoning 1500 people that participated in a (luckily failed) insurrection that caused 5 deaths and 100+ injured, is an extremely bad precedent, and sends a very bad signal.

Pardoning people convicted of marijuana possession (like Biden did) is not the same thing as pardoning the head of the worlds biggest guns and drugs marketplace. Even if he did not kill anyone himself (it was proven, just to a lesser extent, but fine). Those drugs and guns most definitely did kill people.

[kortilla]

> Pardoning 1500 people that participated in a (luckily failed) insurrection that caused 5 deaths and 100+ injured, is an extremely bad precedent, and sends a very bad signal.

Because you’re political view of it is indeed that they were having an insurrection. To the right they were just having a protest that got violent but not anymore violent than any of the others throughout the country that year.

> Pardoning people convicted of marijuana possession (like Biden did)

You mean he pardoned a bunch of drug dealers who will now go back selling drugs to children?

Do you see the issue here? The justice system is to try to cut through the bias and selectively choosing which part of the justice outcomes to ignore is going to be extremely political.

Anything clearly obvious is usually resolved by higher courts so the pardons are completely for when the president just decides “fuck the law in this particular way”.

[ArnoVW]

Sure. It is true that violence and unrest is something that happens more often. And not everyone that day came to storm the senate.

But, as usual, this is a case of false equivalency.

Can we agree that when violence results in penetration of the national seat of power, during the transfer of power, that changes from "civil unrest" to "insurrection"?

This is like saying "but your honor, fights happen all the time", when trying to defend yourself after robbing a bank.

I won't even go into the fact that there is ample evidence that it did not "just got violent". Even if not everyone came there to storm the senate, there is ample videographic proof of people arriving geared up and organized.

Now. Regarding those "bunch of drug dealers". In fact, Biden commuted the sentence of 1500 non-violent offenders so that their punishment was in line with the punishment they would receive today. He pardoned 49 people that mostly have already purged their sentence and today are productive members of society (and there were being kept back by their record)

Really. Spend two minutes reading through the list of pardons, and after reading about the lives of these people, then tell me if you still think those people will sell drugs to children.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/clemency-recipient-list-3

[Escapado]

Honest question/thought experiment: if we only elected people who are qualified for their job (assume we can measure competence at least in some dimensions like we do for a myriad of other professions before we allow people to work in them) and if the election process was set up in a way where when casting your ballot you have to take a multiple choice quiz which tests for basic knowledge on what you will vote for and the country you’re in (as in “what is the household budget roughly, is this candidate in favour or against x, did the crime rate increase or decrease nominally” take these as rough examples of what I mean), to ensure that the people who vote for something have some clue what they are voting for and the broader context it’s embedded in (we require a license to drive a car, this would be akin to have a having a license to vote) would that remedy the situation a little? The idea would be that informed people would vote for informed people. Could you imagine this being a net benefit or not? I would assume it would make democracies significantly better than they are now. Imagine going to a doctors office to find out your doctor is a Plummer and he was voted into this job and that the people working for him and handling your prescription is a random assortment of people he seems to like.

[upwardbound2]

I'm sure there are benefits and that might it help overall if implemented here and now in our current America with our current levels of public access to civics and career education (MAYBE.) However, this change would be the exact opposite or a total repeal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which good people died for. At a meta level, I trust those who died for voting rights to care more and know more about the correct answer to your question than I do, and I guess I would recommend to look back at historic speeches from MLK and other leaders to understand their full reasoning about why literacy tests were either irredeemable or undesirable, and their reasons for thinking so.

If we assume that both you and MLK were right, but that different policies better suit different conditions, then your proposal could maximize meritocratic effectiveness in an already-very-fair society, whereas MLK's way (the Voting Rights Act) provides a better minimum standard of human rights (similar to 1st and 2nd Amendment protections for people).

[Escapado]

Thanks for pointing me to that. One thing that stands out about that argument though is that voting is already discriminatory, right? Permanent residents and minors are not allowed to vote (the latter because we take age as a proxy of competency, no?), despite facing the consequences of elections just as anyone else does. I do understand that a risk for misuse absolutely exists, but at the same time it looks like populism, social media abuse, smear campaigns, science denial and plain old corruption in sheep's clothing are rampant enough that we can agree that many many votes are cast by misled people, who would have made another choice if they really understood what they voted for. I guess it would boil down to the difficult question of which harm is greater.

[lolc]

Like a literacy test?

https://www.crmvet.org/info/lithome.htm#litbkgnd

Sorry for the snark, it's just a very hard problem because we'd end up in a situation where the voters would decide who is part of their club.

[oneeyedpigeon]

> would that remedy the situation a little?

I've had this thought before and my tentative conclusion is "no". It boils down to the purpose of democracy which is NOT to produce the best government but to make people feel ok about having a government at all.

[Escapado]

That's an interesting perspective, but I wonder if we can't have both.

[ttyprintk]

The Ancient Greek experiments with democracy seem to culminate in a system that “gives you the government you deserve”. But those citizens also faced dire consequences for causing any harm to society—-that’s an important characteristic we’ve lost.

[lukan]

"this would be akin to have a having a license to vote) would that remedy the situation a little? The idea would be that informed people would vote for informed people. Could you imagine this being a net benefit or not?"

The idea has been around for a bit and I call it interesting, but also with huge potential of misuse.

Change the test slightly, so your target audience will yield better results, giving you a better result.

Either way, as long as climate change and darwinism are controversial topics, I see it hard to implement in a meaningful way.

[fgna]

While I can see this preventing many of the current issues, I can't help but wonder who will serve the interests of the people that are not allowed to vote.

Would it be a better system if the not-allowed group is totally dependent on the people that are allowed to vote?

[Escapado]

I see. In a sense we are already doing that. Minors can not vote (and if I am correct the reasoning is that they don't have the competency to cast a proper vote) and even foreign permanent residents can't either, even though the outcome of the elections totally influences their lives. In a sense these not-allowed groups are already totally dependent on the people that are allowed to vote.

I guess my argument boils down to: We already discriminate. My thoughts are that the way we do it is not optimal.

[tchalla]

> On its own

The reality is in front of you. So, you can't look at this "on its own".

[barnabee]

Assuming a sufficiently functional congress[0], why not require that pardons go through congress as well rather than be unilateral presidential actions?

[0] A big if, I know…

[namlem]

Yep. The problem is the system of elections itself. Biden and Obama also issued a lot of dubious pardons and commutations. The incentives of elections naturally favor short-termism and populism. Instead of having the people vote on candidates, we should randomly select citizens to an elector jury, which would carefully research and deliberate on the candidates before choosing.

https://www.electionbyjury.org/

[Terr_]

> I suspect that the idea originally was to give some safety valve

That reminds me of the early 2000s, where there were a lot of US debates around around terrorism and "harsh interrogations" i.e. torture.

A certain bloc of politicians and commentators kept bringing up a hypothetical scenario where there was a nuclear bomb counting down, and some guy wouldn't admit where it was hidden in a major city. My favorite response to that involved presidential pardons, something along the lines of:

1. "So what? If everything you say is true, then the authorities would simply torture the guy and seek a pardon afterwards. We already have an exceptional mechanism for those exceptional situations, meaning that's not a reason to change it."

2. "Conversely, any interrogator who isn't confident of a pardon is on who does not believe it's at ticking-bomb situation, meaning they cannot justify torturing someone anyway, they just want to do it to make their job marginally easier. That's bad, so it should stay illegal."

[FilosofumRex]

It's part of the separation of powers and the system of checks & balances against powers of branches of government.

Congress makes laws and impeaches presidents, courts judge constitutionality of laws and try cases of treason and presidents appoint judges and grant pardons.

You can't have impeachment without pardon, otherwise, there wouldn't be a check against judicial tyranny.

[samatman]

It's a system of checks and balances. The Presidential pardon power is specifically a check on the power of the Federal judiciary.

Regimes have toppled in response to popular uprising against imprisonments perceived as unjust. Having a system of governance without a way to rectify that seems unwise to me.

The check on Presidential authority, in turn, is impeachment. It's not a perfect system by any means, but in my estimation it's a good one.

[varsketiz]

I tend to think this way about ideal leadership, but in reality big systems I can see end up having exception paths, or even processes

[that_guy_iain]

They literally gave the power of pardons so that one person could right wrongs. Previously, it was used a lot more than it is now. There are lots of people in prison on unfair sentences which are technically legal but still wrong. Sentencing guidelines are just guidelines.

[rafaelmn]

Legal system is very often at odds with public perception of justice, changing the law is slow and does shit for people currently in jail - having veto power for elected officials is a good safety mechanism and helps perception of justice.

[murphy1312]

It is a relic from the time when most countries had kings who could pardon people.

[sebzim4500]

He's a single person but this was a campaign promise of a campaign that 77.3 million americans voted for.

[tonymet]

Is this a complaint about Trump or Biden ? So far Biden has pardoned more than 20x Trump , and Bidens recipients were Much more controversial

[account42]

Bidens pardons have been even more absurd - pardoning people for unspecified crimes before they have even been charged. Including his family.

[vidarh]

In the context of a deeply vindictive successor surrounded, it seems like the entirely rational choice to make.

It's not one that should be needed or acceptable, and had his successor been someone who seemed to respect law and order I'd have agreed with you, but in the present circumstances it'd seem crazy not to.

[sofixa]

Because of very legitimate threats of politically motivated prosecution against them. Hell, his son was was prosecuted and dragged through the mud publicly, including in fucking Congress, for run of the mill regular crimes. Why was there such a treatment for a regular criminal?

[mardifoufs]

Come on, that's such a cop out. Like even with an extremely partisan lens, it's a very very weak argument. Like yes, presidents and their family will be targets of more scrutiny (as you said, for political reasons). That's normal. What's not normal is pardoning your family to avoid said scrutiny.

Trump was also the target of "politically motivated judicial scrutiny" (and rightfully so!) So I guess he would be justified in pardoning himself and his entire family, right?

[sofixa]

I'm not American and even I can tell you that this is a terrible attempt at false equivalence.

Trump was president and commited a ton of crimes while being one, and a ton of others before and after. He was rightfully prosecuted, but unfortunately escaped any real consequences. His trials were mediatised and saw big attention form politicians because he was a former president, who was impeached being sued for a ton of different criminal activities, including multiple directly related to his job (the top job in the US). His trials were directly relevant to the wider public and political establishment, and should have prevented him from ever running again for even a school board.

Biden's son is a nobody. No high positions in government, no power, no shady deals getting billions from Saudis or whatever. Run of the mill small time criminal who got paraded through Congress simply because his father was president.

It's really absurd to try to compare the two, or claim that the myriad of trials against Trump were "politically motivated". The man is a fucking convicted criminal, rapist, absurd creep, tax cheat, stole from a children's cancer charity, plan and simple and obvious for anyone. And uet he's back at the top job, publicly promising vengeance to all those who wronged him. He directly and publicly threatened Zuckerberg and others.

It's really absurd trying to compare the two, and I refuse to believe this can be done in good faith.

[gadders]

Did you say this about Biden pardoning his whole family for their crimes, or just the ones Trump issued?

[dehrmann]

Not GP, but yes.

[gadders]

Good. For a lot of people the validity of the pardon depends on who is issuing it.

[varsketiz]

Not GP.

I think Bidens family pardons are problematic as well. I can understand why he did it.

I dont understand the argument for pardoning Ross.

[gadders]

I think time served is an appropriate sentence for what he did.

I think life with no parole was far to harsh.

[keepamovin]

Still something tells me you have zero problem with the thousands of pardons Biden issued, correct?

Don’t dress up your stance in fancy garb when it comes down to something baser.

[keepamovin]

I see that it’s still not possible to be pro Trump in YCombinator in 2025. One must still toe the line here. How sad.

[varsketiz]

This is not in any way related to Trump pardoning Ross or the fact that president can issue pardons at their discretion.

What you are doing here is a distraction from the topic - whataboutism.

[zo1]

We have to. Short of arguing on first-principles, agreeing on them, and then using those principles to evaluate everything done on both sides, this is one of the top mechanisms we have to bring a spotlight to the contradictory mess we have on our hands.

Personally, I blame lawyers and prosecutors. A law should be simple, easy to evaluate if it was broken, and always prosecuted. And when it comes to punishments, they should be explicit and without the possibility of being altered.

We've gotten too complacent with making all these arbitrary rules, then fiddling with their non-enforcement and severity by virtue of reduced sentences.

[varsketiz]

Well put. It seems to me that too few realise this.

[mardifoufs]

Actually in matters of law (which this definitely is), "whataboutism" is just judicial or executive precedent.

This is like crying about whataboutism when a judge cites judicial precedent to justify a sentence. Good luck with that, it might work as a "nuh-uh" in online discussions but in real life, precedent does actually matter.

[varsketiz]

I understand what a precedent is in law and in life :) It seems like an illogical position to hold here.

Biden did bad pardons, now Trump has no other course (eg fix the system), but to do bad pardons as well? Except when Trump does it it is not bad because Biden did it first?

[keepamovin]

Misrepresentation. The point is none of that. It’s the moral inconsistency disguised as valid.

[keepamovin]

Incorrect - that’s merely how you’ve interpreted it. Is not whataboutism, it’s first principles to expose standards supposed as impartial.

[lolwatter]

Maybe the legal system shouldn't have been used to go after individuals based on political reasons? Wouldn't that be a good start? Fed always win, so send Fed after someone and they will be in jail soon. It doesn't matter what they did or didn't do, this is sadly the way it's done now.

1500 in jail for protesting in DC? Really, less than that in jail after months BLM riots afaik. Sure, jail a few bad boys, but 1500? No way.

Throw a rock at people in power and go jail. Rape and murder is fine, no threat to DC.

[realaleris149]

The number of people is irrelevant. What is relevant is what each one did. If they did something illegal that is punished with prison time, they go to prison.

[ngetchell]

Trying to justify stealing the election, then trying to rewrite history saying the other side broke stuff when they prostested is the laziest sort of whataboutism I've seen on this site.

Trump and his minons tried to undo the results of an election. An election he lost. Lost even while abusing his power as president (see his calls in Ukraine and Georgia as evidence).

Nobody on the left supports looters or rapists. If there is evidence someone committed a crime, prosecute them. Trump is the only person I know that supports rapists (see Epstien and Gaetz). He says if you are loyal to him, you don't have to face the consequences of your actions. That to me is what is most scary.