The US founders made a grave error in granting presidents pardon power | James Rosen
www.theguardian.com
Trump’s utter abuse of the power proves it. As the midterms approach, voters have not forgotten January 6

From betraying Ukraine and dispatching masked agents who killed Americans to deporting US citizens and pulling out of accords controlling climate change and Iranian nuclear weapons, the list of Donald Trump’s abuses is long and growing still longer, seemingly by the day.

Looking back decades from now, historians will see that at the top of this shameful list is Trump’s utter abuse of his pardon power. It started on the first day of his second term, when he pardoned more than 1,500 insurrectionists who, on 6 January 2021, had stormed the US Capitol.

More recently, as documented in astonishing accounts by the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and 60 Minutes, Trump has overseen a robust pardons market in which friends or relatives of criminals offer to pay millions for presidential clemency.

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  • UnderpantsWeevilEnglish
    2·
    1 day ago

    I don’t think US founders ever expected that such a moron would manage to be elected, and use that power for himself.

    Within a single presidency, you had early Americans calling one another idiots, tyrants, and foreign plants. Washington himself wasn’t above suspicion.

    Everyone from Patrick Henry to Aaron Burr reviled one another and accused each other of plots to reinstate some kind of monarchy.

    We need the midterms to allow for a possible reform of the constitution

    That won’t happen. The American system will continue to revert to the 19th century mean, until the bureaucratic mechanisms fail completely.