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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsKavanaugh just said Nixon pardon was one of the best Presidential decisions in history
This was during SCOTUS arguments on immunity. Gorsuch was also arguing earlier that presidents can blanket pardon themselves when leaving office and isnt that the same thing as immunity, so why not? Biden needs to expand the court, ASAP.
2naSalit
(86,798 posts)His beer-soaked mind.
Irish_Dem
(47,436 posts)Voltaire2
(13,179 posts)Kavanaugh is a hypocritical idiot so the obvious conclusion from that argument is irrelevant. Gorsuch is just vile. On second thought he is likely an hypocritical idiot as well.
sarisataka
(18,774 posts)A pardon is not necessary if the person in question has immunity
Go with your second thought
DFW
(54,443 posts)But Kavanaugh stuck his foot in it. He practically came out and said that Nixon needed the pardon, which would imply that he did NOT have immunity. If Nixon enjoyed immunity, then there would have been no need to pardon him, would there?
NoMoreRepugs
(9,468 posts)dchill
(38,541 posts)What a maroon.
Irish_Dem
(47,436 posts)GreenWave
(6,766 posts)Caliman73
(11,744 posts)It would be different if a liberal President had committed the crimes that Nixon did. Remember that Conservatives believe that there are certain "in groups" that should be protected by the law, but not bound by it, and "out groups" that should be bound by the law but not protected by it. Galbraith said that and it holds true.
Nixon's pardon was a disaster for the idea of equal justice and the concept that "no one is above the law". Many people in this country, unfortunately, on both sides of the political spectrum, have gone out of their way to spare the wealthy and powerful from justice.
Yes, I will say, that it can, open the door to "political prosecution" but then all prosecution is political. Our legal system is part of the political system it is infact, how power is wielded, at a certain level. What we need to be discussing is how to prevent prosecution from becoming PARTISAN, meaning that we go after someone primarily because they are in the opposition party.
We have held MANY MANY politicians to answer for their crimes. It happens everyday as Rachel Maddow reported on a few months ago. We just can't seem to cross that threshold of holding people in the presidency accountable, or Supreme Court Justices who engage in unethical and likely illegal practices like taking gifts from people who have business before the Supreme Court (Clarence Thomas, looking at you).
WarGamer
(12,484 posts)303squadron
(547 posts)The fact that Nixon wasn't tried, found guilty and died rotting away in prison as he should have been has led to the type of abuses they are now confronted with.
What a POS!
Caliman73
(11,744 posts)Nixon getting away with it lead to Reagan getting away with Iran-Contra, which lead to W and Cheney getting away with lying to manufacture a trillion dollar "war on terror", which lead to Trump going on a crime spree.
I think every President has, and in many cases, has had to go up to the line of what is acceptable. Sometimes when the goal is protecting the interests of a Nation, there are going to be some murky waters. We can argue that FDR and Truman were in really bad ethical territory when deciding to drop atomic weapons on Japan, Kennedy and the Bay of Pigs, Eisenhower with the Mossadegh business in Iran, etc... What separates the acts above from what Nixon, Reagan, Bush, and Trump did was that you can also argue that what was done by Kennedy et al was seen at the time, as necessary for the protection of the United States. What was done by the latter group was strictly for monetary and ideological purposes.
303squadron
(547 posts)Aristus
(66,465 posts)in those last few months. Sensing a kindred spirit.
Kid Berwyn
(14,965 posts)The pardon prevented any mention in court of "George Herbert Walker Bush and The Texans."
From Spartacus:
George Herbert Walker Bush
EXCERPT...
(10) Paul Kangas, The Realist (1990)
SNIP...
Nixon told Pepsi, Standard Oil and other corporations who lost property given back to the farmers of Cuba, that if they would help him win, he would authorize an invasion to remove Castro. To further impress contributors to his campaign, then Vice-President Nixon asked the CIA to create Operation 40, a secret plan to invade Cuba, just as soon as he won.
The CIA put Texas millionaire and CIA agent George Bush in charge of recruiting Cuban exiles into the CIA's invasion army. Bush was working with another Texas oilman, Jack Crichton, to help him with the invasion. A fellow Texan, Air Force General Charles Cabel, was asked to coordinate the air cover for the invasion.
Most of the CIA leadership around the invasion of Cuba seems to have been people from Texas. A whole Texan branch of the CIA is based in the oil business. If we trace Bush's background in the Texas oil business we discover his two partners in the oil-barge leasing business: Texan Robert Mosbacher and Texan James Baker. Mosbacher is now Secretary of Commerce and Baker is Secretary of State, the same job Dulles held when JFK was killed. (Source: Common Cause magazine, 3-4/90).
On the Watergate tapes, June 23, 1972, referred to in the media as the "smoking gun" conversation, Nixon and his Chief of Staff, H.R. Haldeman, discussed how to stop the FBI investigation into the CIA Watergate burglary. They were worried that the investigation would expose their conection to "the Bay of Pigs thing." Haldeman, in his book The Ends of Power, reveals that Nixon always used code words when talking about the 1963 murder of JFK. Haldeman said Nixon would always refer to the assassination as "the Bay of Pigs."
On that transcript we find Nixon discussing the role of George Bush's partner, Robert Mosbacher, as one of the Texas fundraisers for Nixon. On the tapes Nixon keeps refering to the "Cubans" and the "Texans." The "Texans" were Bush, Mosbacher and Baker. This is another direct link between Bush and evidence linking Nixon and Bush to the Kennedy assassination.
In the same discussion Nixon links "the Cubans," "the Texans," "Helms," "Hunt," "Bernard Barker," Robert "Mosbacher" and "the Bay of Pigs." Over and over on the Watergate tapes, these names come up around the discussion of the photos from Dallas that Nixon was trying to obtain when he ordered the CIA to burglarize the Watergate. (Source: Three Men and a Barge", Teresa Riordan, Common Cause magazine, March/April 1990, and San Francisco Chronicle, May 7,1977, interview with Frank Sturgis in which he stated that "the reason we burglarized the Watergate was because Nixon was interested in stopping news leaking related to the photos of our role in the assassination of President John Kennedy."
CONTINUES...
https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKbushG.htm
ITAL
(645 posts)I could be mistaken, but I heard him say it was one of FORD's best decisions.
AllaN01Bear
(18,429 posts)RANDYWILDMAN
(2,676 posts)destroyed by beer
I think his was destroyed a long time ago and he has climbed his way out the sewer anyways.
FBI, do you damn job and this idiot would not have a job.
Nixon/Ford pardon set this country back 50 years at least
FFS
MadameButterfly
(1,065 posts)he's been taking lessons from Trump
AllaN01Bear
(18,429 posts)nixon got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and got slapped .
AllaN01Bear
(18,429 posts)Blue Owl
(50,507 posts)senseandsensibility
(17,138 posts)these rightwing Heritage Foundation judges live in. They never talk to or read ideas outside the bubble, or if they are force to, they don't do so with an open mind.
Iggo
(47,568 posts)moondust
(20,006 posts)Over the next four years after the Nixon pardon the GQP came to realize that they could use the pardon power to get away with pretty much anything without accountability. And so we got...
~
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandals_of_the_Ronald_Reagan_administration
The Bushes weren't quite so bad in that respect but then came the worst, most corrupt of all: TSF. Look at all the crimes his pardons dismissed and where the GQP crime family is now.
getagrip_already
(14,838 posts)Cuz they don't have that power.
They have to corrupt the powers they have to achieve that.
JohnSJ
(92,411 posts)and if trump wins, he has the ability to pardon himself.
getagrip_already
(14,838 posts)I was reacting to what six pack said. Wy focus on nixon unless he also wants to pardon someone.
JohnSJ
(92,411 posts)getagrip_already
(14,838 posts)And, and, and, BENGHAZI!!!!
And, and, and, she is a WOMAN!!!!
It hurts I have to include the sarcasm banner, but I KNOW I would be juried otherwise. Sigh.
phylny
(8,389 posts)And NOT in a good way.