Trump Pardoning Family, Cronies Will Confirm Their Guilt

Trump needs a deal from incoming President Biden and New York’s Mario Cuomo for the pardons he wants.

President Donald Trump is on the verge of granting pre-emptive pardons to a list of 20 or more people, including Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Rudy Giuliani. Doing so may offer very little protection from a future indictment from a state, city, or country prosecutor.

There’s no doubt that President Trump wants to grant himself and a laundry list of his family members, cronies, and sycophants preemptive pardons to keep them out-of-jail but to do so carries for them some insurmountable risks.

The insurmountable risk includes the reality that giving himself and his laundry list of scum bags presidential pardons will strip them of their ability to take the 5^th Amendment if the Democratically held House of Representatives subpoenas them.  This also follows suit for grand juries and state and local prosecutors like New York’s Attorney General Letitia James and Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance.

Once pardoned, everyone on Trump’s pardon portfolio cannot refuse to answer questions or refuse to turn over documents. They are compelled to admit to all their crimes, even if it’s in a public hearing.

An attempt to claim they don’t remember, don’t recall, etc., as a ruse to avoid answering tough incriminating questions or claiming they don’t have documentation would lead to being held in contempt. If they do in a grand jury, deposition, or stand during a state or local prosecution, they could be incarcerated on contempt.  And their failure to aliquot their crimes could be seen as an admission of guilt that could land them in state prison.

There’s also the likelihood that once being federally pardoned besides facing state or local criminal charges, everyone pardoned would be vulnerable to civil suits that could bankrupt each person pardoned.

While some legal experts disagree, most credible legal scholars like Harvard Law Professor Lawrence Tribe believe Trump cannot pardon himself and that any person who accepts a pardon will acknowledge their guilt. According to a 1915 Supreme Court case, accepting a pardon is a tacit admission of guilt. The Supreme Court held in Burdick v United States that a pardon “carries an imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it.”  

Therefore Trump’s pardons would effectively act as an admission of guilt, and while some of President Trump’s advisers are worried, they would harm his widely expected 2024 presidential campaign. Of course, this widely expected run would not become a reality if Donald J. Trump finds himself sitting in a New York State Prison three years from now.

One Republican, according to Politico, thinks Trump’s pardons wouldn’t hurt him, saying…

“It’s a big deal to Beltway types but not regular Americans.”

That belief is not rooted in reality. The inability to take the 5^th Amendment and being compelled to tell the truth and hand over incriminating evidence would more than likely guarantee prosecutions by state and local authorities would be successful. Trump and his family members, and many of his cronies and sycophants receiving pardons would end up in state prison.

President Trump and his family members’ ugly truth is they need a pardon from New York’s Governor Andrew Cuomo and President Biden to escape the possibility of facing criminal prosecution. This means that Trump, who considers himself a deal maker needs to make a grand bargain with his political enemies, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

A grand bargain for Biden and Cuomo pardon might be possible for Trump, his family members, cronies, and sycophants if Mitch McConnell was willing to agree to the passage of…

• An immigration bill that protects dreamers and makes them citizens in 7 years cleans up the many issues plaguing the system and allows people who were deported that served in the U.S. military to return to the country and apply for citizenship.
• Passage of the $2.4 billion Hero’s Act.
• Passage of a $3 Trillion infrastructure bill.
• An agreement to bring all of President Biden’s or democrat successor’s judicial and cabinet nominees to a vote within 60 days of their being nominated, during the next 4-8 years.
• Statehood for Washington D.C. and Puerto Rico.
• An Obamacare compromise includes needed provisions for Covid-19 care and consists of a 9/11 type of fund for people who die or are incapacitated by the virus so that the Republicans can limit corporate liability from coronavirus lawsuits.
• The improvement and passage and the stipulation that no one pardoned could not ever run for elective office in the future.
• No protection from civil suits and admission of all crimes by each person pardoned.    

Joe  Biden told CNN that possible pardons concern him because of the “kind of precedent it sets and how the rest of the world looks at us as a nation of laws and justice.”

Introspectively as a final comment, has President Donald Trump cared in the previous five years of campaigning and service as president what other nations thought about the United States of America?

                     Trump discussing pardons for his kids and Rudy Giuliani