Trump Claims In Middle-Of-The-Night Meltdown That Biden's Pardons Are 'VOID'
www.huffpost.com
The president sent a chilling warning to people pardoned by former President Joe Biden.

Summary

Trump declared Biden’s pardons “VOID” in a late-night Truth Social post, claiming they were signed by autopen without Biden’s knowledge—despite Trump having used autopen during his first term.

Trump warned pardoned individuals, including January 6th committee members (who weren’t charged with crimes), that they’re “subject to investigation at the highest level.”

Critics characterized his statements as “dictator shit” and questioned their legality, with one commenting this represents “the 17th constitutional crisis of just this weekend alone.”

  • gamer@lemm.ee
    0·
    3 days ago

    This is the oath presidents must make before exercising any official powers or duties:

    I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

    He has been very obviously doing the complete opposite of that. The GOP has some pretty flexible mental gymnasts in their circus, but I don’t think even they will be able to dodge this one.

    My understanding of the supreme court ruling was that he has immunity only for “official acts”. So… If he violates this oath, he isn’t authorized to exercise any official powers of the presidency, and thus anything he’s doing isn’t official! Right? I hope so. It’d give me something to look forward to as we suffer through the next 4 years.

    • GojuRyu@lemmy.world
      0·
      2 days ago

      As far as I remember it was a two part protection. Any official act, no matter the intent, is protected. So as one dissenting justice pointed out, ordering seal team six to assassinate a political rival could be protected as it falls within the powers of the president to direct the military. Besides that, any criminal action outside of that overly broad protection still cannot be prosecuted using any evidence that comes from the actions of the president in their capacity as such. So if the president has a phone call logged in official records in which they outline or perform an illegal act, those logs will be inadmissible in court, only evidence reltaed to the president as a private individual is admissible. The stormy daniels case had to throw out evidence because of this, despite being related to crimes committed before the election even.

      Obligatory disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer and working off of memory. I might misunderstand or misremember some of this.