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Donald Trump Insists He Has 'Complete Power' to Pardon

posted by n1 on Monday July 24 2017, @11:22AM   
from the friends-and-family dept.

MrPlow writes:

Submitted via IRC for Bytram

Amid relentless scrutiny over possible ties between his presidential campaign and Russia, an extraordinary suggestion has emerged - that Donald Trump could pardon himself or his family.

Source: BBC News

US President Donald Trump has insisted he has the "complete power" to pardon people, amid reports he is considering presidential pardons for family members, aides and even himself.

A Democratic Party spokesman has called the reports "extremely disturbing".

The US authorities are probing possible collusion between the Trump team and Russia. Intelligence agencies think Russia tried to help Mr Trump to power.

Russia denies this, and the president says there was no collusion.

The Washington Post reported on Thursday that Mr Trump and his team were looking at ways to pardon people close to him.

Source: BBC News

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Original Submission #1  Original Submission #2 

• Impeachment Impeachment (Score: 3, Insightful) by Sulla on Monday July 24 2017, @06:23PM (1 child)

  by Sulla (5173) on Monday July 24 2017, @06:23PM (#543807) Journal

  Regardless of what the Democrats or Republicans might say on an individual basis, the whole system in Washington is faltering and it is not just because of Trump. The number one thing the Dems and Reps need is a person to point their finger to and say that they caused everything please keep sending election money. Trump is the perfect scapegoat because he is so widely hated already. The Democrats healthcare fails because they refused to work with Republicans when they had a majority? Trumps fault for not fixing it. The economy goes back into recession because thats the new world we live in based on D/R screwing us for generations? Its the big orange gorilla causing this.

  Impeaching Trump means everything that follows is the current members of congress/senate's fault for not fixing the issues when they should have. Time and time again Washington has been consistent with only making sure they keep their own jobs.

  --
  Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam

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• Re:Impeachment (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @05:04PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 27 2017, @05:04PM (#545273)

  The Democrats healthcare fails because they refused to work with Republicans when they had a majority?

  If that's what happened, better fix Wikipedia. [wikipedia.org]

  After his inauguration, Obama announced to a joint session of Congress in February 2009 his intent to work with Congress to construct a plan for healthcare reform.[152][153] By July, a series of bills were approved by committees within the House of Representatives.[154] On the Senate side, from June to September, the Senate Finance Committee held a series of 31 meetings to develop a healthcare reform bill. This group — in particular, Democrats Max Baucus, Jeff Bingaman and Kent Conrad, along with Republicans Mike Enzi, Chuck Grassley and Olympia Snowe — met for more than 60 hours, and the principles that they discussed, in conjunction with the other committees, became the foundation of the Senate healthcare reform bill.[155][156][157]

  Congressional Democrats and health policy experts like MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber[158] and David Cutler argued that guaranteed issue would require both community rating and an individual mandate to ensure that adverse selection and/or "free riding" would not result in an insurance "death spiral".[159] This approach was taken because the president and congressional leaders had concluded that more progressive plans, such as the (single-payer) Medicare for All act, could not obtain filibuster-proof support in the Senate. By deliberately drawing on bipartisan ideas — the same basic outline was supported by former Senate majority leaders Howard Baker, Bob Dole, Tom Daschle and George J. Mitchell—the bill's drafters hoped to garner the votes necessary for passage.[160][161]

  However, following the adoption of an individual mandate, Republicans came to oppose the mandate and threatened to filibuster any bills that contained it.[131] Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, who led the Republican congressional strategy in responding to the bill, calculated that Republicans should not support the bill, and worked to prevent defections:[162]

  It was absolutely critical that everybody be together because if the proponents of the bill were able to say it was bipartisan, it tended to convey to the public that this is O.K., they must have figured it out.

  /quote

  Parent