Statement from the Press Secretary Regarding Executive Grants of Clemency
Anthony Levandowski – President Trump granted a full pardon to Anthony Levandowski. This pardon is strongly supported by James Ramsey, Peter Thiel, Miles Ehrlich, Amy Craig, Michael Ovitz, Palmer Luckey, Ryan Petersen, Ken Goldberg, Mike Jensen, Nate Schimmel, Trae Stephens, Blake Masters, and James Proud, among others. Mr. Levandowski is an American entrepreneur who led Google's efforts to create self-driving technology. Mr. Levandowski pled guilty to a single criminal count arising from civil litigation. Notably, his sentencing judge called him a "brilliant, groundbreaking engineer that our country needs." Mr. Levandowski has paid a significant price for his actions and plans to devote his talents to advance the public good.
Wikipedia entry on pardon within the United States.
See also: Former Google engineer Anthony Levandowski among list of last-minute Trump pardons
Trump's last-minute pardons include Bannon, Lil Wayne and scores of others
Trump Reportedly Abandoned Pardons For Snowden And Assange
Trump declines to pardon Assange, Snowden, or 'Joe Exotic' – here's the 143 people he chose
Previously: Text Messages Between Uber's Travis Kalanick and Anthony Levandowski Released
The Fall of Uber CEO Travis Kalanick
Uber Shutting Down Self-Driving Truck Division
Ex-Uber Engineer Levandowski Pleads Guilty To Trade Secrets Theft
Uber Accuses Levandowski of Fraud, Refuses to Pay $179M Google Judgment
Ex-Googler Levandowski Gets 18 Months in Prison for Trade-Secret Theft
Related Stories
Unsealed court filings in the Waymo vs. Uber case include texts between former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and Anthony Levandowski, the engineer accused of stealing secrets from Waymo/Google:
On March 19, 2016, before Uber acquired Otto, Levandowski and Kalanick exchanged messages catching up on their recent "jam" session. The pair were apparently trying to prod an engineer, whose name is redacted in the filings.
"Internet, electricity, self driving cars and key things will always find a way," Levandowski texted Kalanick, linking to a YouTube clip from the 1987 movie "Wall Street." In the clip, the main character gives a famous speech of why "greed is good." "Here's the speech you need to give ;-)."
Kalanick briefly updated Levandowski on Uber's food delivery business, then wrote, "The way you keep China in check is showing up when they ask every once in a while."
But Uber was losing $1 billion a year in China, and by August, Uber sold its Chinese business to rival Didi Chuxing.
Kalanick was also eager to partner with Google as it sought to enter into the ride-hailing market, and dismissive of Tesla's autonomous mode safety claims.
The best exchanges:
9/19/2016 Levandowski: We're going to take over the world
9/19/2016 Levandowski: One robot at a time
10/7/2016 Kalanick: Down to hang this eve and mastermind some shit
The Fall of Travis Kalanick Was a Lot Weirder and Darker Than You Thought
A year ago, before the investor lawsuits and the federal investigations, before the mass resignations, and before the connotation of the word "Uber" shifted from "world's most valuable startup" to "world's most dysfunctional," Uber's executives sat around a hotel conference room table in San Francisco, trying to convince their chief executive officer, Travis Kalanick, that the company had a major problem: him.
[...] [A] top executive excused herself to answer a phone call. A minute later, she reappeared and asked Kalanick to step into the hallway. Another executive joined them. They hunched over a laptop to watch a video that had just been posted online by Bloomberg News: grainy, black-and-white dashcam footage of Kalanick in the back seat of an UberBlack on Super Bowl weekend, heatedly arguing over fares with a driver named Fawzi Kamel. "Some people don't like to take responsibility for their own shit!" Kalanick can be heard yelling at Kamel. "They blame everything in their life on somebody else!"
As the clip ended, the three stood in stunned silence. Kalanick seemed to understand that his behavior required some form of contrition. According to a person who was there, he literally got down on his hands and knees and began squirming on the floor. "This is bad," he muttered. "I'm terrible." Then, contrition period over, he got up, called a board member, demanded a new PR strategy, and embarked on a yearlong starring role as the villain who gets his comeuppance in the most gripping startup drama since the dot-com bubble. It's a story that, until now, has never been fully told.
The article discusses a number of Uber and Kalanick scandals/events, including:
- The #DeleteUber movement following Uber being accused of breaking up an airport taxi strike (which was in protest of President Trump's executive order restricting travel from Muslim countries), as well as Kalanick's decision to join President Trump's business advisory council (and later leave it).
- Susan Fowler's blog post recounting sexual harassment at Uber, and the hiring of former U.S. attorney general Eric Holder to investigate the claims.
- The revelation of Uber's Greyball system, which was used to avoid picking up law enforcement and taxi inspectors.
- Uber's purchase of self-driving truck startup Otto, which eventually led key Uber investor Google (Waymo) to sue Uber, seeking billions in damages.
- Kalanick's "inexplicable" support of Anthony Levandowski, who he called his "brother from another mother", even after Levandowski stopped defending Uber in the Waymo v. Uber case.
- Kalanick's apology to the taxi driver Fawzi Kamel, which amounted to a $200,000 payoff.
- A visit to a Seoul escort-karaoke bar that resulted in an HR complaint and a report in The Information.
- Uber's president for Asia-Pacific Eric Alexander obtaining a confidential medical record of passenger who was raped by an Uber driver in Delhi, India. Alexander, Kalanick, and others discussed a theory that their Indian competitor Ola faked/orchestrated the rape.
- Kalanick making his presence known during a "leave of absence" by trying to maintain control over the company and its board.
- Arianna Huffington promoting her wellness company's products while acting as Kalanick's apparent proxy on the board.
- The new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi's response to the city of London revoking Uber's operating license.
Uber's controversial self-driving truck division shuts down
Uber is shutting down its self-driving truck program, the company acknowledged on Monday. It's the latest example of Uber scaling back its self-driving technology efforts in the wake of a deadly Uber self-driving car crash in March.
Uber's self-driving truck program has been embroiled in controversy since Uber acquired the unit two years ago. The acquisition price was reportedly $680 million, though the actual cost may have been much less than that. Previously, it had been a startup called Otto, led by controversial ex-Waymo engineer Anthony Levandowski. Waymo sued Uber, arguing that Levandowski had taken Waymo trade secrets with him on the way out the door.
[...] "We've decided to stop development on our self-driving truck program and move forward exclusively with cars," said Eric Meyhofer, the leader of Uber's self-driving technology program, in a statement to The Verge. Personnel from the truck division will be folded into the company's self-driving car efforts.
Previously: Uber Buys Autonomous Truck Startup Otto
The Fall of Uber CEO Travis Kalanick
Uber Pulls Self-Driving Cars After First Fatal Crash of Autonomous Vehicle
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Former Google and Uber engineer Anthony Levandowski leaves federal court in San Jose, California, after a hearing in September 2019.
Anthony Levandowski, former Google engineer and a pioneer of self-driving car tech, agreed to plead guilty Thursday to stealing trade secrets from the internet giant.
Levandowski left Google in 2016 to start his own self-driving truck company, which was quickly acquired by Uber for $680 million. These actions set off a chain of events that led to Google's autonomous vehicle unit, Waymo, suing Uber over alleged theft of self-driving car trade secrets. That lawsuit settled in February 2018 with Uber agreeing to pay Waymo $245 million.
The prosecutors indicted Levandowski in August in a suit that involves 33 counts of theft and attempted theft of trade secrets from Google. The activities allegedly took place as he prepared to leave the search giant to build out Uber's self-driving car operation.
Levandowski pleaded guilty to one count of trade secret theft in an agreement in which federal prosecutors agree to drop the remaining charges, according to a filing with the US District Court of the Northern District of California. The plea carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a maximum fine of $250,000.
Uber accuses Levandowski of fraud, refuses to pay $179M Google judgment:
Uber says it shouldn't be on the hook for a massive $179 million judgment owed to Google by Uber's former star engineer, Anthony Levandowski. Uber made that argument in a legal filing last week to a federal bankruptcy court in California. Uber's brief portrays the situation differently than Levandowski, who told the court last month that Uber was legally obligated to pay the award.
Levandowski joined Uber in 2016 after almost a decade at Google, where he had been a leading self-driving engineer. Uber bought Levandowski's months-old self-driving startup Otto for hundreds of millions of dollars, intending to make Levandowski and his team the core of Uber's fledgling self-driving car project.
But things went sour fast. Google sued Uber, alleging that Levandowski had downloaded thousands of confidential documents before his departure and had taken them to his new job. Fearing criminal prosecution for trade secret theft—fears that proved justified—Levandowski invoked the Fifth Amendment and refused to testify during the civil trial between Google and Uber.
Uber fired Levandowski and settled with Google. But Google continued to pursue Levandowski in arbitration, winning a $179 million award. Levandowski argues that Uber has an obligation to pay the judgment on his behalf under an indemnification deal Levandowski negotiated as part of the 2016 acquisition of his company.
But in its latest legal filing, Uber argues that it doesn't owe Levandowski anything because Levandowski used fraud to induce Uber to sign the indemnification agreement.
Previously:
- Ex-Uber Engineer Levandowski Pleads Guilty To Trade Secrets Theft
- Anthony Levandowski Ordered to Pay $179 Million to Google
Ex-Googler Levandowski gets 18 months in prison for trade-secret theft:
Ex-Google engineer Anthony Levandowski yesterday was sentenced to 18 months in prison following his March guilty plea for stealing a confidential document related to Google's self-driving technology.
Levandowski's lawyers last week asked a judge in US District Court for the Northern District of California to let him off without any prison time, arguing that a year of home confinement, a fine, restitution, and community service would be sufficient punishment. The federal government asked for a 27-month prison sentence.
While handing down the 18-month sentence, US District Judge William Alsup said that a sentence without imprisonment would give "a green light to every future brilliant engineer to steal trade secrets," according to a Reuters report. Levandowski was originally charged with 33 counts of stealing trade secrets by downloading thousands of documents to his personal laptop in December 2015 shortly before he left Google to work on his startup, Otto, which was acquired by Uber for a reported $680 million in August 2016. In a plea deal, Levandowksi admitted to stealing one document called "Chauffeur TL weekly updates," which tracked the progress of Google's "Project Chauffeur" that later became Waymo. Prosecutors dropped the other charges.
Levandowski won't have to serve the sentence right away, as Alsup ruled that he can go to prison after the coronavirus pandemic subsides, according to Reuters and other news outlets.
Levandowski also must pay $756K to Waymo
(Score: 0, Troll) by Tokolosh on Wednesday January 20 2021, @10:48PM (5 children)
The unstated assumption is that Biden and the Democrats don't give a shit about Snowden and Assange. Obama's persecution of all whistleblowers is a foretaste.
Manning is an exception and cannot be touched, because she is now a she.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:43PM (4 children)
It is telling that conservatards cannot write literaly two lines of text without their inherent racist/sexist nature showing.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @12:02AM
The OP was a MALE and he wrote about a MALE. Sexism is in your head, honey.
Also, hoping for 43% soon!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday January 21 2021, @12:31AM (1 child)
They also cannot literally write 2 words of text without some Sayan/JIDF/Psy-Group/Ching Chong Chang patrol/other fleshy or computerized piulpul-bot responding with very predictable and totally dishonest responses. Whatever they are, they're getting their asses handed to them everywhere else on the internet. We can expect this to accelerate as more become aware of the disproportionate power Jews wield in governmental decisions that don't bode well for people of the U.S.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Thursday January 21 2021, @01:42AM
Heh. "My sides has more likes than your side!"
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @02:59PM
You wrote one line and your racist/sexist nature showed. You win.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Wednesday January 20 2021, @10:49PM (12 children)
And were smart enough to get Trump's attention, then you got a pardon.
Otherwise, rot in jail while Trump keeps your paltry offerings.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:14PM (3 children)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sholam_Weiss [wikipedia.org] on that list. Smells like a list of deals, yes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:24PM (2 children)
No anti-Semitism, please.
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:33PM (1 child)
Grin, at least, otherwise there's that Poe's law.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @01:14AM
Will he be running for governor of Florida?
(Score: 1) by nitehawk214 on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:24PM (6 children)
Wonder how much Steve Bannon had to pay for his pardon.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:41PM (1 child)
> Wonder how much Steve Bannon had to pay
I don't usually post lewd things, but in this case I'll make an exception.
Bannon's going to be paying in blow jobs for years.
(Score: 2) by DeVilla on Thursday January 21 2021, @08:49PM
I used to think better of you.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:59PM
Nothing. Trump needs Bannon. Without his Twitter account, he needs the alt-crazy Breitbart publicity. He needs now needs Bannon more than Bannon needs Trump.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday January 21 2021, @06:53PM (2 children)
If I had to guess, the main repayment from Bannon was not telling either law enforcement or the public what he knows about the ex-president's criminal actions.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Friday January 22 2021, @03:18PM (1 child)
then the pardon was dumb as hell. A pardon is a conviction. he cannot plead the 5th anymore, and can be required to testify.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday January 22 2021, @04:56PM
He can required to testify, but he will almost definitely suffer a case of absolutely debilitating amnesia about all the events that would potentially incriminate the president, because prosecutors don't have the usual leverage of "charge the low-level guy, reduce the sentence if they agree to testify about what their crime boss told them to do".
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:37PM
So then let's see if Biden will parden John Kiriakou, Julian Assange, or Edward Snowden if he really is any better. I won't be holding my breath ...
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:05PM (2 children)
Remember when Trump "got covid" and at the same time Biden was "calling a lid" at 9 am every day? Then after that Biden seemed to have fewer gaffes and Trump more?
That was the transfer of Trump's brain into Biden's body and vice versa. Both Trump and Biden have looked a bit different since then haven't they? The procedure is not perfect and resulted in earlobe detachments.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:43PM (1 child)
It's fine to doubt... it's fine to change your mind. There is no shame in that.
you are not alone and there are people that can help you:
https://cult-escape.com/ [cult-escape.com]
You'll be surprised how many people will welcome you!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @12:33AM
I cannot. Last time I left qanon I got covid vaxxed. Now my body shakes like parkinson's whenever I get anxious or cold and when I told anyone they called me anti-vaxxer and said it is just anxiety. Reddit shadowbanned me for asking about it. Twitter put a warning on my tweets.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:07PM (25 children)
Let's not post any more stories about this ex president. Please, don't mention his name ever again
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:16PM (4 children)
T-Dog is starting a new party. He'll be back!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:43PM (2 children)
> T-Dog is starting a new party.
Dems wet dream -- split the conservative vote.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:56PM
As if the Republican party would ever cooperate with any President other another member of the Uniparty. Trump got the Republican nomination and won TO THE COMPLETE SURPRISE of the Uniparty's Red Team. They are determined to never let it happen again.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @01:11AM
Most likely it is a shake-down of the republican party on his part - "Co-operate with me or I will steal all my supporters from your party and you will never win again!"
He may be able to escape conviction in the impeachment by this threat, if the reds are frightened enough.
OTOH, if his brand is truly tarnished as badly as some think, the reds might call his bluff and watch him self-destruct even further. We will know for sure when we see who votes for conviction.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:46PM
Conflict on the trademark - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Party_(1960s%E2%80%931980s) [wikipedia.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:48PM (13 children)
These last four years are political comedy goldmine.
Would make me laugh if it wasn't so tragic.
As anyone studying history knows, comedy and tragedy go hand-in-hand.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday January 21 2021, @12:37AM (3 children)
This will be good. Now everybody knows that Jews and their buddies the CCP run America, and "Orange Man Bad" and the conspiracy theory of "White Supremacy" excuses will wear thin while small businesses are destroyed and Jews continue to laugh about everybody they don't like being banned from Twitter.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @01:01AM (2 children)
You are no white, you are Mexican, why you fronting so hard?
Self-hating is a disease. Take some oxycontin and be off.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday January 21 2021, @01:09AM (1 child)
And miss the upcoming political train-wreck? That'll be the day, buddy. I may be a mutt but at least I'm not an inbred phenotype of evil Middle-Earthers from some fantasy novel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @01:24AM
Finally you admit you are a product of miscegenation. :)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by istartedi on Thursday January 21 2021, @03:15AM (8 children)
These last four years are political comedy goldmine.
No they weren't. It was like watching people shoot fish in a barrel. Comedy has to have some element of the unexpected to be funny, and all the "jokes" were expected. It was gallows humor at best, and mind-numbingly predictable. I guess I'm different, because I don't get why people like Colbert. To me it was un-watchable, because it was just re-hashed news and it wasn't funny. It was all, "President does something so insane it's surreal, this is sad" and they tried to tell you it was funny... but it wasn't.
Now we get to see if Colbert is capable of real humor. Maybe he is, but I never watched him pre-Trump. His skills might have atrophied the last four years, because that wasn't humor. It was unwatchable. To me. Unwatchable! All just part of the sad, surreal parade right up there with the Trumpy Bear commercials that ran during re-runs of Gunsmoke late at night during the pandemic.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @03:41AM (1 child)
So whatever it was it worked.
(Score: 2) by istartedi on Thursday January 21 2021, @04:21AM
I get what you're saying, but in order to determine that something is "unwatchable", it has to be watched just a little bit. Otherwise, it's like I'm making statements about a cat inside of a box I've never opened.
ie, the semantics of "unwatchable" are that I vastly preferred Fallon, Kimmel or more commonly to just get some sleep because none of those options involved flogging President Dead Horse.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Thursday January 21 2021, @07:42AM (3 children)
The scarier part is if this becomes the new normal, the president doing whatever batshit insane stunts on a weekly basis, picking fights on Twitter, etc., and the public just stops caring because it's a constant stream of it. I know I personally just basically tuned out anything he said as white noise: "if he obviously doesn't care what noise comes out of his mouth on a daily basis, why should I?"
He used to actually be funny on the Colbert Report, but since he's on The Late Night Daily Report Show Late or whatever it's called he just bitches about Trump the few times I tuned in. Admittedly that's a decent reason to be cranky but I just didn't find it entertaining; he seemed to enjoy his job a lot more on the Report IMO. Or maybe since it was cable he was just allowed to be more offensive/free/funny.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by cmdrklarg on Thursday January 21 2021, @03:59PM
If you can't dazzle 'em with diamonds, baffle 'em with bullshit.
The world is full of kings and queens who blind your eyes and steal your dreams.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday January 21 2021, @08:13PM (1 child)
He was good on the Daily Show and the Colbert Report, when he parodied right wing media hosts. He was so convincing they invited him as a key speaker for the White House Correspondent's Dinner during the Bush Administration, where they discovered to their chagrin he wasn't a real right wing media host. He's been pretty much hated by the right wing media since then, mostly because he made them look like such fools. By the time he took over Late Night, the news had become increasingly less funny portrayed as a parody, it was all too often a parody of itself. Trying to be funny covering news now just makes it painfully apparent how effed up things really are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 22 2021, @02:43AM
I never saw him being any good at "parody" and he was always a sarcastic comedian pulling on Republicans. The very idea that there was a huge joke where half the country was just not in on it - I suppose you gotta believe what you gotta believe.
The reason he is not funny is because his jokes arent actually jokes. They are condescending mockery sold as opinion from across the ocean. For condescension to be funny it must come from position of power. I expect people to find him funny again again now.
Abd his constant Trump did this was literally the Democrat platform of doubling down.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @09:45AM
With Bush, and while he had his moments on the Colbert Report, for the most part he has always been both far less informative and far less funny than John Oliver, and I don't consider most of John Oliver's jokes all that funny, although he does have good pacing for lightening the mood on otherwise not funny subjects.
(Score: 2) by everdred on Thursday January 21 2021, @09:59PM
It was prime farce material.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by NateMich on Thursday January 21 2021, @02:34AM (4 children)
What? The Democrats will be blaming him for things at least 5 or 6 years from now. We've seen this before.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Thursday January 21 2021, @07:34AM (3 children)
When he pulled the U.S. out of *how many* treaties? It's a fair complaint that he majorly fucked things up, even ignoring at the domestic level.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @11:40AM (1 child)
You mean like the TPP which tried to expand and extend intellectual property laws even more? Good riddance, hopefully bought and paid for Biden will not try to push for more draconian intellectual property laws.
(and yes, Trump did incorrectly claim that the Chinese kept stealing our intellectual property and something needs to be done about it so he does seem a bit misguided here as well. Intellectual property overreach is a bipartisan problem).
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday January 21 2021, @07:33PM
Remember when China stealing all our IP was a terrible travesty for the last four years? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @08:16PM
those treaties are treasonous. i hope someone shoots biden and that stinky diversity camel he rides around on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @01:49PM
So we have two forbidden colors now? Green and orange?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:08PM (23 children)
That a president can just go ahead and pardon crimes to their own liking is completely f'ed up. There is no control on that power at all. The only thing preventing them from doing dumb shit is their own decency, which 45 lacked completely.
At the very least, there should be a restriction that crimes that are pardoned cannot have been committed during their own tenure. Without such a restriction, the president can 'instigate' and condone crime from which they profit. At the very least, the very, very least, make it so that they can pardon crimes committed during the period that ended at the end of administration - 1.
Imagine if all those people who stormed the capitol would be pardoned, that'd be madness...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:11PM (7 children)
> The only thing preventing them from doing dumb shit is their own decency, which 45 lacked completely.
Then why didn't he pardon himself?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:19PM (1 child)
While I am not a legal scholar - and I will venture, neither are you - I do believe that those who actually are legal scholars have opined that this would not hold water for a variety of reasons. Not being the judge in your own case, would be one of them.
It's not for lack of trying though, he may not have actually pardoned himself, he did investigate whether or not he could.
Another thing to keep in mind is that a pardon implies guilt. In other words, pardoning ones self would imply that he is guilty of ... whatever he'd pardon himself for.
Now all that being said, there is nothing forcing a president to disclose pardons, nor must a president file the pardon paperwork. A president can pardon someone without ever telling anyone else (including the pardoned/pardonee(?)). So given the lack of decency in individual #1, I wouldn't be so sure that he didn't just sign a piece of paper that reads "I pardon myself from everything, anywhere, anytime because I am the best thing that has ever happened to this universe" and just keeps that on his person.
As I said: we don't know because with this vacuum of decency, you never know; and be honest, it wouldn't surprise you if he did exactly the thing I mentioned above.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:22PM
I am a legal scholar, and it was because he is already pardoned due to his CI work.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:39PM (2 children)
Don't you catch yourself wondering how things got to the point when you have to ask that about the guy who used to be your president?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:53PM
Nope, every president seems to be a criminal afaict.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday January 21 2021, @07:07PM
Absolutely: One bit of fallout that should be coming from the last US administration is that presidents are far too difficult to remove from power and hold accountable for their actions. As in, once elected, the president only needs the support of 34 senators to remain in power, even if the rest of the country wants him gone. And as a matter of national policy, the US law enforcement agencies decided back in 1973 that sitting presidents could not be charged with crimes while they were president, which I'm sure pleased then-president Richard Nixon, known crook, quite a bit.
Contrast that to Westminster-style systems, where a simple majority of MPs can oust a prime minister with a no-confidence vote, and then they can be up on charges. That's not completely foolproof and certainly not without its flaws, but it means that former Israeli PM Bibi Netanyahu is facing charges for taking bribes while PM, while in the US we had a president openly getting all sorts of bribes including from foreign countries and so far at least faced no consequences other than a fatter wallet for it.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by c0lo on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:47PM (1 child)
Because it would have been an admission of guilt.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:56PM
It may well have also been a political calculation.
Pardoning himself would likely have seriously pissed off many R senators, perhaps making them more likely to vote to convict after the impeachment trial, which would be closely followed by a vote to disallow Trump from holding federal office again.
The former requires a 2/3 majority, the latter a simple majority.
Do I know that's the case? No. But it's certainly food for thought.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:14PM (1 child)
May there be one good thing coming from this: once you've been pardoned, you can no longer take The Fifth, as you cannot incriminate yourself anymore (since you've been pardoned). So either you sing like a bird, or you get hit with contempt (under a new president that won't pardon you for /that/).
So all of 45's cronies that got pardoned, let's wheel them in and make them sing...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @01:29AM
Yes, your honor, I realize that I cannot plead the 5th. Unfortunately, I banged my head when I fell in the shower, and I can't remember a thing.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:20PM (1 child)
It's better to have an absolute pardon power than not. If anything, there should be many more people getting pardoned.
If the crime is truly heinous, the pardoned will face consequences outside the justice system.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @04:27PM
Show me how well or poorly folks like Stone, Mannaford, and Bannon will be doing in 5 years time and tell me again about those 'consequences'...
I agree that this should be the case, what I'm saying is that it isn't!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @12:02AM
You can go back in time and take your argument up with Mr. Hamilton [yale.edu].
(Score: 5, Informative) by Grishnakh on Thursday January 21 2021, @03:17AM (8 children)
To be fair, Trump was pretty decent with many of those pardons. I looked through some of the list, and there were a fair number of people there who had their sentences commuted by him for nonviolent drug crimes. These people had ridiculously long sentences, in the decades, for completely non-violent crimes involving drugs (some just MJ). These sentences were a miscarriage of justice, plus a massive waste of prison resources and money.
The whole reason the pardon exists is to help correct miscarriages of justice like these. So, of course, this points out (given the huge number of pardons handed out by every President) that the "justice" system in this country is largely a farce, especially when it comes to drug crimes. Maybe we should try actually fixing this, instead of putting a band-aid on it with these pardons?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @03:28AM
Glad they weren't all war criminals.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @06:15AM (1 child)
No! How dare he pardon all those convicted under the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Crime_Control_and_Law_Enforcement_Act [wikipedia.org]
Does he not know some Senators worked VERY hard writing that legislation!
Senators like... Joe Biden! and.... Joe Biden!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @05:27PM
True, but at least Biden is capable of saying he made a mistake. Some types of people double down on their bad ideas.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @08:58AM
What's rarely mentioned is that these non-violent drug crimes are quite often just the charges that the accused has pled down to. Because the prosecutors know it'll be difficult to prove the assault charges because witnesses will be afraid to show up, or they still haven't found the body that they're pretty sure the accused murdered, etc. But the cops found the drugs on the accused, and the drugs are in a baggie on the desk in the courtroom so even a jury will understand it, and they don't need much more than that. So the defense attorney advises the accused to plead on the drug charges in exchange for all the other stuff being dropped.
So yeah, the sentence may appear absurdly long for the charge they pled to, but the judge knows about all the other stuff, and how many other times the person has been in court and sent to jail already and doesn't seem to be getting the hint, so gives those very long sentences to keep a very bad person off the street. Sure in the Platonic world of pure justice the sentence should only be for the charge pled to, but we're in this dirty and grimy world instead.
I'm not saying that these particular people who were pardoned were like this; I don't know. But you don't know either. I doubt even the president knew, he just looked through the ones his staff put in front of him and picked some.
(Score: 2) by SunTzuWarmaster on Thursday January 21 2021, @07:30PM (1 child)
Pardons are not for the innocent. Full stop. Innocent people go free. Full stop.
In places where the President believes that justice has either been (a) served, or (b) miscarried - they can correct it. The founders, recognizing that a bad law could be created which created guilty people justly convicted - designed a release valve. One person can overturn the sentence - with that knowledge broadcast to all. Trump did just this.
This also creates a pressure on the legislature to re-write laws that generate pardons (looking at you - "decades for a drug charge"), and a pressure on the president to pardon crimes which no longer exist (looking at you - "drug charges no longer carry this penalty"). Pardons are part of the system - and a good part. Pardons create a pressure on the system for fixing.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 22 2021, @02:00AM
There is an old saying among prosecutors that plea bargains are for the innocent, and according to SCOTUS actual innocence is a mere technicality and not grounds for appeal. Judges have been caught selling kids to private prisons. The innocent should go free, but often don't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @11:51PM (1 child)
Many of them were likely victims of the Clinton / Biden crime bill.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 22 2021, @04:50AM
Ben Gauzy! Buttery males!
Guess you found your joke for the next 4 years
(Score: 2) by rigrig on Thursday January 21 2021, @02:25PM
I would think presidential pardons are meant as ultimate fixes for cases where the legal system failed somehow because of exceptional circumstances, precisely that will break if you start adding restrictions.
The president is supposed to wield a lot of power, if he can't be trusted with pardons I'd say you have way bigger problems.
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:14PM (15 children)
Did someone actually believe Snowden and/or Assange were going to get a pardon? Or was that just the last pipe dream?
At least he didn't try to pardon himself, it would have been interesting since it hasn't been done before.
That said he seems to have been on the low side for an amount of pardons compared to some of his predecessors.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:38PM (1 child)
Well, Snowden is buddies with Putin (or at least is in good enough graces with him to be kept around), so you'd figure they might work something out or something. Dunno how the power dynamics work on that one though.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @05:27PM
Snowden is, at best, a way to show middle finger to US for Putin. Putin's buddies are all people he grew up with (very rich people nowadays).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @12:16AM (2 children)
Assange doesn't need a pardon. He just suckered people into giving him anti-US shit to publish to essentially assuage his own ego. Even his underhanded dealings with Roger Stone to sink Clinton, he just falls under the "publisher" exemption as determined in The Pentagon Papers. Unless you know of illegal stuff he did where he needs one.
Snowden doesn't deserve a pardon. His smash-and-grab-and-dump approach warrants everything he's got coming to him, or should have coming to him. He could have curated the material to release, or only stolen relevant materials on the programs he was "concerned" about, but he didn't. He didn't follow any proper reporting protocol or express his concerns in any proper manner that could be addressed. So that's bad enough to just give that shit away to foreign adversaries, but to just take everything, including stuff that was secret and legal, and dump that on adversaries, that is just unconscionable. The fact that a good chunk of people think he's some noble figure astounds me, but then again, we just got through four years of MAGA hero worship that justified all sorts of illegal and untoward behavior, so I should be used to it by now. Besides the Russian connection, Snowden and Trump share a lot of traits, it is just that Snowden can speak in a manner that suggests he has a post-primary school intellect, but if you look there, they have a lot of personality traits in common.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday January 21 2021, @12:42AM
Hillary lost, Schlomo, get over it. Jesus, how long are we going to have to listen to Trump-fixated Jewish schizos bitch and moan about Her Turn? If there's any reason to primary any motherfuckers in 2022, it's the ones who just won't shut up about Her Turn and Orange Man Bad. It's almost as tiresome as hearing the imaginary "racial injustice" bullshit.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday January 22 2021, @04:05AM
Snowdon found some journalists whom he trusted to do the responsible journalism for the data dump. They were probably better at than he would have been.
(Score: 2) by Frosty Piss on Thursday January 21 2021, @12:56AM (6 children)
Don’t forget that Assange was instrumental in the release of DNC email (routed through the Russians and Rodger Stone), and Trump is “transactional” and Assange helped him out. That gave him a little “hope” for a pardon. As for Snowden? He will never leave Russia, hope he picks up languages well...
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Thursday January 21 2021, @03:21AM (5 children)
Well considering he seems to have found employment there in software, got his girlfriend to move there some time ago, and now they have a baby, it looks like he's adjusted just fine. Russian isn't a terribly easy language, but it's not that difficult a language either, unlike Chinese or Japanese. It's probably easier than German even, except for having to learn Cyrillic (which isn't hard, it's basically just an alternate alphabet). Plus lots of Russians speak English these days.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @06:28AM (4 children)
Chinese being difficult is a misnomer. Spoken Mandarin is actually much easier than most other languages, due to its flexible structure and lack of conjugation. The whole 'Chinese is hard language' comes from the written part.
Now Slavic languages are really hard to speak, because you have to conjugate EVERYTHING, including Nouns and Proper Nouns. And even though the language does not have a particular sentence ordering, the order of words changes their conjugation. Non-native speakers will usually be found out within a sentance or two, as they inadvertantly trip over a single word. And even for native speakers, it can take 16+ years to reach total fluency.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday January 21 2021, @08:25PM (1 child)
To linguistics-nerd for a moment: Verbs get conjugation, nouns get declension. And Slavic languages are definitely not unique in having noun declension as a major feature: Greek, Latin, German, Lithuanian, Finnish, Urdu, and quite a few others. So I'm guessing that those coming from languages with noun declension have an easier time coping with it than, say, an English-speaker like Edward Snowden.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 22 2021, @02:16AM
No. Finnish has something like 20 conjugations. It's not really an easy language to learn through studying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 22 2021, @12:18AM
As an ethnic Chinese that speak 3 different dialects, Mandarin being one of them, I'd say you're only correct from an academic sense. In practical sense, conversing in Mandarin, especially with Mainland Chinese is not easy. If you're learning and your initial verbal experience is with Mainlanders, you'll have a very hard time.
As someone who has informally (I can't read/write but can speak them in 3 different dialects) learn the language and have been using it ever since I'm a kid for decades, it is very hard to make sense of a lot of mainlander's accent in Mandarin. They tend to speak 100 words a minute without any pause in between words almost like a humming through the sentence. So its very difficult to make out the word boundaries and try to interpret the sentence.
This isn't an issue with the rest of the ethnic chinese community across south east asia - i.e. Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, etc. If one was to start to learn to converse and want to do it with native speaking Mandarin folks, I'd recommend folks from those background for lower barrier to entry.
(Score: 2) by sorokin on Friday January 22 2021, @07:07PM
Well, according to Language Difficulty ranking, Chinese is in category 5 (2200 hours) and Russian is in category 4 (1100 hours) for English speakers.
This is only for English speakers. If your native language is different than the difficulty ratings would be different too. For example for native Polish speakers Russian is much easier than for native English speakers obviously.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by RedGreen on Thursday January 21 2021, @02:38AM (2 children)
only the guilty need a pardon, you have to list the crimes pardoned for. Just a couple why the incompetent fool would not do, he will never list his crimes or even come close to admitting he did anything wrong. The same reason the family got none he would have to admit they were criminals too.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday January 22 2021, @04:08AM (1 child)
He may not even believe that the things he did are crimes.
(Score: 2) by RedGreen on Friday January 22 2021, @03:56PM
Of course he does not think that, he is above the law, those are only for the little people you mess about. The rich have always felt they are better than everyone else and the laws do not apply to them. Those are to be use to keep the masses in line when needed the exulted rich and their families are to be shown every advantage in life including protection from the people who are there to serve their needs. They need to be kept in their place barely surviving so they will be grateful for the leftover scraps of the economy the rich allow them to have.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 2, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:21PM (3 children)
The more important thing is that this shitstain is out of office now. Probably won't stay out of the spotlight for long.
At least is is nice to have someone who at least appears to know what they are doing at the helm again. Although someone needs to tell Biden there is no such thing as "god".
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:31PM
He's 78 and carrying around his dead son's rosary beads, so I don't think he would listen to that.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Thexalon on Thursday January 21 2021, @08:55PM (1 child)
He's a 78-year-old lifelong devout Catholic. As much as you might want to make him an atheist, it's almost definitely not happening.
Also, I think he's using a lot of the god-talk in part to try to win over the evangelical nutjobs who just might be experiencing a bit of a crisis of belief right now after their leaders told them to be slavishly devoted to a guy who checks off a lot of the boxes for the anti-Christ [benjaminlcorey.com] and breaks approximately every rule that their religion demands that you follow, and failed to do any of what the evangelical leaders promised would happen if they stayed slavishly devoted to him. It's exploiting a bit of the cognitive dissonance they're feeling right now, because the evangelical nutjobs have been told for decades that Democrats are all godless devil-worshiping heathens (never mind that those 3 words all contradict each other), and Biden isn't that and never has been, so some of them might, just might, be shaken loose from their political brainwashing by the likes of Pat Robertson, which would probably be a good thing both for the brainwashed and the rest of us who have to live with them around.
Also good news for you is that Christianity is in a fairly steep decline and has been for a while [pewforum.org], and about half of Americans under age 40 aren't Christian. If those trends continue, the currently-under-25 generation is going to be even less religious, and more of those that are religious will be religions other than Christian. I for one would be happy to live to see a society that doesn't ban religion, but where no religion has enough sway that politicians and government have to cater to their whims.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday January 22 2021, @04:10AM
Then there are people like me, who am a Christian atheist.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:33PM (16 children)
Doesn't look like Trump Pardoned John Kiriakou or Julian Assange
At one time Trump was considering the possibility of pardoning Assange but it looks like he never did.
"Did Mitch McConnell stop Trump from pardoning Assange? Senate leader told POTUS he would impeach him, say reports"
https://meaww.com/did-mitch-mc-connell-threaten-donald-trump-with-impeachment-if-he-pardons-julian-assange-clemency [meaww.com]
Regardless of the actual reason it's a shame Trump didn't pardon these people. It's also a shame that Mitch McConnell went along with the rest of the democrats (that Wikileaks embarrassed when they leaked information about the DNC primaries being biased against Bernie Sanders in 2016 ... see https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/23/dnc-emails-wikileaks-hillary-bernie-sanders [theguardian.com] ) opposing such a pardon. These people should be pardoned, embarrassing the U.S. government is not a good reason to go after them and that's primarily the reason they went after them. Shame on Trump and the rest of the government responsible for this insanity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:40PM
(and, yes, I know that McConnell is not a democrat)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:52PM (9 children)
John Kiriakou served his sentence, no use to pardon him. As a pardon doesn't wipe out the conviction record, it would have been useless.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 20 2021, @11:58PM (8 children)
But it does wipe out the *conviction*. And that does matter.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday January 21 2021, @12:19AM (7 children)
Since the sentence has been served in full already by John Kiriakou, a pardon would be useless in his case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @01:39AM (3 children)
That's not true. Many states, as well as the Federal government impose restrictions on people who have been convicted of felonies, regardless of whether or not they've served their sentences.
This can include the loss of the political franchise, international travel, gun ownership, employment, access to public housing resources and many other restrictions.
So yes, erasing a conviction matters.
Here are a few links to get you started in understanding this. Those are not an exhaustive list by any means.
https://thelawdictionary.org/article/what-rights-do-convicted-felons-lose/ [thelawdictionary.org]
https://careertrend.com/info-8680107-types-jobs-off-limits-felons.html [careertrend.com]
https://www.ncsl.org/research/elections-and-campaigns/felon-voting-rights.aspx [ncsl.org]
https://nstexaslaw.com/lawyer/2018/10/08/Criminal-Defense/The-True-Consequences-of-a-Felony-Conviction_bl35820.htm [nstexaslaw.com]
https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/pardon/legacy/2006/11/13/collateral_consequences.pdf [justice.gov]
(Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Thursday January 21 2021, @02:03AM (2 children)
Since a significant amount of the post-pardon residuals pertain to states, let me link to this snippet [wikipedia.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @04:26AM (1 child)
Fair enough.
Although since pardons are handled differently by different states [ccresourcecenter.org], that may or may not automatically change anything.
And in most places, mentioning a pardon can and will mitigate those restrictions in many cases, I maintain that it still matters.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday January 21 2021, @04:41AM
TIL. Thanks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @07:50AM (2 children)
Voting and guns. It does mean something.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday January 21 2021, @08:02AM (1 child)
The pardon wipes out the limitations at the federal level only and lets a felony conviction record behind.
Voting registration and gun licenses are managed by the states [wikipedia.org] - so that will be dependent on the particular state were he's listed as resident to consider or not the pardon.
See also the discussion on this thread (including the ancestors). [soylentnews.org]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 22 2021, @12:03AM
Maybe you should stick to Australian politics instead of thinking shit up about the situation in the US.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @12:32AM
> At one time Trump was considering the possibility of pardoning Assange but it looks like he never did.
He didn't have the political capital with a (ridiculous) 2nd impeachment hanging over his head.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday January 21 2021, @07:44PM
The people who just tried to extradite Assange chose not to pardon Assange.
The only shocking part is that outcome is a surprise to anyone.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday January 21 2021, @08:32PM (2 children)
I don't know why people seem outraged or even surprised about this. Bernie Sanders is not a member of the Democratic Party. He was a Republican up until the early 2000's, when he switched to being an independent, mostly to deny the Republicans a majority in the Senate. That he appears to be left of most Democrats now is probably more his personal reckoning over the state of things than his original leanings. There's no reason the Democrats would throw full support to him over one of their own in the primaries.
Ditto with the Republicans and Trump, most party members (and even their major media outlet Fox News) opposed him in early 2016. It wasn't until it was apparent he was going to be the nominee anyway that the party and Fox reluctantly started to back him. Ironically, he's actually been probably the most Republican of presidents, forcing through the horrendous environmental and social agenda most Republicans know is wrong but give lip service to in order to appeal to the crazies.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday January 21 2021, @11:44PM (1 child)
> He [Sanders] was a Republican up until the early 2000's
Sanders first ran in '88 as an independent and a socialist, and lost. Two years later he again ran as an independent and a socialist and won his seat in the house of representatives. In 1991 he won his senate seat as an independent and a socialist.
You are either just mistaken, or are making shit up / peddling bullshit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday January 27 2021, @06:51PM
I was mistaken, it was fellow Vermont senator Jim Jeffords who changed his affiliation from Republican to Independent in 2001 and began caucusing with the Democrats. However, it still stands that Sanders has never been an official Democrat while in Congress.