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Discussion » Questions » Legal » Excluding Trump, which previous US president granted a pardon to anyone whom you thought did not deserve to be pardoned? ~

Excluding Trump, which previous US president granted a pardon to anyone whom you thought did not deserve to be pardoned? ~

Posted - April 20, 2018

Responses


  • 17398
    All of them. 
      April 20, 2018 6:22 AM MDT
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  • 52936


    ~
      April 20, 2018 10:08 AM MDT
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  • 17398
    Guilty
      April 20, 2018 10:28 PM MDT
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  • 5614
    How many butter biscuits for excluding Trump?
    Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney's former aid, convicted of perjury, got his pardon recently. This post was edited by O-uknow at April 21, 2018 7:27 AM MDT
      April 20, 2018 7:04 AM MDT
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  • 52936


      It appears that even though you repeated it yourself, the concept of "excluding Trump" escaped you. 
    __
      April 20, 2018 10:10 AM MDT
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  • 5614
    So how many did you get?
    Did they add a dipping bowl of maple syrup? This post was edited by O-uknow at April 21, 2018 10:31 PM MDT
      April 21, 2018 10:29 PM MDT
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  • 5354
    Didn't Nixon get pardoned by Lyndon B Johnson (who became President after him)
      April 20, 2018 9:50 AM MDT
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  • 52936
    Lyndon Baines Johnson was president from November 22, 1963 – January 20, 1969.

    Richard Milhouse Nixon was president from January 20, 1969 – August 9, 1974. 

    It was Gerald Ford who pardoned Nixon. 
    ~
      April 20, 2018 10:05 AM MDT
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  • 5354
    Thanks
      April 20, 2018 10:08 AM MDT
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  • 46117
    Oh Jakob has a whole history book written by himself to himself.
      April 20, 2018 10:23 AM MDT
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  • 52936
    He's not from the US, so he has a pass. 
    ~
      April 20, 2018 10:24 AM MDT
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  • 5354
    In my defense I will say it was Nixons successor (Gerald Ford) who pardoned him, so partly correct. It was a major stink at the time.
      April 21, 2018 8:36 PM MDT
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  • 52936

    (Comma after the word 'defense'.)

    (Nixons Nixon's)
      April 21, 2018 10:56 PM MDT
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  • 46117
    You said "excluding Trump" but you did not say I could not refer to him.  

    Therefore, let me just mention that NO president EVER pardoned more people illegally than Trump if you also consider motive.  Is motive provable?  YES.  You will see in the upcoming months just how.


    It says in this list that Trump pardoned one person.  That was Sheriff RACIST Joe Arpaio.  His intent was SPITE.   His intent was to fire the base with hate.  Obama and all the Presidents that preceeded him did not act in this manner.   Maybe if I study history like an actual political historian, I will unearth horrors committed by the best presidents we have had.  They are all human.  I still hold this evil demon as the worst of the worst all rolled into one lying, bad egg.

    That said, I do not know about other Presidents.  I will look it up.

    Presidents have long used their authority to issue pardons to Americans who have been charged with and convicted of federal crimes. A presidential pardon is an official expression of forgiveness that removes the civil penalties — restrictions on the right to vote, hold elected office and sit on a jury, for example — and, often, the stigma attached to criminal convictions.

    But use of the pardon is controversial, particularly because the constitutionally granted power has been used by some presidents to forgive close friends and campaign donors.

    At the end of his term in January 2001, President Bill Clinton issued a pardon to Marc Rich, a wealthy hedge-fund manager who contributed to Clinton campaigns and had been facing federal charges of tax evasion, wire fraud and racketeering, for example.

    President Donald Trump, too, faced criticism over his first pardon. He forgave the criminal contempt conviction against a former Arizona sheriff and campaign supporter, Joe Arpaio, whose crackdown on illegal immigration became a flashpoint during the 2016 presidential campaign.

    "He’s done a great job for the people of Arizona," Trump said. "He’s very strong on borders, very strong on illegal immigration. He is loved in Arizona. I thought he was treated unbelievably unfairly when they came down with their big decision to go get him right before the election voting started ... Sheriff Joe is a patriot. Sheriff Joe loves our country. Sheriff Joe protected our borders.

    And Sheriff Joe was very unfairly treated by the Obama administration, especially right before an election — an election that he would have won. And he was elected many times."

    Still, every modern president has used their power to pardon, to varying degrees. The president who issued the most pardons is Franklin Delano Roosevelt, according to data kept by the U.S. Department of Justice, which helps to evaluate and execute applications for forgiveness.

    Part of the reason Roosevelt leads in the number of pardons by any president is that he served in the White House for such a long time. He was elected to four terms in the White House in 1932, 1936, 1940 and 1944. Roosevelt died less than a year into his fourth term, but he is the only president to have served more than two terms.

    It is also important to remember that a presidential pardon is different than a commutation. Many people confuse a pardon and a commutation. While a pardon erases a conviction and restores civil rights to the grantee, a commutation actually reduces or voids the penalty; in other words, a commutation can reduce a prison sentence and free those who have been convicted from jail.

    President Barack Obama's use of his pardon power was relatively rare compared to other presidents. But he granted clemency — which includes pardons, commutations and remissions — more times than any president since Harry S. Truman. Obama absolved the sentences of 1,937 convicts during his two terms in the White House.

    "Barack Obama ended his presidency having granted clemency to more people convicted of federal crimes than any chief executive in 64 years. But he also received far more requests for clemency than any U.S. president on record, largely as a result of an initiative set up by his administration to shorten prison terms for nonviolent federal inmates convicted of drug crimes," stated the Pew Research Center.

    "Looking at the same data another way, Obama granted clemency to only 5 percent of those who requested it. That’s not especially unusual among recent presidents, who have tended to use their clemency power sparingly."

    Here's a look at how many pardons were granted by presidents in the past, according to the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Pardon Attorney. This list of sorted by number of pardons issued from highest to lowest. These data just cover pardons, not commutations and remissions, which are separate actions.

    Franklin D. Roosevelt: 2,819 pardons
    Harry S. Truman: 1,913 pardons
    Dwight D. Eisenhower: 1,110 pardons
    Woodrow Wilson: 1,087 pardons
    Lyndon Johnson: 960 pardons
    Richard Nixon: 863 pardons
    Calvin Coolidge: 773 pardons
    Herbert Hoover: 672 pardons
    Theodore Roosevelt: 668 pardons
    Jimmy Carter: 534 pardons

    John F. Kennedy: 472 pardons
    Bill Clinton: 396 pardons
    Ronald Reagan: 393 pardons
    William H. Taft: 383 pardons
    Gerald Ford: 382 pardons
    Warren Harding: 300 pardons
    William McKinley: 291 pardons
    Barack Obama: 212 pardons
    George W. Bush: 189 pardons
    George H.W. Bush: 74 pardons
    Donald J. Trump: 1 pardon* This post was edited by WM BARR . =ABSOLUTE TRASH at April 20, 2018 10:29 AM MDT
      April 20, 2018 10:24 AM MDT
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  • 52936


      I specifically wrote "excluding Trump" to avoid diatribes like yours above.  It doesn't appear to matter to you, though. 

      Your pal Barack had a shifty pardon record, or don't you remember that?

      April 20, 2018 10:28 AM MDT
    1

  • 16240
    In eight years, Obama pardoned fewer than Ford did in two. Asking Ford for clemency was a done deal, he handed out "Get out of jail for free" cards like he was Monopoly's Community Chest.
      April 21, 2018 8:48 PM MDT
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  • 32663
    Nope...."get out of jail free cards" were given by Pres Obama the most....he did not pardon as much, he preferred commutations. 
      April 22, 2018 7:55 PM MDT
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  • 52936

      Thank you, good point on the distinction between pardons and computations.

    ~
      April 22, 2018 8:19 PM MDT
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  • 16240
    Gerald Ford. Nixon should have done time, obstruction of justice is a felony.
      April 21, 2018 8:52 PM MDT
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  • 32663
    Obama, he preferred to release drug offenders even when they also had firearm offenses as well. But he did prefer to commute sentences rather than pardon criminals.
    This post was edited by my2cents at April 22, 2018 8:25 PM MDT
      April 22, 2018 7:58 PM MDT
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  • 52936

    "We preferred"?  Who's we?
      April 22, 2018 8:20 PM MDT
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