Is it logically possible for him to pardon an innocent man?
He seems to believe that pardoning convicted criminals who just, coincidentally I'm sure, happen to be big supporters of his, means that they are innocent. I see it more as an admission of their guilt. Surely "pardon" means "forgive" and to forgive someone you must believe they have done something wrong, something that needs to be be forgiven. If you genuinely believe that they have done nothing wrong then you can't pardon them. You can seek to overturn the conviction or prove that it was false but to pardon them you have to first think they were guilty. Doesn't a pardon, Presidential or otherwise, means that someone is guilty but will not face any punishment?

That's how I see the word anyway. Of course I'm not a legal scholar.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: BobHale,

Absolutely right, Bob. And I think the public shares this view of the definition of "pardon." So the message given by a pardon is that the "sin" [crime] was not very important to the public in the scheme of things.

I agree. Similarly, a sentence commutation is admission of guilt. The "president" just commuted the sentence of the IL governor, clearly based on the fact that the governor had been on his reality show - and not on the evidence for his felonies.

quote:

Originally posted by Kalleh:
]The "president" just commuted the sentence of the IL governor, clearly based on the fact that the governor had been on his reality show

Wasn't THAT a felony?

Doesn't it seem like ages since Geoff posted this on March 13th? I was on a call the other day, which was a debriefing of a conference we'd had about 2 weeks previously. Everyone was relatively quiet and the facilitator said, "Doesn't it seem like a long time since we had that conference?" So much had happened in 2 weeks. I feel like that every day now.

Anyway, to the thread, a Donald-ism is "Chinese virus." Geez - how bigoted can you get?