A Senate committee voted to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress and refer him to the Justice Department for potential prosecution over his refusal to answer questions at a hearing last week focused on his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is the entire problem with pre-emptive pardons and why it’s fucked up whether it’s Joe Biden or trump handing them out:
The pardon from Biden covered acts from 2014 through the January 2025 day it was issued. It does not shield Fauci from state-level prosecutions or from investigations into any testimony that he did give that lawmakers thought was false.
It’s been fucked since Nixon got the first one over 50 years, and clearly if we don’t do anything about, it’s going to keep being a problem.
All this shit does is tell every single American:
The justice system is corrupt at the highest levels, but rather than attempt to fix the system, the powerful will just take care of each other and leave everyone else to fend for themselves.
Even if people don’t realize that, that’s what they hear. And it has a large effect on a populace and is usually the clearest sign a society has already failed.
When everyone believes the system is corrupt, they stop caring about what’s right and only caring about if they can get away with something.
It’s the root cause of why shit is so fucked up and everyone is so selfish.
Because he cares about those close to him personally…
Which sounds like a good thing, until you realize most of the country voted for him to fix the justice system for all of us, and one of the first things he did in office was insult people who thought he’d be able to accomplish anything.
If you were already worried about a corrupt justice system in 2021, that was a huge slap in the face.
And then Biden doing this pardons was an even bigger one.
General pardons are far older than Nixon. The infamous (because its dicta are so often misinterpreted as precedent) Garland case in 1866 addressed their legality, in the context if a ruling on general pardons.
The root cause of the lack of trust in the judicial system is corruption, not specifically pardons. Any executive or judicial power, corruptly used, undermines confidence in the system.
The problem is double jeopardy doesn’t apply if you’ve never been to trial…
If Fauci had went to federal trial, gotten convicted, and then gotten a pardon; he wouldn’t have to worry about state charges.
He’s never been to federal trial, and he can’t go to federal trial for anything during that decade.
So if he pleads the fifth with a pardon, he should be able to be compelled to testify, and held in contempt if he won’t.
But if he doesn’t plead the fifth, Texas can prosecute him under Texas state law and the pardon means nothing.
It’s a weird “grey area” because it’s not a real area.
Nixon demanded it to resign, and since no one made a big deal because it was easier to let Nixon walk away, it’s become normalized to the point where if you say a president shouldn’t be able to give one to his clearly guilty son for drugs and guns charges…
People accuse you of supporting the other party which is clearly worse.
Which makes no logical sense, and just shows how bad political discourse has gotten.
If Fauci had went to federal trial, gotten convicted, and then gotten a pardon; he wouldn’t have to worry about state charges.
That’s wrong, as @archer correctly explained.
He’s never been to federal trial, and he can’t go to federal trial for anything during that decade.
That’s correct, as long as “anything” falls within the scope of the pardon during that time period.
So if he pleads the fifth with a pardon, he should be able to be compelled to testify, and held in contempt if he won’t.
Only if pleading the Fifth gives him no protection from other potential federal charges not covered by the pardon. If the committee had really wanted to compel testimony, they could have offered Fauci immunity for anything disclosed during his testimony. They didn’t. So a trap was probably being set. It’s unlikely Fauci’s legal counsel are all idiots, so they wouldn’t have advised him to take the Fifth for no reason.
But if he doesn’t plead the fifth, Texas can prosecute him under Texas state law and the pardon means nothing.
Texas can prosecute him under Texas state law whether he pleads the Fifth before Congress or not.
It’s a weird “grey area” because it’s not a real area.
That looks like it’s intended to mean something, but is so vague that it’s impossible to know what.
Hell, Nixon shouldn’t’ve been encouraged to resign. He should’ve been impeached, tried, and removed setting a precedent that nobody is above the law and that politicians can be held to standards
Incorrect. Dual sovereigns concept means if the Feds charge you with a violation of federal law and don’t convict then if that was a violation of state law the state AG can charge you also. State and Feds don’t get multiple gos each though - that’s double jeopardy protection
This is the entire problem with pre-emptive pardons and why it’s fucked up whether it’s Joe Biden or trump handing them out:
It’s been fucked since Nixon got the first one over 50 years, and clearly if we don’t do anything about, it’s going to keep being a problem.
All this shit does is tell every single American:
Even if people don’t realize that, that’s what they hear. And it has a large effect on a populace and is usually the clearest sign a society has already failed.
When everyone believes the system is corrupt, they stop caring about what’s right and only caring about if they can get away with something.
It’s the root cause of why shit is so fucked up and everyone is so selfish.
I see why he did them. I mean, the GOP said they would weaponize the DOJ. But also, yes, those pardons shouldn’t exist.
Because he cares about those close to him personally…
Which sounds like a good thing, until you realize most of the country voted for him to fix the justice system for all of us, and one of the first things he did in office was insult people who thought he’d be able to accomplish anything.
If you were already worried about a corrupt justice system in 2021, that was a huge slap in the face.
And then Biden doing this pardons was an even bigger one.
General pardons are far older than Nixon. The infamous (because its dicta are so often misinterpreted as precedent) Garland case in 1866 addressed their legality, in the context if a ruling on general pardons.
The root cause of the lack of trust in the judicial system is corruption, not specifically pardons. Any executive or judicial power, corruptly used, undermines confidence in the system.
The entire problem with pre-emptive pardons is that they aren’t broad enough?
The problem is double jeopardy doesn’t apply if you’ve never been to trial…
If Fauci had went to federal trial, gotten convicted, and then gotten a pardon; he wouldn’t have to worry about state charges.
He’s never been to federal trial, and he can’t go to federal trial for anything during that decade.
So if he pleads the fifth with a pardon, he should be able to be compelled to testify, and held in contempt if he won’t.
But if he doesn’t plead the fifth, Texas can prosecute him under Texas state law and the pardon means nothing.
It’s a weird “grey area” because it’s not a real area.
Nixon demanded it to resign, and since no one made a big deal because it was easier to let Nixon walk away, it’s become normalized to the point where if you say a president shouldn’t be able to give one to his clearly guilty son for drugs and guns charges…
People accuse you of supporting the other party which is clearly worse.
Which makes no logical sense, and just shows how bad political discourse has gotten.
That’s wrong, as @archer correctly explained.
That’s correct, as long as “anything” falls within the scope of the pardon during that time period.
Only if pleading the Fifth gives him no protection from other potential federal charges not covered by the pardon. If the committee had really wanted to compel testimony, they could have offered Fauci immunity for anything disclosed during his testimony. They didn’t. So a trap was probably being set. It’s unlikely Fauci’s legal counsel are all idiots, so they wouldn’t have advised him to take the Fifth for no reason.
Texas can prosecute him under Texas state law whether he pleads the Fifth before Congress or not.
That looks like it’s intended to mean something, but is so vague that it’s impossible to know what.
Hell, Nixon shouldn’t’ve been encouraged to resign. He should’ve been impeached, tried, and removed setting a precedent that nobody is above the law and that politicians can be held to standards
Incorrect. Dual sovereigns concept means if the Feds charge you with a violation of federal law and don’t convict then if that was a violation of state law the state AG can charge you also. State and Feds don’t get multiple gos each though - that’s double jeopardy protection
If you don’t understand, ask a question
If you had, I’d have explained further in the hopes you understand.
As it is, I don’t honestly care what you understand. So ask someone else for assistance