Newsweek: President Biden Should Immediately Offer Trump an Unconditional Pardon
No, I'm not a regular reader of Newsweek. Oh, I used to pick up a copy in the barber shop, or while I was waiting to get my oil changed, if there was nothing else on the table. Now I have my cell phone for entertainment. I'm actually surprised that a weekly news magazine is still around, though they seem to have made the transition to electronic media.
But this opinion piece, by Nicholas Creel, a business law professor at Georgia College and State University, is, frankly, a bad attempt to get attention. My first reaction was, "he's joking." But that would be more like something you'd read in The Onion, not Newsweek. The author calls himself a "jack of all trades because of my eclectic academic background," a description which I found on his Linkedin account, and that tells me all I need to know. Newsweek is desperate for opinion writers.
Creel suggests that President Biden should immediately offer Trump an unconditional pardon. But here's how he worded that statement in the piece:
"To head off the disaster of being criminally prosecuted by his political opponent, President Joe Biden should offer Trump an unconditional pardon immediately--and announce that he will not seek re-election,"
Are professors of business law not required to pass English, or be able to write coherently? Is he saying that Biden runs the risk of being criminally prosecuted by his political opponent, or is that a reference to Trump? And if that's the case, President Biden isn't going to prosecute his political opponent, the justice department will be doing that and it's a judicial matter, not an executive branch prosecution. Or, is he suggesting that Trump will win re-election, and then turn around and criminally prosecute Biden? I'll just tell you, there's no chance of that happening under any circumstance.
First of all, it would not be a "disaster" for Trump to be criminally prosecuted by the Justice Department. It would be justice under the rule of law. If he committed crimes, and I'm pretty certain that he did, then he should be criminally prosecuted, regardless of who is in the White House, because both the Justice Department and the President represent the people, and we are the ones against whom the crimes were committed. Why would President Biden use the power of the pardon to bypass the rule of law? And I'll answer that question, too. He wouldn't. Not ever.
"Most democrats would probably reject that idea out of hand," he says, while explaning that the reason for doing this would be to stave off the potential violence of a Trump indictment without putting Trump above the law.
"After all," he continues, "Presidents pardon people all the time. It doesn't erase the fact of their guilt."
At this point, I would like to express how happy I am that I don't have a child at Georgia College majoring in business law. If I did, and I saw this opinion piece, we'd withdraw and I would want my money back.
Given what we saw on January 6th, and the way Trump and Steve Bannon are currently ratcheting up the rhetoric and attempting to use mob violence to escape accountability, there will be attempts by hard core Trump supporters to commit violence. That should not deter the pursuit of justice, and it should be met head on with the full force of the law. Threats of violence are a clear demonstration that these people who support Trump are anti-constitution, anti-democratic, anti-patriot and anti-American. Giving in to the threats will just perpetuate more violence when extremists don't get their way.
It is never, never, never in the best interests of this country to give in to threats of violence.
Even More Ridiculous Claims and Ideas Ahead
Creel claims that an announcement from President Biden that he would not be seeking another term would be an expectation of Trump as well, in spite of the pardon being unconditional. Trump has proven that he is a pathological liar. And if he thought this would be to his benefit, he'd take the pardon, lie, and run again without even acknowledging his utter dishonesty. That's because he is utterly dishonest.
It's even more ridiculous to assert that Biden stepping down after his first term is something that "the vast majority of the public wants." There's no evidence to suggest that at all, especially not from Democrats, whose support for the President, while it may have wavered, is still high. I couldn't care less what the MAGAts think. "Vast majority" implies something that no polling data which currently exists can support reasonably.
Biden has Already Sealed His Legacy
The less the Biden administration interacts with or acknowledges Trump, the better. Let the justice department and the courts handle this, which is how it works. Who really cares that there's a group of extremists who are more loyal to Trump than they are to either the country or to God who threaten violence to get their way? That's not what true patriots and real Americans do, so they are exposing themselves for who they are.
If Trump committed even half of the crimes that the evidence in these investigations point to, then it would be morally and ethically wrong to pardon him. And that's just a flat fact.
I promise I will never read Newsweek, quote from it, refer to it or acknowledge it as a publication again.
And if you have doubts about what Democrats feel regarding this terrible idea, take a look at an unofficial poll, on Democratic Underground. Believing this is a bad idea wins the poll by 100%.
DU poll on Newsweek Opinion Piece
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