There’s a lot of talk out there about Biden preemptively pardoning people like Jack Smith, Liz Cheney and Fauci, people who have committed no crimes but would still be on the hit list of the Department of Injustice once Trump gets in.
Biden should do it, without question. The only question is whether the pardons will survive the current judiciary. There’s no question that such pardons should be the last word. They always have been. However, it’s also highly likely that the Trump appointees in the lower courts, and the bought and paid for Supreme Court will find previously unseen hairs to split.
I mean, how can you pardon someone unless you specifically specify the crime of which they are or may be charged or of which they have been found guilty. Sure, it’s impossible for Biden to specify the criminal charges that are likely to be brought against people who have committed no crimes, but that’s just further proof that the pardons don’t pass constitutional muster. It means he wasn’t fully aware of exactly what crimes these folks had not committed. There’s surely a judge in Southern Texas who could explain why this constitutional conundrum renders the pardons void, as could Aileen Cannon, and even though neither of them would have had personal jurisdiction over these folks in the olden pre-2024 days, it will be completely different now. The government gets to judge shop all it wants, provided, of course, that it’s a Republican controlled government.
The guy prosecuting Hunter didn’t even want to let it go, though the presiding judge felt differently. It’s hard to see what crimes they’ll cook up to charge against these people, but they’ll come up with something and while the “Supreme” Court might uphold the pardons in the end, they may still be stuck with huge legal bills and emotional turmoil in the process. We may even find ourselves getting an opinion from the court as to why criminal charges against Joe Biden for something he did while president are not subject to the immunity ruling because we forgot to mention it only applied to Republicans.