3d ago

Trump tries to undo Biden pardons via social media proclamation

www.rollingstone.com Trump Attempts to Nullify Biden Pardons for Jan. 6 Committee

Donald Trump claimed former President Joe Biden’s alleged use of autopen to sign pardons for members of the Jan. 6 committee nullified their validity.

Summary

Donald Trump declared on Truth Social that he was voiding Joe Biden’s pardons for Jan. 6 committee members, calling them “VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT.”

He claimed Biden’s use of an autopen made the pardons invalid, citing unproven claims from The Heritage Foundation. Legal experts note that a president cannot revoke a predecessor’s pardons.

Biden issued them to shield officials from politically motivated investigations.

Trump, who has repeatedly threatened prosecutions, accused the committee members of wrongdoing and suggested they be investigated.

57 comments

What's gone stop him from sending his goons to arrest political opponents? They're at the ignoring the courts step in the process right now.
- That's the unfortunate truth; once a court order is not enforced, you are already past the point of no return. One of two things follow, either a new dictatorship, or blood.
  
  Likely, both
  
  Court order not enforced and no reaction from the public. Why would they stop?
- What’s gone stop him from sending his goons to arrest political opponents?
  The fact that his political opponents are already toothless.
  
  Boot licking allies is the term you are looking for.
- Nothing. I can see the future and I see what everybody is refusing to believe - Trump will not be gone in 4 years. Congress can't hold him to account (because half of them are collaborators) and the court's orders can't be enforced. Best we'll get is a stern tut-tut from Democrats while more and more rights will slip away at an alarming pace. Sure, the constitution SAYS you have the right to certain things, but if Trump violates those rights by ordering people below him to carry out unconstitutional acts, who will come save you? Not congress, not the judiciary, not the SCOTUS, not the police, not the military.
  We're fucked. It's over.

So if auto pens mean that the document isn't valid, does that mean the same thing for DocuSign, or other e signatures?
Does this mean that billions of contracts and documents signed this way are null and void?
- Can I get all my taxes back then, because I've been esigning taxes since 2006.
- How is DocuSign supposed to be a signature anyway? It's not your handwriting, and there's no cryptographic proof either.
  Check out e-signatures like we do them in Estonia. The document has a cryptographic signature belonging to the person who signed it, with a date. Change the file in the container and the signature is no longer valid. It makes physical signatures pretty much obsolete because it's easy to use and WAY easier to prove that the signature is not fake.
  There are issues of course - someone who knows your PIN2 could steal your device and sign something before you can get the certificate revoked. You do need to keep your PINs secure.

So we are to believe that each J6 felon Trump pardoned was signed by hand in something other than Sharpie?
Also why bother with the investigations, they investigated Biden for 4 years and despite the "overwhelming evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors" they couldn't even name one, let alone provide evidence. This is just Trump trying to get his base focused on something other than how he is screwing them despite their support.
- Don't even engage with the "wrong kind of pen" argument. It's a prime example of fascists wasting your time debating words spoken in bad faith to distract you while they round people up in the streets.
  
  Obligatory Sartre quote:
  Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.
  
  Don’t even engage with the “wrong kind of pen” argument.
  It's the equivalent to SovCits arguing that a Court is invalid because the flag has the wrong color fringe on it. The people who spout that nonsense aren't worth the effort or time to engage.
- focused on something other
  Perhaps how constituents got absolutely hammered by extreme weather, tornados, etc, over the weekend as he simultaneously dismantles weather science funding and aid, while also denying that climate change is an issue. Or possibly deporting legal immigrants, against specific instructions not to, in some real transparent dictator type behavior.
  
  Honestly, at this point, people can deny it all they want but climate change isn't something that "might happen" it's already happening and will continue to happen because we're doing our damnedest to make sure it does. I'm in socal and the climate here is already markedly different from what it was ten years ago.

There's nothing that says Presidential Pardons need to be in writing. Biden just had to direct the right people to offer a pardon to an individual which can then be accepted or declined. That can be verbal, electronically communicated, or in writing, but a signature from the President is just a formality and definitely not required, so the autopen/esign argument is a totally dead argument.
Just more criminal conduct from the felon in chief.

Ok SovCit

That's it Diaper Don, leave yourself no way out by questioning the legality of pardons. True genius at work here.
- The only way this goes wrong for him is if he leaves office. He has no intention of allowing that to happen.
  
  He has no intention of allowing that to happen.
  The Grip Reaper comes for all. He's an obese 80 year old; modern medicine is only going to prop him up for so long.

Considering how lazy he is I don't know if he wants to set a precedent for all government documents signed with an auto-pin being invalid. Not that precedent has ever mattered for republicans
- He is lazy, but he LOVES signing things. He even has special sharpies made so he can sign things better than anyone else.
  
  you think that but look up his signature it's obviously done by a machine like most fuckin people these days
  
  Are they crayons?

“The necessary Pardoning Documents were not explained to, or approved by, Biden,” Trump added. “He knew nothing about them..."
Funny enough we could just ask Biden about this, and even given an outright 'yeah, knew, read, and would do it again' Trump would spin up some other excuse to say it was fake, or a clone, or whatever other madness comes to mind.
- But in the Conservative Cinematic Universe, Biden is a doddering old fool who is unaware of his surroundings. This is God's Own Truth, and nobody will convince them otherwise.
  If you ask Biden about this, on camera, and he responds, they will conclude it must be an AI fake, or possibly a Robot Biden. Then they will freeze-frame on some instance where he is looking in the distance and insist he was sundowning.

Everybody go on social media and proclaim Trump isn't president. Musk's kid said so
- Spoken out loud in the oval office. Sounds official to me!

Someone blow that orange muppets brains out. Fuck sakes America.
- Vance might be even worse
  
  What works once might work twice..
- Everyone things he's a hero and would time travel to kill hitler. It seems like they only say that because they know time travel isn't real

I declare bankruptcy!

Hilarious to bemoan autopen when this senile imbecile is signing everything looking like Hammmmmmmy Sammmmmiieeess.

57 comments