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President Obama Says He Can't Pardon Snowden (arstechnica.com)
Joe Mullin, writing for Ars Technica:A campaign to pardon NSA leaker Edward Snowden, launched in combination with a fawning Oliver Stone film about him, hasn't made any headway. The request spurred the entire membership of the House Select Committee on Intelligence, 13 Republicans and nine Democrats, to send a letter to President Barack Obama urging against a pardon. "He is a criminal," they stated flatly. Obama weighed in on the matter on Friday. During his European tour, he was interviewed by Der Spiegel -- the largest newspaper in Germany, a country where Snowden is particularly popular. After discussing a wide range of issues, he was asked: Are you going to pardon Edward Snowden? Obama replied: "I can't pardon somebody who hasn't gone before a court and presented themselves, so that's not something that I would comment on at this point." He continued: I think that Mr. Snowden raised some legitimate concerns. How he did it was something that did not follow the procedures and practices of our intelligence community. If everybody took the approach that I make my own decisions about these issues, then it would be very hard to have an organized government or any kind of national security system. At the point at which Mr. Snowden wants to present himself before the legal authorities and make his arguments or have his lawyers make his arguments, then I think those issues come into play. Until that time, what I've tried to suggest -- both to the American people, but also to the world -- is that we do have to balance this issue of privacy and security.
the president has full power to pardon anyone of all crimes, either before, during or after persecution and that the pardon clears the individuals of any consequences that may have arisen from the action from which they were to be punished.
Ooops.
http://law.jrank.org/pages/22796/Ex-parte-Garland-Significance.html
You're right.
I think Obama is using that excuse to dodge the question of pardoning Snowden. Just like Trump dodged releasing his taxes by saying he couldn't because he was under audit. Which was also not true: there's no legal impediment to releasing your taxes if you're under audit.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Lest you downmod for political reasons. Obama could pardon anyone for anything - the power is unfettered.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
all you need is an indictment and you get pardoned for that.
In Ex parte Garland they held that:
The power thus conferred is unlimited, with the exception stated. It extends to every offence known to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken or during their pendency or after conviction and judgment. This power of the President is not subject to legislative control. Congress can neither limit the effect of his pardon nor exclude from its exercise any class of offenders. The benign prerogative of mercy reposed in him cannot be fettered by any legislative restrictions.
(The mentioned limitation was in cased of impeachment). So no you don't even need an indictment to receive a pardon. I personally like Obama but damn he must be the absolute worst constitutional lawyer ever.
No one ever said it wasn't legal for him to release those documents (which are neither his taxes nor his tax returns). They said it was unwise to do so.
See that "Preview" button?
Bill Clinton pardened Marc Rich, who was a fugitive (and on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list at the time).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Rich
Not one of those points is accurate, but truth isn't what people are interested in here.
1. Snowden never attempted to go through proper channels.
From Wikipedia: In May 2014, U.S. officials released a single email that Snowden had written in April 2013 inquiring about legal authorities but said that they had found no other evidence that Snowden had expressed his concerns to someone in an oversight position. In June 2014, the NSA said it had not been able to find any records of Snowden raising internal complaints about the agency's operations. That same month, Snowden explained that he himself has not produced the communiqués in question because of the ongoing nature of the dispute, disclosing for the first time that "I am working with the NSA in regard to these records and we're going back and forth, so I don't want to reveal everything that will come out."
There are whistle blower protections at every level of the federal government.
The U.S. doesn't torture its citizens. We're not talking about citizens who've traveled overseas to join ISIS or Al-Qaeda and were captured during war. We're talking about a U.S. citizen who would have faced trail in a U.S. court.
Lastly, if Obama is such a stand-up guy who everybody on the left appears to revere, how is it that he's so absolutely wrong on this point? I'll tell how: he's not. Snowden exposed some useful information and also did incalculable harm to the U.S. intelligence community. Is Obama supposed to set a precedent that's it's OK for low-level government employees to release top-secret documents to the press as long as those employees don't like what's going on?.
That doesn't hold water, because "I can't" was followed by an explanation of why he couldn't. and it happened to be total bullshit.
The power of a president to grant a pardon is only limited by not being able to pardon in cases of impeachment.
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.
Seems pretty straight-forward.
1 Snowden is alleged to have committed offences against the United States.
2. He is not being impeached.
3. Obama is president.
4. He can grant a reprieve or pardon according to the above-cited Constitution, Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1.
Congress cannot ignore the pardon. Snowden is free to testify and admit every damn thing, and there's nothing they can do about it, since it would have been pardoned. He probably would, because it would give him a platform and a chance to get all the crap into the congressional record. Congress does NOT want that. They would shit their collective pants.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Just like Trump dodged releasing his taxes by saying he couldn't because he was under audit. Which was also not true: there's no legal impediment to releasing your taxes if you're under audit.
There is no legal impediment to confessing everything when arrested either. However in both these cases when your lawyer advices you to say nothing, to show nothing, its probably good advice. Follow it. Trump made it pretty clear his attorneys said do not release it.
Legal experts agree that the President can pardon someone even if there has been no charge; they need only specify in broad terms.
For example:
The reasons that Obama won't pardon Snowden are two: First, he doesn't want to. Second, it would beg the question of pardoning Hillary Clinton.
This is the same CNN site that declared math is racist
Really?? This again. Didn't we just have this discussion yesterday? Oh yeah, we did. And in the subsequent discussion, a bunch of people replied to you and said, "Actually, no, if you READ that story, that's NOT fake news -- CNN had a bad and inflammatory headline, but the content is pretty reasonable."
STOP IT. Yes, you can find stuff where CNN has bias or distortion. But you're doing precisely what the "fake news" headlines often do here -- you link to something with an incendiary headline betting that no one will actually read it. And the few people who do read a "fake news" article will often discover it doesn't quite make sense, or the headline was bad, or even that it's a complete parody.
There is actual "fake news" out there. Outright fabrications of events that never happened. Parodies and hoaxes. Your link -- whatever its problems -- isn't it.
Problem is, there were WMDs, the CIA bought some. Our troops suffered illness and injury from encountering them. So you can argue whether having WMDs was justification for the invasion, but pretending they weren't there is not realistic.
Is true
and it was illegal
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Gerald Ford establish that precedent when he pardoned Richard Nixon.
John Adams established that precedent when he granted amnesty to everyone involved in Frie's Rebellion. And if the list on Wikipedia for Washington was complete, we'd probably see he did some pre-emptive pardons, too.
You should stop sucking government-issue cock. He didn't give a single state secret to Russia. To the contrary, they were given to a consortium of news agencies, who then vetted every one to ensure that no names of any operatives were exposed, no field agents were put in danger.
But of course, blame the messenger when you don't like the message. When the government breaks the law, it should be exposed. That's why we make the distinction between law-abiding governments and lawless regimes.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.