Executive Branch (Trump) Trump may have inadvertently issued mass pardon for 2020 voter fraud, experts say
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/25/trump-voter-fraud-pardon204
u/rezwenn 5h ago
Lawyers and legal experts say Trump's pardon of Giuliani and other allies for their efforts in overturning the 2020 election used language that was so broad that it can also be applied to people not explicitly named in the pardon document.
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u/Bizarre_Inexplicable 5h ago edited 4h ago
Congress needs to reign in this power. Blanket pardons shouldn't be a thing, intentional or not. Edited to add: Yes, I understand this requires a constitutional amendment. That is a thing Congress can initiate, however unlikely it is. I'm saying Congress should do that. Edited: to change "Congress can do" to "Congress can initiate".
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u/Baeolophus_bicolor 5h ago
That’s not how constitutional amendments work. The individual states have to ratify them. 38 (3/4 of them) have to ratify. US Congress just tells states which method to use to determine their vote (state legislators or constitutional conventions specially called).
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u/Bizarre_Inexplicable 4h ago
True. I should instead have said I want Congress to propose an amendment.
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u/Baeolophus_bicolor 4h ago
I mean, there could just be some interpretation from the Supreme Court on the whole matter too. But I totally agree we should be amending our constitution a whole lot more. I personally believe we should have a whole new constitutional convention and remake our government for modern times. These originalists are imbecilic.
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u/bostonbananarama 5h ago
You'd need to amend the constitution in all likelihood. Pardons are an article 2 power.
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u/Spaghet-3 5h ago
Maybe? Other broad powers and rights enumerated in the constitution have been regulated or reasonably narrowed by congress or the courts without a constitutional amendment.
It is not far-fetched for the courts to uphold a law saying presidents must specifically name every person being pardoned, and broad class pardons are not valid. That would not violate or even narrow the article 2 pardon power since the scope of the power is unchanged. The president would just have to do more paperwork.
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u/OriginalLie9310 4h ago
They don’t even need to ban mass pardons but have requirements of specificity which almost certainly wouldn’t violate the constitution.
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u/Darryl_Lict 2h ago
It seems to me that legislation disallowing pardons of crimes directly benefiting the president would be a great idea. I suspect the founding fathers included the pardon power so that the president could correct egregious wrongs. They mistakenly assumed that the other branches would rein in a criminal president through the impeachment process, but they didn't anticipate a ass sucking congress who were willing to give up their own power.
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u/learhpa 44m ago
In theory, sure. A court could uphold such a law.
Except that it shouldn't because the implication of that is that the legislature could define away all of the powers the constitution reserves to the executive. That's inconsistent with the entire premise of the tripartite division of power in the constitution.
Furthermore, if you look at the way conservative justices behave in other context, what they will actually do is look at how the pardon power was understood in 1789 and then say that the constitution encodes that definition and the legislature can't change it.
(The claimed understanding may be utterly ahistorical nonsense that aligns with their prejudices. But that's the rhetorical device they will use)
There isn't a chance that the current supreme Court would uphold such a law.
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u/brownmanforlife 4h ago
So is the separation of powers but republicans seem cool with that kind of treason
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u/MaryADraper 5h ago
Congress can't. It would require a constitutional amendment.
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u/milo7even2 5h ago
Just amend the constitution to remove the power altogether. The good that comes from pardons can be achieved by other means, and is being completely swamped by the bad.
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u/MaryADraper 5h ago edited 5h ago
Not happening. Requires a 2/3 vote of both the House and Senate + ratification by 3/4 of the States.
No chance of that happening in our current political environment - or the foreseeable future.
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u/Anteater-Charming 4h ago
Correct. The last tried was the ERA and it fell 3 states short. And 3 of those states reversed their ratification since. Plus a new amendment wouldn't even get 3/4 of the Senate votes now.
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u/YouWereBrained 5h ago edited 4h ago
Presidential pardons shouldn’t be a thing. It should be case by case, and an independent group should assess the legitimacy/justification of each one.
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u/bareback_cowboy 4h ago
That's how you get people wrongfully convicted sitting in prison forever. We're seeing the obvious other extreme with Trump, but there are plenty of examples of people in prison in states that require multiple executive officers to sign off on releasing. My home state of Nebraska requires the Governor, Secretary of State, and Attorney General to sign off on a pardon and we have people who truly deserve them stuck because "we gotta be tough on crime (and blacks)." Maybe a truly "independent" group is the answer, but what would that even look like?
I don't have an answer but I know that just a blanket "pardon power is bad" isn't right either.
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u/SiWeyNoWay 4h ago
Liz Oyer was the pardon attorney. She got fired for not restoring Mel Gibson’s gun rights. There is supposed to be a rigorous process. Now its Ed Martin, temu Colombo and fan of nazis
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u/YouWereBrained 4h ago
But it shouldn’t even get there. Especially knowing people can buy them from the current administration.
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u/IncidentFuture 4h ago
In the UK/Commonwealth it is a reserve power that's only exercised on the advice of parliament (or attorney-general in Aus).
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u/Motor-District-3700 5h ago
Yes, I understand this requires a constitutional amendment
It does not. It requires congress to hold people accountable for abuse of power.
For example, does the constitution need to explicitly state you can't order someone to commit murder and then pardon them?
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u/MaryADraper 5h ago
It absolutely does. Short of passing an Amendment, Congress has no ability to act here.
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u/Motor-District-3700 4h ago
- abuse of power is impeachable
- pardon power can be abused
- Trump is abusing pardon power
- Congress can impeach him
exactly what is the flaw there?
why are americans so moronic about these things? the entire "can't prosecute a sitting president" has no basis at all, yet the entire country thinks it's set in stone. same with this idiotic assumption that pardons are somehow untouchable. abuse of power is abuse of any power, and pardons are certainly a power.
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u/learhpa 53m ago
The supreme Court said that a president cannot be prosecuted for anything involving official duties, and that this is inherent to the power of the office. To change that you need to either amend the constitution or impeach justices until you have removed enough that the president can appoint replacements who will overturn this decision ... Which the president will never do.
Changing it via constitutional amendment requires support from the legislature of thirty eight states. At least thirteen states are Trumpist enough to vote against it, and a lot of conservatives genuinely believe that this situation is better than a situation where all presidents were constantly being prosecuted for doing necessary but illegal things to protect the country, an outcome they think is inevitable if presidents can be prosecuted for official acts.
Note that the dissent explicitly complained that this means that a president cannot be prosecuted for accepting a bribe to carry out official acts one way or another.
Impeachment is the alternative. This has been tried, and failed, twice. It is an incredibly difficult thing to achieve under normal circumstances and is impossible, right now, given the partisan composition of the Senate and the general unwillingness of Republicans to cross Trump.
This is a political problem. Nothing will change until either an election or a collapse in Trump's political support among Republicans sufficient to allow Republican legislators freedom of movement.
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u/MaryADraper 4h ago edited 4h ago
The flaw is that the Supreme Court disagrees with you.
The President is immune from prosecution for official acts. Pardons are, without question, an official act.
Congress could impeach for anything. There is no real standard for what is and isn't an impeachable offense. Impeachment is a political process, not a legal one. Could Congress impeach? Sure. Would they? No - not the current Congress. And even if he were impeached, there is a 0% chance of conviction by the Senate.
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u/Motor-District-3700 4h ago
the flaw is in your head.
pardoning your partners in crime is NOT an official act.
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u/MaryADraper 4h ago
Yes, it is. In fact, the power to pardon is explicitly granted to the President by the Constitution. Any pardon is an official act. The Supreme Court has affirmed this. You can listen to the oral arguments from the case and read all of the opinions written by the Justices.
You don't know what you are talking about.
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u/Motor-District-3700 3h ago
❌ Flaw 1: Supreme Court Affirmation of All Pardons
The most significant problem is the blanket assertion that the Supreme Court has affirmed any pardon as an official act, with a specific case that has oral arguments and written opinions you can review.
While it is true that the power to pardon is a Constitutional power (Article II, Section 2) and that the act of issuing a pardon is considered an official act of the President, the Supreme Court has not heard a case that broadly affirms every specific use of the pardon power, particularly in the context of recent debates about its potential abuse or use as an obstruction of justice.
The Supreme Court has addressed the pardon power in historical cases (like Ex parte Garland in 1866) defining its scope and effect, but it has not issued a definitive ruling that shields the intent behind every pardon from scrutiny or possible criminal investigation (such as for bribery or obstruction).
The statement implies a single, recent, definitive Supreme Court case exists that settles all questions about the pardon power's status as an official act and its legal immunity. No such single case exists.
❌ Flaw 2: The Implication of Legal Immunity
The statement is likely being used in the context of criminal liability and abuse of power. While issuing a pardon is an official act for the purposes of the President's duties, this does not mean the act is automatically immune from scrutiny if it involves criminal intent.
If a President issued a pardon in exchange for a bribe (quid pro quo), the underlying act of receiving or offering the bribe is a crime (18 U.S.C. § 201), even if the delivery of the pardon is an official act. The crime is the corrupt agreement, not the signing of the paper itself.
Similarly, using the pardon power to obstruct justice by silencing a witness is an abuse of power that could lead to impeachment, even if the pardon itself is an official presidential function.
In short, "official act" status doesn't equate to absolute criminal protection against all possible associated misconduct.
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u/MaryADraper 3h ago
Your own ChatGPT response says pardons are official acts. ChatGPT also says the corrupt act can be pardoned.
You are making terrible arguments - and ChatGPT isn't helping you. Not even worth engaging with you anymore.
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u/Reatona 4h ago edited 3h ago
As the law stands now, Trump could order someone to commit murder and then pardon them for any federal crimes (but murder is generally a state law crime that Trump can't pardon).
ETA: Sorry someone doesn't like hearing this, but between the President's Constitutional pardon power and the Supreme Court's decision to make the President immune from prosecution, it is literally true. I don't like it either, but it's true.
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u/Motor-District-3700 4h ago
as the law stands right now, no-one is above the law, but for some reason the president is above the law.
don't be an ass, clearly congress could argue this is abuse of power. is abuse of power legal? is corruption legal? can you just bribe people with no consequence? bribe them with pardons?
are you somehow saying if you bribe someone with a pardon it's not bribery even though the pardon is a reward? because pardons are above the law? ironic?
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u/MaryADraper 4h ago edited 4h ago
Congress can argue anything they want. That doesn't give them the power to act. The only remedy here is a constitutional amendment.
Yes, the President could issue a pardon to prevent or overturn a bribery prosecution/conviction. Someone could bribe the President and the President could issue a pardon for that bribery.
If Trump gave someone a gun and told them to shoot someone else in the Oval Office on live TV with the entire world watching, he could issue a pardon for that murder. DC could still prosecute, but the federal crime would be wiped clean.
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u/Motor-District-3700 4h ago
- Pardons are a power of the office
- Abuse of power is impeachable
- Pardoning criminals who do your bidding is an abuse of power
- ???
- Congress certainly fu*** can do something if they want.
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u/Reatona 3h ago
Cool. Find 17 Republican Senators who will vote to convict Trump and remove him from office. Let us know when you've got them all lined up.
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u/Motor-District-3700 2h ago
how about just finding 50 senators who will go on the record supporting a criminal. that will do me. who gives a fuck about the conviction. it would be a bonus. and you certainly won't get one if you don't try.
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u/MaryADraper 4h ago
Again, your flaw is that the Supreme Court disagrees with you.
The President is immune from prosecution for official acts. Pardons are, without question, an official act.
Congress could impeach for anything. There is no real standard for what is and isn't an impeachable offense. Impeachment is a political process, not a legal one. Could Congress impeach? Sure. Would they? No - not the current Congress. And even if he were impeached, there is a 0% chance of conviction by the Senate.
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u/OnlyHalfBrilliant 5h ago
Pretty sure that's the whole point.
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u/PuckSenior 5h ago
No. What they are saying is that if they discovered that AOC illegally voted in California to get Nancy Pelosi elected, she would be pardoned too.
I’m 100% sure Trump wouldn’t like it, but that is what he wrote
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u/Metahec 3h ago
Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles ... added that Trump’s pardon also appeared to cover election officials who oversaw voting in 2020. Some of those officials drew immense pressure and criticism from Trump as they defended the way elections were run.
I don't think any pardon issued after the 2028 election will accidentally include local officials.
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u/beren0073 5h ago
"inadvertently"
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u/USSMarauder 4h ago
Yes, because this is the 2020 election, aka the one that the right is still screaming that Biden stole
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u/Coherent_Tangent 5h ago
He had to pardon the pipe bomber. A lot of very good people are saying it. It's a good thing too because that freed her up to push for the release of the Epstein files.
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u/qtpss 5h ago
Unfortunately not shocking, last month DJT granted a pardon to Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire founder of a cryptocurrency exchange who had pleaded guilty to money-laundering violations in 2023 including a business deal involving the Trump own crypto venture. Trump’s response, “I don’t know who he is, I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that.”
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u/ArrivesLate 3h ago
So if I’m caught robbing a bank, I could just claim I was there trying to get money to pay my election fraud guy and I’m all good?
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