What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[Caliga]

I could see him pardoning all the riot guys except the ones that killed or assaulted cops.

I could also see him saying "fuck it, these losers can't do anything for me anymore.  Let 'em rot."

"I don't like low class looking people."

[Admiral Yi]

I believe he can pardon entire categories of people.  Carter pardoned the Vietnam War draft dodgers for example.

And Washington pardoned the Whiskey Rebellers. 

[DGuller]

There has to be some check on the pardon power, can't there be?  If Trump chooses to pardon every single person in federal prisons, just for lols, surely there is a counter for that?

[Admiral Yi]

"I don't like low class looking people."

"I prefer violent insurrectionists who don't get caught."

[Barrister]

There has to be some check on the pardon power, can't there be?  If Trump chooses to pardon every single person in federal prisons, just for lols, surely there is a counter for that?

Just because there should be, doesn't mean there is.

The only counter to a rogue President is impeachment.

[Sheilbh]

I could see him pardoning all the riot guys except the ones that killed or assaulted cops.

I could also see him saying "fuck it, these losers can't do anything for me anymore.  Let 'em rot."

So could I.

Agreed - either would be wildly in character.

I think he might be alarmed about his own personal risk so not want to aggravate that, which might be why there won't be a pardon.

[Valmy]

There has to be some check on the pardon power, can't there be?  If Trump chooses to pardon every single person in federal prisons, just for lols, surely there is a counter for that?

None that I am aware of.

[alfred russel]

Will he pardon the riot guys? Lets break it down...

On the one hand, the riot guys are deeply unpopular, are an unattractive "low class" group, and pardoning them would hurt his future political prospects and antagonize Senators about to try him for impeachment as well as other prosecutors.

On the other hand, it would be a show of loyalty to his most dedicated supporters...

WTF...come on guys...Trump has consistently never shown loyalty to anyone and everyone who has ever risked anything to support him has gotten burned badly. Riot people are on their own. If you think otherwise you are like a battered woman expecting her man to be different after incidence 80.

[viper37]

WTF...come on guys...Trump has consistently never shown loyalty to anyone and everyone who has ever risked anything to support him has gotten burned badly. Riot people are on their own. If you think otherwise you are like a battered woman expecting her man to be different after incidence 80.

Roger Stone.
Michael Flynn.

[Sheilbh]

WTF...come on guys...Trump has consistently never shown loyalty to anyone and everyone who has ever risked anything to support him has gotten burned badly. Riot people are on their own. If you think otherwise you are like a battered woman expecting her man to be different after incidence 80.

Roger Stone.
Michael Flynn.

Manafort.

The difference is the rioters can't snitch on Trump.

[Barrister]

Will he pardon the riot guys? Lets break it down...

On the one hand, the riot guys are deeply unpopular, are an unattractive "low class" group, and pardoning them would hurt his future political prospects and antagonize Senators about to try him for impeachment as well as other prosecutors.

On the other hand, it would be a show of loyalty to his most dedicated supporters...

WTF...come on guys...Trump has consistently never shown loyalty to anyone and everyone who has ever risked anything to support him has gotten burned badly. Riot people are on their own. If you think otherwise you are like a battered woman expecting her man to be different after incidence 80.

I get what you're saying, but...

Trump kind of has shown loyalty to two groups / individuals.  Dictators, and to "his base".  He never said a bad word about Putin, sucked up to Kim Jong Un, has sparred with China but never with Xi, etc.

And when it comes to "his base", remember the "very fine people on both sides" comments, the "Proud Boys, stand down and stand by".  Yeah he'll throw out a perfunctory "call for calm" once in a while, but it's clear he thinks these are "his people".

That's why I thought he might try to split the difference and pardon those guilty of property crimes, but avoid the worst of the worst.

[viper37]

Off the rails: Trump's election premeditated lie

Episode 1: Trump's refusal to believe the election results was premeditated. He had heard about the "red mirage" — the likelihood that early vote counts would tip more Republican than the final tallies — and he decided to exploit it.
"Jared, you call the Murdochs! Jason, you call Sammon and Hemmer!"
President Trump was almost shouting. He directed his son-in-law and his senior strategist from his private quarters at the White House late on election night. He barked out the names of top Fox News executives and talent he expected to answer to him.
"And anyone else — anyone else who will take the call," he said. "Tell these guys they got to change it, they got it wrong. It's way too early. Not even CNN is calling it."
As the clock ticked over into the first minutes of Nov. 4, Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani ranted to top campaign aides: "There's no way he lost; this thing must have been stolen. Just say we won Michigan! Just say we won Georgia! Just say we won the election! He needs to go out and claim victory." Trump's campaign manager Bill Stepien later told associates: "That was fucking crazy."
For weeks, Trump had been laying the groundwork to declare victory on election night — even if he lost. But the real-time results, punctuated by Fox's shocking call, upended his plans and began his unraveling.
Trump had planned for Americans to go to bed on Nov. 3 celebrating — or resigned to — his re-election. The maps they saw on TV should be bathed in red. But at 11:20 p.m. that vision fell apart, as the nation's leading news channel among conservatives became the first outlet to call Arizona for Joe Biden. Inside the White House, Trump's inner circle erupted in horror.
Over the next two months, Trump took the nation down with him as he descended into denial, despair and a reckless revenge streak that fueled a deadly siege on the U.S. Capitol by his backers seeking to overturn the election. This triggered a constitutional crisis and a bipartisan push to impeach Trump on his way out the door, to try to cast him out of American politics for good.
But in four years, Trump had remade the Republican Party in his own image, inspiring and activating tens of millions of Americans who weren't abandoning him anytime soon. He'd once bragged he could shoot another person on Fifth Avenue and not lose his voters. In reality, many of them had eagerly lined up to commit violence on his behalf.
[...]

[Razgovory]

I wonder how long after Trump leaves office he will declare he is building a Trump Tower Moscow.

[DGuller]

There has to be some check on the pardon power, can't there be?  If Trump chooses to pardon every single person in federal prisons, just for lols, surely there is a counter for that?

Just because there should be, doesn't mean there is.

The only counter to a rogue President is impeachment.

Outside of the law, what counter is there?  Surely there are situations that were not adequately foreseen in law, and to follow the letter would amount to a ritualistic suicide.  If an asteroid is coming for us, and the law does not foresee a quick enough legal response to allow us to launch nukes at the asteroid, I'm sure we'll just go and do that anyway, rather than suffer extinction.  There has to be a point in everyone's mind where you just go "okay, yes, that's what the law says, but we'll just pretend it doesn't because surely the intent of the law was not to force us to do something obviously idiotic".

[The Brain]

There has to be some check on the pardon power, can't there be?  If Trump chooses to pardon every single person in federal prisons, just for lols, surely there is a counter for that?

Just because there should be, doesn't mean there is.

The only counter to a rogue President is impeachment.

Outside of the law, what counter is there?  Surely there are situations that were not adequately foreseen in law, and to follow the letter would amount to a ritualistic suicide.  If an asteroid is coming for us, and the law does not foresee a quick enough legal response to allow us to launch nukes at the asteroid, I'm sure we'll just go and do that anyway, rather than suffer extinction.  There has to be a point in everyone's mind where you just go "okay, yes, that's what the law says, but we'll just pretend it doesn't because surely the intent of the law was not to force us to do something obviously idiotic".

In Swedish law (and my guess is the law of many other countries as well), you can break the law in an emergency if it's necessary to save the day. You have quite a bit of room to maneuver as long as it actually is an emergency. I have a hard time seeing pardons, even mass pardons, being an emergency in this sense of the word.