Obama pardon watch

[Brian4Liberty]

Now is your chance. Who will Obama pardon? How many pardons will he issue on the last day? Over 100? 500?

Potential Pardon list:

-Hillary Clinton
-Huma Abedin
-Weiner
-Assata Shakur
-Chelsea Manning

[Dr.3D]

Wouldn't they first have to convict somebody before they could be pardoned?

[Brian4Liberty]

Wouldn't they first have to convict somebody before they could be pardoned?

No. They can pre-emptively "pardon" like Ford did for Nixon. I'm using the term "pardon" generically, to include things like pardon, commute, rescind, etc.

[Jan2017]

Ford did pardon for the actual charges against Richard Milhous Nixon - as well as "any and all future charges"

Here's a list with the most recent Obama pardons/commutations from Dec. 19 listed first : https://www.justice.gov/pardon/obama-pardons

[Carlybee]

He should pardon Leonard Peltier but he won't

[navy-vet]

Now is your chance. Who will Obama pardon? How many pardons will he issue on the last day? Over 100? 500?

Potential Pardon list:

-Hillary Clinton
-Huma Abedin
-Weiner
-Assata Shakur
-Chelsea Manning

What about Bowe Bergdahl?

[Brian4Liberty]

He should pardon Leonard Peltier but he won't

He has been mentioned by some sources. You never know.

[Brian4Liberty]

Will Obama shamelessly cater to the LGBT lobby groups and pardon Manning, but not pardon Snowden?

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?506396-On-Obama-s-Commutation-Shortlist-Chelsea-Manning

[phill4paul]

He should pardon Leonard Peltier but he won't

Nope, never happen. Someone had to pay for killing the Kings men. Even if the trial was a sham and the courts blocked all appeals.

[Carlybee]

Nope, never happen. Someone had to pay for killing the Kings men. Even if the trial was a sham and the courts blocked all appeals.

Yep..they dont pardon anyone convicted of killing feds..even if its not true.

[CPUd]

Obama must pardon Manning and Snowden before Trump takes office

By R. Kyle Alagood

Alagood: Even if Manning and Snowden don't deserve pardons, the US deserves to be free from the international embarrassment caused by the two cases

"R. Kyle Alagood is a lawyer and political science professor in Erie, Pennsylvania. The opinions in this article are those of author."

(CNN)President Obama should pardon Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden before President-elect Trump takes office and makes two internationally embarrassing situations worse.

In a 2013 article for The National Law Journal, I argued that neither Manning nor Snowden was a hero, and both deserved prosecution. But times have changed, and the leakers deserve pardons before Trump is sworn in.

Manning has served more than six years of an excessive thirty-year sentence. Throughout her incarceration, the federal government has proven itself unequipped to humanely incarcerate a transgender woman -- even as the Obama administration has reformed military policies to be more inclusive of transgender people and attempted to advance LGBT rights abroad.

Manning has suffered immensely, as has the nation's reputation. As a result of the way she has been treated, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture accused the United States of cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.

Manning's trial revealed she had been struggling with gender dysphoria and suffering mentally and emotionally while deployed in Iraq. For years after her arrest, the military denied her treatment for gender dysphoria. Manning has had to go on hunger strike for medical care and access to gender dysphoria medication, Manning's lawyer told CNN.

She has twice attempted suicide, each time being punished by solitary confinement, her lawyer has claimed. Humanitarian organizations such as Amnesty International have publicly accused the United States of "cruel and inhumane treatment" in Manning's incarceration.

Although Donald Trump has proclaimed some openness to transgender rights, some of those he has tapped to administer government are openly hostile to LGBT rights, making it highly unlikely the Trump administration will treat Manning better than Obama has and risking further allegations that the US government is violating human rights at home.

Moreover, the former soldier's leak of more than 700 thousand State and Defense Department files onto the internet via Wikileaks in 2010 strengthened democracy by shedding light on the nation's conduct around the globe. Manning exposed the horrifying video of a US helicopter in Baghdad killing a dozen people, including two Reuters journalists. She revealed that the U.S. government had allowed Iraqis to torture detainees and trained Egyptian police linked to torture, among other things.

To be fair, Manning dumped government files onto the web without filters or redactions. Her actions were irresponsible and endangered the lives of informers she outed. But as Brig. Gen. Robert Carr testified at Manning's sentencing that no lives had been lost and no reprisals had occurred due to Manning's actions.

The human rights implications and merits of her case favor a Manning pardon. For Edward Snowden, realpolitik is an additional factor that urges Obama to use his pardon power.

Snowden's forced exile in Russia is an international relations and publicity nightmare for the US. The Obama administration revoked Snowden's passport mid-flight, stranding him at an airport in Moscow. Its dogged pursuit of charges under the Espionage Act -- a World War I law aimed at punishing foreign spies -- has made Snowden an international celebrity. The longer he remains abroad and under the threat of decades in jail, the less Snowden will seem like a security risk and the more he will appear to be a heroic political dissident.

Donald Trump and his appointees are likely to inflame the situation and make Snowden an even more sympathetic character. Trump has called Snowden a "traitor" who deserves execution. Trump's pick for CIA Director, Rep. Mike Pompeo, also has called for the death penalty against Snowden. And Trump's Attorney General appointee, Sen. Jeff Sessions, is a capital punishment hardliner.

Although the Obama administration has said it would not seek the death penalty for Snowden, there are few, if any, barriers stopping the Trump administration from seeking death-penalty-eligible charges against him. The mere threat of execution will cement Snowden's martyrdom and weaken the country's bargaining position as it pursues human rights reform abroad.

Time has shown that Snowden's leak was a public service. The former outed surveillance programs that had allowed the US government to scoop up entire swathes of the internet, digital communications, and phone traffic, including metadata on millions of innocent people.

...

http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/19/opinions/pardon-manning-and-snowden-alagood-opinion/

[bunklocoempire]

The only reason I can think of for any decent pardons, would be for the "outraged cop, bad cop" narrative.
You know, to remind everyone why democrat and republican politicians are such polar opposites, and to promote anything that drives people to demand giving more power to their favorite brand of cop.

[Brian4Liberty]

And it looks Chelsea Manning was a winner...

Obama Commutes Bulk of Chelsea Manning’s Sentence (http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?506455-Obama-Commutes-Bulk-of-Chelsea-Manning%92s-Sentence)

[Brian4Liberty]

Obama cuts sentences of hundreds of drug offenders (http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/17/politics/obama-cuts-sentences-of-hundreds-of-drug-offenders/)
By Kevin Liptak, CNN White House Producer


(CNN) President Barack Obama on Tuesday reduced or eliminated the sentences for hundreds more non-violent drug offenders.

The move brings Obama well beyond his most recent predecessors, who used their commutation powers more sparingly. He's now reduced sentences for 1,385 individuals, the vast majority of whom are serving time for crimes related to distribution or production of narcotics.

Many of those whose punishments he's reduced were incarcerated for crimes involving crack cocaine, which came with mandatory sentences that were longer than those for the powdered version of the drug. The discrepancy -- a facet of a decades-long war on drugs -- overwhelmingly affected African-Americans.

Obama had hoped for legislation to permanently end the disparities in sentencing laws. While an unlikely group of activists have pushed in Congress for a bill that would alter mandatory minimums and reform the prison system, a rancorous political climate during last year's presidential campaign prevented progress.

Instead, Obama encouraged Americans serving lengthy terms to apply for clemency, prompting a flood of applications to his Justice Department. A group of legal aid groups established the Clemency Project to help screen applicants and complete the required paperwork.

An onslaught of requests required Obama's aides to establish a process for vetting applications, which began backing up in the Pardon Attorney's office.
At the beginning of 2017, 13,568 petitions for clemency were still pending. The Obama administration has received more than 30,000 petitions over eight years.
The power to grant pardons and commutations is written into the US constitution as one of the president's clearest unilateral prerogatives. With large batches often coming in the final weeks of an administration, an act of clemency cannot be challenged in court or overturned by Congress.

President George W. Bush granted 189 pardons and 11 commutations, including reducing the prison term for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators in the probe of the leak of the name of a CIA operative.

President Bill Clinton issued a flurry of pardons on his final day in office, including for financier Marc Rich and the president's half-brother Roger Clinton. In sum, Clinton ordered 396 pardons and 61 commutations.
...
More: http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/17/politics/obama-cuts-sentences-of-hundreds-of-drug-offenders/

[Brian4Liberty]

White House statement:



President Obama Has Now Granted More Commutations than Any President in this Nation’s History
January 17, 2017 at 4:17 PM ET by Neil Eggleston

Summary:
Today, 273 individuals learned that the President has given them a second chance.

Today, 273 individuals learned that the President has given them a second chance. With today’s 209 grants of commutation, the President has now commuted the sentences of 1,385 individuals – the most grants of commutation issued by any President in this nation’s history. President Obama’s 1,385 commutation grants – which includes 504 life sentences – is also more than the total number of commutations issued by the past 12 presidents combined. And with today’s 64 pardons, the President has now granted a total of 212 pardons.

Today, 209 commutation recipients – including 109 individuals who had believed they would live out their remaining days in prison – learned that they will be rejoining their families and loved ones, and 64 pardon recipients learned that their past convictions have been forgiven. These 273 individuals learned that our nation is a forgiving nation, where hard work and a commitment to rehabilitation can lead to a second chance, and where wrongs from the past will not deprive an individual of the opportunity to move forward. Today, 273 individuals – like President Obama’s 1,324 clemency recipients before them – learned that our President has found them deserving of a second chance.

While the mercy the President has shown his 1,597 clemency recipients is remarkable, we must remember that clemency is an extraordinary remedy, granted only after the President has concluded that a particular individual has demonstrated a readiness to make use of his or her second chance. Only Congress can achieve the broader reforms needed to ensure over the long run that our criminal justice system operates more fairly and effectively in the service of public safety.

Neil Eggleston is Counsel to the President.
...
https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2017/01/17/president-obama-has-now-granted-more-commutations-any-president-nations-history

[Brian4Liberty]

Obama pardons James Cartwright in leak case
By Katie Bo Williams - 01/17/17


President Obama on Tuesday pardoned retired Gen. James Cartwright, the former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff accused of lying to the FBI about his conversations with reporters regarding U.S. efforts to cripple Iran’s nuclear program.

Cartwright pleaded guilty in October to one felony count of making false statements during the FBI’s investigation into leaks about the government’s role in a highly classified operation known as Operation Olympic Games.

The clandestine effort — undertaken [sic] with Israel — deployed a computer virus known as Stuxnet that destroyed Iranian centrifuges used in creating nuclear fuel.

New York Times journalist David Sanger exposed the operation in 2012, sparking the federal investigation that led to Cartwright.

According to the government’s sentencing memo, when investigators interviewed Cartwright about Sanger’s reporting in November 2013, he lied about his discussions with Sanger and Daniel Klaidman, who wrote a Newsweek article focused cyberattacks against Iran.

Agents then showed Cartwright an email exchange that contradicted his statements, according to the memo. Cartwright immediately became ashen, the report stated, and lost consciousness.

"After reading the email exchange, Cartwright stated the email contradicted his previous statements concerning not engaging with Klaidman on matters pertaining to [redacted],” the memo reads.

“Cartwright explained that he did not recall Klaidman asking about the matter, but then stated, 'I think I divulged classified information.' He additionally took off his glasses, started rubbing his eyes, and told interviewing agents, 'You got me,' when confronted with his contradicting statements.”
...
More: http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/314674-obama-pardons-james-cartwright-in-leak-case

[Champ]

Will Obama shamelessly cater to the LGBT lobby groups and pardon Manning, but not pardon Snowden?

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?506396-On-Obama-s-Commutation-Shortlist-Chelsea-Manning


Yes and it looks like he just did. Maybe all Assange and Snowden have to do is start going as Julia and Edwina.

[Brian4Liberty]

Obama Pardons Unrepentant Terrorist Oscar López Rivera


...
Lopez Rivera is a Puerto Rican nationalist and a member of nationalist group Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña (“FALN”), who sought independence for the island territory so that it could become a socialist nation. FALN orchestrated a series of bombings that killed six people. Rivera functioned as a bomb maker for the group and helped to recruit others.

Lopez Rivera was sentenced to 51 years in prison in 1981, and an additional 15 years were tacked on to his sentence after he attempted to escape from prison in 1988.

In 1999, President Bill Clinton offered Lopez Rivera and 15 other members of FALN conditional clemency if they would renounce violence and terrorism. While 14 FALN members accepted this offer, Lopez Rivera and another did not. Congress condemned this conditional clemency offer by an overwhelming margin.
...
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/christinerousselle/2017/01/18/obama-pardoned-convicted-unrepentant-terrorist-oscar-l%C3%B3pez-rivera-n2273267


The Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional Puertorriqueña (FALN) was a Marxist-Leninist organization which allegedly sought to transform Puerto Rico into a communist state during the 1970s.[10][11][page needed]

The FALN was involved in more than 100 bombings in New York, Chicago and other cities. The 1975 bombing at Fraunces Tavern in Manhattan killed four people.[12] The FALN seditious conspiracy, with its many bombings of civilian buildings in New York and Chicago, was one of the targets of the first terrorism task force in the United States; the US Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF), established in April 1980, had as one of its goals to pursue threats from the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN).
...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oscar_L%C3%B3pez_Rivera