Trump pardons former Google self-driving car engineer Levandowski

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-google-idUSKBN29P0JM

92 85 6 years ago

jcstryker• 6 years ago

So pardons are for sale to the wealthy or well-connected. Maybe this has always been the case, but to see it so blatant...

The power of pardon simply further reduces the trust and legitimacy of the executive branch. At least for humans it should be revoked, I think we can still trust the presidency with the power to pardon turkeys.

oji0hub5• 6 years ago

Buying your freedom is as old as prisons.

E.g. I just saw someone post this book although the post disappeared (?):

Pardongate: How Bill & Hillary Clinton and Their Brothers Profited from Pardons

a_bonobo• 6 years ago

I don't know, that book looks a bit dodgy - released 6-ish months ago, OK publisher, 6 reviews on Amazon, the co-author seems to be a long-time Clinton enemy (https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/bensmith/man-who-saw-tr...)

The Wikipedia article is probably a better overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_pardon_controvers...

matthewdgreen2• 6 years ago

My understanding is that there was a criminal investigation of Clinton's Marc Rich pardon that concluded without finding any evidence of criminality. I'm not raising this as a defense of his making that pardon, but rather, to point out that a President selling pardons is and has long been considered a serious crime. The Clinton precedent is a clear illustration. Saying "hey, some book alleges Clinton got paid for a pardon, therefore it's common practice" sounds nice, but ignores the fact that suspicion around Clinton's Marc Rich pardon triggered an extensive criminal investigation that concluded he did not, in fact, get paid for it.

daniel-s• 6 years ago

The reason why it exists is important for a democracy. It protects the outgoing administration from political persecution after they leave, promoting peaceful transitions of power and is a safety valve for when the state becomes powerful and goes after people that it shouldn't, which happens all the time.

Unfortunately it is also used by all presidents to pardon their buddies.

mcrae2• 6 years ago

It protects the outgoing administration from political persecution

Aren’t pardons generally given post-conviction? How can it be a tool to protect against an incoming administration if the victim has been convicted under the current one?

Unless you mean that in the future, when the outgoing’s party is back in power they can issue pardons. That doesn’t seem to be consistent with the trend that many pardons are issued on a President’s last day in office (and not his first).

koolba3• 6 years ago

The reason why it exists is important for a democracy. It protects the outgoing administration from political persecution after they leave, promoting peaceful transitions of power and is a safety valve for when the state becomes powerful and goes after people that it shouldn't, which happens all the time.

That's not why it exists. Pardon power exists so the President has a way to declare peace on behalf of the government with an individual. It has nothing to do with transfer of power. It's to ensure that the President has an out to call off the wolves of the rest of the government and put a matter behind us.

Unfortunately it is also used by all presidents to pardon their buddies.

Which is still less corrupt than pardoning your cocaine trafficking, drunk driving brother: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Clinton_Jr.#Conviction_a...

cmsonger• 6 years ago

Unfortunately it is also used by all presidents to pardon their buddies.

I agree, but that's the boolean. There's probably a reasonable float or int description that allows a more nuanced comparison of exactly how much any president did this.

brown9-2• 6 years ago

Yikes, this is not at all why it should exist, and this is basically an argument for corruption/immunity for the sake of comity.

SamBam2• 6 years ago

Unfortunately it is also used by all presidents to pardon their buddies.

I may have missed it: did the Obama Administration pardon a single friend or relative of the Obamas'? Or a single person connected to the administration?

I believe that Obama tried to ensure that the pardon process was beyond reproach. (Some people may disagree with who was pardoned, but the process did not appear to be corrupt in any way.)

antattack3• 6 years ago

Presidential pardon also weakens Judicial branch and seems to promote lawlessness. I read that some of the recent 'insurrectionists' actions were encouraged by the thought that President could pardon their illegal activity.

pantalaimon• 6 years ago

This does not seem to be needed in any other western democracy.

gadders4• 6 years ago

He's pardoned fewer people than all recent presidents except HW Bush:

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/C330/production/...

croon4• 6 years ago

Maybe the targets are more relevant than the number.

3000 minor drug offenses or 5 mob cronies.

mcrae2• 6 years ago

It is not the number of pardons that is unusual (and it’s unsurprising that this administration has done less work than previous ones), but the sense that these pardons are so clearly in service of Trump’s personal agenda rather than true acts of clemency.

Can you find examples of bad pardons from other Presidents? No doubt. But not on this scale.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-07-11/why-presi...

pc86• 6 years ago

Whether an individual pardon is good or bad certainly depends on how you feel about the crime committed by the pardoned, and whether we want to admit it or not, at least a little bit on the party of the President who pardons them. Even if you could objectively measure the damage done by any individual pardon (you can't), the good in aggregate outweighs the bad, especially of any one case that we disagree with but 10,000 equally reasonable and intelligent people may think is great.

mc323• 6 years ago

Trump has been among the stingiest pardoners.

I also have no idea behind the refusal to pardon Assange other than politics. DoJ must have made it clear not to pardon Assange for whatever reason.

CydeWeys• 6 years ago

He's been the stingiest in terms of giving them out for people who deserve them on account of being ill-served by the criminal justice system, but he's been the most liberal in terms of bailing out his co-conspirators and politically connected elite.

shadowgovt• 6 years ago

Trump was never Assange's friend, and Assange was foolish to assume the enemy of his enemy would be his friend.

Given the way Trump operates in general, there's nothing in the long term that benefits him about having a whistleblower running around free, even if that whistleblower did significant political damage to his opponent one time.

throwaway0a5e6• 6 years ago

Here's the list.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-pr...

Just browsing the names and convictions it looks like a pretty decent mix of people genuinely deserving and people who have very powerful people advocating for them. Looks like most of the crimes in the list are drug or fraud related.

I haven't gone down the whole thing but the guy who got LWOP for weed (presumably huge quantities of it) caught my eye.

Chris20482• 6 years ago

Did Levandowski pay Trump?

DougN7• 6 years ago

Is there any proof this pardon was purchased, or is it just assumed? Honest question.

neartheplain• 6 years ago

dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25843040

Emma_Goldman2• 6 years ago

There is a long tradition of thought about mercy. Law has to be rendered at a sufficiently general level in order than it can encompass every relevant case. This, the argument goes, means written law cannot properly deal with context. Many of us realise that, sometimes, the context in which a crime is committed bears upon how just or unjust it is, even if that fact is not accommodated in law.

Anyway, one enduring argument for mercy is that can be exercised on those rare occasions where there is some overwhelming contextual argument for why the general law should be overridden, e.g., the Greek play Antigone is effectively built around just such a case.

Not that this argument has anything to do with Trump's unashamed cronyism and self-aggrandisement. But my point is that mercy isn't just an excuse for base corruption.

schwartzworld• 6 years ago

It's just amazing how that mercy is only extended to corrupt wealthy people. Antigone is a fitting example, as she was the regent's daughter.

Emma_Goldman2• 6 years ago

Note the emphasis when I wrote that mercy isn't just an excuse for corruption, i.e. it is mostly, but not entirely. Recall that at the end of the last administration, Obama pardoned Chelsea Manning. Or that Harding commuted Eugene Deb's conviction for sedition during WW1 in 1921. Neither are, as far as I can see, instances of corruption.

darkerside• 6 years ago

This particular case seems almost like the opposite. Cases where you bring prior knowledge from one place to another are typically nigh unprovable. Most people do bring their priors with them, are rewarded for it, and benefit of the doubt is granted that there wasn't a "theft", simply a person moving jobs.

In the rare case where somebody was actually proven in a criminal court to have stolen trade secrets and taken then directly to a competitor, a pardon is issued by a president who has felt antagonized by the former employer. It seems less like mercy and more like vindictiveness.

throwaway0a5e6• 6 years ago

This is just him giving the bird to tech while doing some key influential people a favor.

Frankly I think he should pardon Snowden and Assange (if he's gonna give people the bird why not extend it to the establishment) and Joe Exotic (because the lulz of doing that would be on brand for him) while he's at it. Unlike Levandowsky, Snowden and (to a lesser extent) Assange are deserving of pardons in much of the public's eyes.

Dirlewanger• 6 years ago

Was really hoping for Snowden. Would have been the perfect FU to Obama/Biden.

mjburgess• 6 years ago

I would say leakers of this kind maybe shouldn't be actively pursued by the justice department outside of the USA. But either (1) pardoning; or (2) failing to pursue within USA; is a tall order.

It licences the principle that intelligence can be leaked without legal consequence "by the conscience" of the leaker.

Is that really how intelligence should be conducted? Most people are idiots; and do not know the ramifications of what they do.

It is perfectly reasonable for something to be both moral and illegal, and remain punishable. Ie., it is Good that these leaks occured, but nevertheless, we require the leakers to pay some cost for it.

If that cost is "in practice" merely exile from the country, that seems a reasonable compromise.

Bodell2• 6 years ago

If our justice system does not represent some bid for moral rightness (as flawed as it may be) then what is the point of justice at all? The leakers crimes is in these two cases were mostly pointing out others much weightier violations of the law. Those others have received no punishment, no cost for their crimes. Also, putting the word “merely” before ‘exiled indefinitely from your home’ is personally baffling to me. Especially since one of these people does not live in the US and “in practice” both their lives either were or still are in jeopardy.

Edit: I do think I understand your overall point though. Actually leaking information should be a very serious decision, and should not be taken lightly.

wyattpeak• 6 years ago

It is perfectly reasonable for something to be both moral and illegal, and remain punishable.

I take extreme exception to the idea that somebody should be punished for an act generally considered moral by the public for the purpose of dissuading others.

If some idiot takes it upon themselves, based on a pardon of Snowden, to reveal something not in the public interest and harmful to the state, let them be punished as a warning to others. Leaks of state secrets have been a reality since the beginning of civilisation, one more isn't going to destroy us.

PeterisP• 6 years ago

At least for me it seems that Snowden and Assange are considered deserving of pardons by the part of public which are anti-Trump and the Trump "core audience" would rather pardoning them as insulting.

throwaway0a5e6• 6 years ago

I think the "Trump core audience" sees Snowden in a positive light. I would venture a guess that the only the people of the "swamp" (i.e. people who's pay stubs have the seal of a TLA at the top) are against Snowden's pardon. Snowden did everything right. He read the room (i.e. looked at what happened to people who used the "proper channels") and leaked more or less the minimum to expose programs that are constitutionally indefensible without some serious mental gymnastics.

Assange is much more controversial, especially now that he won't be extradited and prosecuted, since his crimes are much more political and he wasn't tactful like Snowden, he published everything he got. There's definitely less public support for his pardon but if the goal is to give the middle finger to the establishment this is the better one because it is controversial.

xpe• 6 years ago

Thiel went against the grain and supported Trump. Perhaps this was some payback?

The pardon was backed by several leaders in the technology industry who have supported Trump, including investors Peter Thiel and Blake Masters and entrepreneur Palmer Luckey, according to the White House.

antattack3• 6 years ago

I have yet to see one good historical example or even a hypothetical argument given for presidential pardon to exist. Also, if there really is a separation of power than President should not meddle in Judicial branch affairs.

Skunkleton3• 6 years ago

Hypothetically, a law can be broken in a way where it is moral or necessary to do so, a punishment can be overly severe, or the law itself can be deemed as amoral. For example, should minor drug offenders sit in prison with COVID threatening their lives?

tdy_err2• 6 years ago

No but we do not need pardoning in lieu of legal reform

antattack3• 6 years ago

What is moral is in the eye of the beholder. If we are nation of law we follow the law and update it when necessary through Legislative branch. As to your example, Obama pardoned few minor drug offenders but it was a drop in a bucket, one time deal. People who voted for decriminalization of of Marijuana had much larger impact. Presidential pardon is a power given to POTUS that is not needed for functioning of a democratic society. It's a power royalty used to have and should be just used for pardoning the turkeys.

breck• 6 years ago

I probably support this one. Just like I support pardons for non-violent drug offenders. Copyright and patent laws are stupid in the first place.

tdy_err2• 6 years ago

It’s hard to imagine that Donald Trump, a greedy mogul, pardoned Levandowski because he believes patent law was unjustly enforced

sjg007• 6 years ago

Interesting. What's more interesting is how the market has moved on. There are a bunch of self driving trucking startups with some way further along now.

Trump pardons former Google self-driving car engineer Levandowski

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