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Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov

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Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#541

Post by staunch »

lastofthemojito wrote: post #497
fleshdaddy wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that? Do you not believe in whistle blower protections or do you think that Snowden lied?

Snowden overdid it. He found illegal behavior in a spy agency, but he also exposed legitimate activity. Sure, NSA was spying on Angela Merkel and other allies. You might agree with Henry Stimson, that "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail", but the reality is that countries spy on one another. Snowden might deserve whistleblower protection for some of his revelations, but not all of them.

The blame for what he was forced to do belongs with the officials that were violating the constitution. They should be exiled for failing to uphold their oaths. Instead, Snowden is in exile.

Snowden was just the first honorable American to come across the information and he did his best to expose it safely, by giving it to journalists to release, after consulting with the government.

We can't expect whistle blowers to do a perfect job. There will always be some mistakes. As long as they act in good faith and reasonably, they should be protected.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#542

Post by Larrikin »

alsetmusic wrote: post #517
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people on the right and the left are perhaps skipping over just how much McConnell was manipulating the admin not just over the last four years, but esp since Jan 6th. I am fairly confident that even if Trump had specifically wanted to pardon Assange or Snowden he could not have. Edit: lol, this will have been the most successful lie by the media and GOP... getting people to believe the GOP and Trump were fri…

What evidence is there of McConnel having access to Trump after Jan 6? I have the impression that their relationship cooled. McConnel stated that Tump “provoked” the mob on the senate floor. https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/19/politics/mitch-mcconnell-riot...

Mcconnell does not leak, those quotes coming out in public were pressure campaigns. It's unknown obviously what was directly said to him.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#543

Post by jonp888 »

ggcdn wrote: post #448
travisjungroth wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The downside to this is people spend decades being ruled by people they didn’t have a chance to vote against.

But the Supreme Court doesn’t make the rules, it just interprets them. The rules are made by elected representatives.

They might not be directly elected, but they are political. If they weren't political we wouldn't divide them into liberal and conserative jusices. It seems like everyone already knows how they would 'interpret' any case involving abortion.

This doesn't seem to be such a problem in other countries. I don't really understand if that's because the judges are purposely appointed to be as partisan as possible, or whether the 'rules' are so badly written that they can be interpreted any way you like.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#544

Post by ardy42 »

twox2 wrote: post #482
dgellow wrote: post #363

No Assange, no Snowden. What a fool I am, I seriously envisaged that could happen... Instead it’s just more and more corruption.

Why WOULD Trump pardon assange or snowden?

> Why WOULD Trump pardon assange or snowden?

Because he has a grudge against the US intelligence community, so would enjoy using his power to piss them off:

https://www.lawfareblog.com/why-flynn-pardon-matters:

> The “own the intelligence community” pardons—pardons designed to offend and punish the intelligence agencies for their professionalism over the past several years and the inconveniences that professionalism has caused to Trump. A number of right-wing and civil liberties figures have suggested pardons for Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, though Axios suggests that Snowden will not get a pardon today. Such actions may have a certain appeal for a president—who, like both Assange and Snowden—has a tolerant attitude toward Russian intelligence activity that benefits him and who does not care overmuch about revealing American intelligence activity to adversary actors. There has also been talk of late about clemency for Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the “Silk Road” dark web market—who is serving a life sentence in connection with a murder-for-hire scheme. This would arguably be more of a “own law enforcement” clemency, but the concept is the same.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#545

Post by SV_BubbleTime »

alsetmusic wrote: post #517
SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people on the right and the left are perhaps skipping over just how much McConnell was manipulating the admin not just over the last four years, but esp since Jan 6th. I am fairly confident that even if Trump had specifically wanted to pardon Assange or Snowden he could not have. Edit: lol, this will have been the most successful lie by the media and GOP... getting people to believe the GOP and Trump were fri…

What evidence is there of McConnel having access to Trump after Jan 6? I have the impression that their relationship cooled. McConnel stated that Tump “provoked” the mob on the senate floor. https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/19/politics/mitch-mcconnell-riot...

Well for one; McConnell could have gone through with an impeachment vote had Trump started to burn things down on his way out the door.

Do you think the House pushed through breakneck-speed impeachment vote, breaking almost all of the rules about witnesses, testimony, procedure all for fun? No, that was calculated to keep Trump in line I think.

Removing all platforms from him, looming impeachment or other threats, publicly denouncing him after four years of pretending to be MAGA...

Now, I don’t have a CNN article to make my case. So maybe you are right.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#546

Post by fny »

SV_BubbleTime wrote: post #498
CyberRabbi wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He pardoned a literal spy who was convicted of espionage of state secrets but he did not pardon Assange. Incredible.

I think people on the right and the left are perhaps skipping over just how much McConnell was manipulating the admin not just over the last four years, but esp since Jan 6th. I am fairly confident that even if Trump had specifically wanted to pardon Assange or Snowden he could not have. Edit: lol, this will have been the most successful lie by the media and GOP... getting people to believe the GOP and Trump were fri…

What you're saying here is contradictory. Sure the GOP hates Trump, and Trump also hates the GOP. And that's exactly why Trump didn't give a damn to GOP criticism of his pardons.

McConnell has no influence. That's why Stone, Kushner, and Bannon are on the list among others.

Trump decided not to pardon Snowden and Assange. Full stop.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#547

Post by boringg »

Paid a lot of money for that pardon I reckon even though he was clearly a criminal. The trump admin is such a sham. So glad that they are out of power - hopefully forever for the sake of the Us.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#548

Post by adolph »

lastofthemojito wrote: post #497
fleshdaddy wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is that? Do you not believe in whistle blower protections or do you think that Snowden lied?

Snowden overdid it. He found illegal behavior in a spy agency, but he also exposed legitimate activity. Sure, NSA was spying on Angela Merkel and other allies. You might agree with Henry Stimson, that "Gentlemen do not read each other's mail", but the reality is that countries spy on one another. Snowden might deserve whistleblower protection for some of his revelations, but not all of them.

Sir William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, 9th ed., book 4, chapter 27, p. 358 (1783, reprinted 1978), says, “For the law holds, that it is better that ten guilty persons escape, than that one innocent suffer.”

Likewise could it not be said that it is better that many legitimate programs go exposed to expose the blatantly lawless mass surveillance of USA Persons?

https://www.bartleby.com/73/953.html

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#549

Post by anonfornoreason »

erostrate wrote: post #330
WalterBright wrote: post #111

It's important to note the reason the President has the power to pardon anyone for any reason is it's one of the checks and balances, the Constitution is full of them. It's meant as a check to blunt overzealous prosecutions. Note that the President does not have the corresponding power to convict anyone. An interesting set of pardons was when Andrew Johnson pardoned all the rebels in the Confederacy, including Jeffer…

Thanks for highlighting that, it's important to bear in mind Chesterton's fence. But it's also important to consider whether this particular feature is working as intended. For what it's worth I don't care much about Lewandowski's pardon and I suspect a large part of the outrage here is because his compensation was public and he is a tech worker. There are other more salient recent examples suggesting the pardon syst…

Edited: oops sorry, I got it backwards myself.

Original incorrect statement: Levandowski not lewandowski. Different people different offenses.

Re: Anthony Levandowski Pardoned

#550

Post by dagw »

deeeeplearning wrote: post #538
Bakary wrote: post #382

I have to say there is quite a lot to learn from Levandowski.[0] I am not a fan of corruption but it's undeniable that he played whatever cards he had in life and played them hard. He'll probably be a shadowy billionaire quite soon. One quote stood out to me at the very end of the article: “The only thing that matters is the future,” he told me after the civil trial was settled. “I don’t even know why we study histor…

>I am not a fan of corruption but it's undeniable that he played whatever cards he had in life and played them hard. His parents were a Diplomat and a Businessman and he graduated with 2 engineering degrees from Berkeley. So we should be lauding him for winning a game of poker when he was dealt a Full House? Lol

To stick to with the poker analogy, the measure success is not if you win the hand when you flop a full house, but how big a pot you walk away with. Anybody can walk away with the initial stakes in that situation, the real skill is to use that hand to walk away with all the money at the table.

Lots of people start life with a lot more than he was given and walk away with a lot less.

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