Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

631–640 of 1001 posts

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#631

Post by preommr »

libertine wrote: post #194
WheatMillington wrote: post #158

It's incredible that American corruption can happen out in the open like this. And this isn't a uniquely Trump phenomena. Political pardons are an amazing thing, and they have been used by presidents for a long time now with extremely little scrutiny and no possibility for repercussions. The executive being able to overrule the judiciary is an absolutely jaw-dropping American institution. So much for checks and balan…

It's like there's a new social contract that states: it's not corruption if it's done in the open.

It's genuinely just this.

The rise of more grass-roots news sources (podcasts, memes, social media) also leads to tons of conspiracy theories, and mistrust that builds this idea of corruption being ubiquitous, just not out in the open. And yes, that happens, but this atmosphere magnifies it 10x.

So when someone like Trump does it out in the open, people are more likely to excuse it because "everybody is already doing it, at least this is out in the open".

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#632

Post by yalogin »

If one leaves all integrity and morals the president of the richest country in the world can really amass a ton of wealth. I actually suspect that the shares the “US” government s getting from intel and other companies actually goes to trump somehow. Everything is up for sale with this administration. Just sad, the high moral ground the country occupied is just wiped out and it’s now just like any other corrupt Asian country

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#633

Post by ugh123 »

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #546
munk-a wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trump is miles ahead of other administrations in abusing it but as far back as my political awareness reaches (the Clinton admin) there have been clear awful examples like Marc Rich[1]. I certainly have a political lean but there are some really indefensible pardons on each side. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Rich

Did you miss all the Biden pardons, including unprecedented pardons for crimes they may commit?

Are you equating Trump's pardons and commutations to Bidens? For review, Biden's were largely for non-violent drug offenders and preemptive pardons for people like Anthony Fauci and federal employees prosecuting Jan 6 defendants and the like. Save for his pardon of his son Hunter (who's own prosecution was littered with politics), Biden's were largely pedestrian.

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#634

Post by beej71 »

kapone wrote: post #362
bena wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, because he was guarding them against the current administration abusing the Justice Department to go after them. Same reason he pardoned Fauci and others. And from what we've seen, he was right to do so. Although, they've been angling to declare his pardons void so they can go after whoever they wish.

> Yeah, because he was guarding them against the current administration abusing the Justice Department to go after them Ha ha. They (democrats overall) need to look inwards for that. > Same reason he pardoned Fauci and others. Fauci screwed up our country so bad, it aint even funny. The fact that he needed a PRE-EMPTIVE (i.e. he wasn't even accused of anything at the time) pardon says it all. And the fact that Biden…

> However, name any major policy initiative that he's undertaken that is bad for the "country". As a whole.

Any? His energy policy.

I have plenty more.

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#635

Post by LexiMax »

ajross wrote: post #584
kbd wrote: post #233

The pardon power has been so abused these past few administrations that it's clear there should be constitutional changes in the pardon power, either congressional review, or strip it altogether.

> these past few administrations I remain amazed at how, again and again, no matter how specific and unique an abuse by the Trump administration is, it is always, invariably, Really Joe Biden's Fault. Like, the frame has been adopted by the MAGA base, but also the cranky left. The media does it too. Here on HN bothsidesism is a shibboleth that denotes "I'm a Serious Commenter and not a Partisan Hack". But it leads to…

> Here on HN bothsidesism is a shibboleth that denotes "I'm a Serious Commenter and not a Partisan Hack".

HN users don't necessarily do that because they want to. They might do it as a pre-emptive defense mechanism against the brigades of de-facto censors that roam the site.

Moderation via populism is an anti-feature on its face, but Hacker News has the worst possible version of that sort of feature by making downvoted/flagged comments completely hidden unless you are logged in and showdead.

It's a pretty horrendous system if you're interested in good faith and honest debate.

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#636

Post by [deleted] »

annexrichmond wrote: post #615
martythemaniak wrote: post #257

COLLINS: Today you pardoned the founded of Binance. Can you explain why you did that? TRUMP: Which one was that? COLLINS: The founder of Binance TRUMP: I believe we're talking about the same person, because I do pardon a lot of people. I don't know. He was recommended by a lot of people. https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3m3v6mnpkb52i

I agree this isn't a very satisfying answer, but realistically how else do you expect Presidential pardons to go? Trump has pardoned over 1000 people and Joe Biden has pardoned over 4000. Do we expect them to know the intricate details of every single case? And I mean, wasn't the last Administration effectively Autopen? Yes, the President receives recommendations and tries to make the best judgement on those. What wo…

[deleted]

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#637

Post by anigbrowl »

dmitrygr wrote: post #542

Pardon count per president: President Count -------------------------------- Joe Biden ~8,064 | Donald Trump ~237 | Barack Obama ~1,927 | George W. Bush ~200 | Bill Clinton ~459 | George H.W. Bush ~77 |

Don't come here and lie. You almost doubled the number for Joe Biden (the vast majority of which were pardons for simple possession of marijuana) while omitting the extremely well-known fact that Trump pardoned ~1500 people who were convicted for offenses committed on January 6, thus deflating his total by >80%.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_or_gra...

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#638

Post by lapcat »

Arainach wrote: post #617
lapcat wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The pardon power has been so abused these past few administrations Past few? How about Ford pardoning Nixon? Or George H.W. Bush pardoning a bunch of Iran-Contra conspirators, thus covering his own ass?

Both of those were very bad, but nothing compared to the raw corruption in Trump's pardons.

The word "nothing" is completely inappropriate in describing Watergate and Iran-Contra, among the worst political scandals in American history, both involving gross abuse of executive power.

I certainly don't see how the pardon of Changpeng Zhao is worse than the pardon of President Richard Nixon or Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. Crimes committed in office by the highest officials in the US government are a whole different level than crimes committed by some corporate CEO.

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#639

Post by jonathrg »

dmix wrote: post #585
eqvinox wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The U.S. is running an outdated installation of democracy. The French approach of just rebooting and reinstalling the entire thing seems like a good idea at this point. Except the populace is already badly split into warring camps.

> The French approach of just rebooting and reinstalling the entire thing seems like a good idea at this point. Do you mean the French Revolution? If you actually read the history on that (even basic stuff beyond the "Reign of Terror") I don't think any person would want to experience that for their country. It had tons of indiscriminate violence and took a decade of chaos before they sorted out into a real governmen…

Yeah that's pretty much what happened last time I tried to reinstall my distro

Re: Trump pardons convicted Binance founder

#640

Post by I-M-S »

YouAreWRONGtoo wrote: post #595
FridayoLeary wrote: post #588

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard the intention was that sometimes it's against the public good to prosecute some people even though they have comitted crimes. Good examples of it being used as intended was pardoning the perpetrators of the whiskey rebellion, the confederate army, vietnam draft dodgers and more controversially, Nixon. I guess it's also intended in cases where obvious miscarriages of justice have been committed. It made sense…

[flagged]

The US Constitution wasn't written with the wellbeing of random ordinary citizens in mind. You could argue it was the exact opposite in fact.
Post reply on HN