Counter-Currents
718 words 
I originally addressed Biden’s pre-emptive pardons a few months ago. Those pardons are back in the news cycle because it has been revealed that they were signed via an autopen machine, and because of that, Trump wants to void them.
This would not normally be an issue because autopen, along with similar methods like Docusign or copying and pasting signatures from PDFs into documents, are common in law, politics, and business. However, Biden was clearly out of his mind towards the end of his illegitimate presidency, so we don’t know if he even knew about the pardons, let alone agreed with them.
The conservative excitement over this reminds me of “sovereign citizens” obnoxiously demanding that judges produce proof that they truly took an oath of office. Thankfully, this sort of legalism is dying out, but it can’t die fast enough for my taste.
A bolder, more logical, and more effective stance would be that nothing Biden did over the last four years was legitimate because he stole the 2020 election. This cuts through the Gordian knot of procedural nit picking, straight to substance. It’s what a serious party that regained power after a stolen election would do in a serious country. But Republicans are not serious men.
Furthermore, attacking Biden’s presidential pardons on any grounds risks undermining the power of presidential pardons as a whole. This is bad because we want to preserve the near absolute power of presidential pardons to wield as a weapon ourselves.
This is not the conservacuck imagining if the roles were reversed. Quite the contrary. As I mentioned in my previous article, a side effect of a pardon is that it strips away the otherwise near absolute right not to testify under the Fifth Amendment. The crimes which Biden’s pardonees are suspected of are not solo crimes like purse snatching. They are vast conspiracies involving dozens, possibly hundreds, of people—especially in the case of Covid, January 6, and the stolen election. This would include many key enemies of the MAGA regime. That the pardons were issued at all is prima facie evidence of a vast conspiracy. Too bad they couldn’t cover all of the co-conspirators without wrecking their optics.
Whoever issued the pardons took a pathetic half measure in the desperate hope that Trump would be even more pathetic in countering it. But if Trump chooses to be aggressive, they will have taken the worst course of action possible.
Thus, Trump should vigorously pursue my original recommendation of extensive Congressional hearings followed by prosecutions. We have the material to launch an inquisition so vast that it will make J6 look like traffic court.
Some people will object because so many villains will appear to have escaped justice, but hundreds of their co-conspirators will face accountability. This is important because it will both delegitimize the Democrats and deter them launching another color revolution. Besides, the process is the punishment. After being grilled before Congress in a livestreamed struggle session and indicting dozens of co-conspirators, will they truly escape justice? They will not sleep easy for the rest of their lives.
A lot of the excitement about annulling Biden’s pardons is motivated by how it would “trigger the libs.” It certainly would trigger the libs, but crafting strategy wholly around what triggers the libs is a purely negative vision, as opposed to an affirmative vision. It reveals how Trump and MAGA are moving in a nihilistic direction. As explained by Endeavor on X, “They don’t seem motivated by coherent political goals, but simply a desire to evoke anger in the left.”
It is strange indeed when those of us with skull masks neatly folded in our sport coat pockets are less nihilistic and more rational than the ruling party.
Trump has less than four—maybe less than two— years’ time in which to deal with threats to America’s very existence. How about spending political capital on impeaching, or even jailing subversive judges, reigniting the stalled mass deportations, and fighting the Great Replacement on both sides of the Atlantic? All these are more important than lib triggering and settling personal scores.
Aggressively prosecuting the Left for a conspiracy against rights would be a hundred times more effective than trying to void Biden’s pardons.
Fussing over a signature on a piece of paper is fiddling while America burns.
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16 comments
As much as I want to say “yes” to the question of whether Trump should undo Biden’s BS pardons, the answer is “no” he should not. Trump needs to leave the past in the past and chart a new course for America just like he’s been doing without weaponizing his power against those who did that to him.
The authors point aside, is it legal to use an auto pen to sign something as weighty as an executive order or making a bill become law?
Autopen is not recognized on certain legal documents such as wills, real estate transactions, and some court orders.
While we’re at it, let’s ban public servants from using teleprompters and delivering speeches that weren’t at least 75% written by themselves. MPLFAG! Make Politics Less Fake And Gay!
Al, I’m with you. Maybe that Presidential autopen is good for signing the certificates our kids receive for making straight As, completing the Presidential Physical Fitness program, or for White House 100th birthday greetings, or written regrets that POTUS is unable to attend your daughter’s wedding. That said, robots/machines/AI should not be signing Presidential pardons.
Obama was the first one to sign a bill by autopen. As I recall, he couldn’t sign it in person because he was travelling at the time. There was some minor controversy at the time, but it’s caught on since then.
As much as I’d love to see Liz Cheney in an orange jumpsuit it’s not going to happen.
Yeah, agree. It’s sort of like birtherism, making politics about personal issues and technicalities.
Much as I eschew mindless legalism, the issue of the autopen is an important one.
Article II says plainly and unmistakably: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”
Executive power, including the pardon power, is vested in the President, not in a machine or in a subordinate. A subordinate has NO executive power to issue pardons or anything else. These pardons, issued by a subordinate, are invalid as a matter of law.
What to do? Each case needs to be taken individually. The pardons of important people (Liz Cheney, etc., ) might be well worth litigating.
“This [undermining presidential pardons] is bad because we want to preserve the near absolute power of presidential pardons to wield as a weapon ourselves.”
I like the way you think, David.
No, Republicans are not serious men, but they’d better get that way; every time I see footage of ICE deporting someone, I think to myself: conservatives, you’d better stay the course and get comfortable with being at odds with these people and their enablers, because the left have long memories and the will to power, in spades; if you let down your guard, show them you have virtually no will to power of your own, you’re going to be even more hunted than you already are. In other words, there’s no turning back, only going forward, and forward with ferocity and mercilessness, toward securing what we consider to be an acceptable place for, and way of, life.
“Besides, the process is the punishment…. They will not sleep easy for the rest of their lives.”
That’s right. This is the kind of thing that has stunted many a man of the right’s resolve to do anything more than just complain in anonymity: fear of being drug before the courts and having his life turned into a shambles, convicted or not, but especially convicted. Judicial “terrorism” works; it might as well work for us.
Just like how governments used to issue letters of mark to pirates, Trump could create some kind of licence for any citizen who finds these traitors to kill them without fear of prosecution, like a preemptive pardon for anyone who takes out Fauci. The Dems threatened that Biden might do that against Trump, so there will be lots of papers written by Dem lawyers arguing that its totally legal.
It would be most delightful if Fauci were brought before an inquiry, singing like a canary and ratting out all his buddies. Unfortunately, ’tis but a dream. The Republicans aren’t smart enough to make this happen. Furthermore, Fauci would clam up just as before. He knows very well what will happen to him if he squeals.
When are you people going to learn that Trump doesn’t care about America and never did?
We already have. The real irony is if trump openly showed anger at jews and coloreds they might come to respect him not being a pussified houseboy they can walk all over. School bullies don’t like the kid who unquestioningly does their homework to not get harassed or worse so why would israelis like him??
This site has always had an intellectual edge compared to others of the same ilk. It’s always aiming for a higher level. But lately I’m starting to see articles peppered with idiot MAGA election conspiracy crap, which is starting to make this place look stupid and trashy.
What’s next in the “vast conspiracy” mentions in upcoming articles — Pizzagate? Apollo moon landings? Sasquatch? Reptilians? All this stuff, as well as the 2020 conspiracy theories, is for feebleminded people who spend their whole day forwarding memes on Facebook, with Fox News playing at top volume in the background. Get this garbage OUT OF HERE, please.
Attempts at concern trolling and gatekeeping are crushed mercilessly. You only get one warning. This is it.
I worked an Autopen for a year or so, when in college I had a term-time job as assistant to the personal secretary to the new American Ambassador to (wait for it) the Court of St James’s. We had a lot of routine correspondence to answer, including a lot of requests to be considered for the next chargé d’affaires. And I gave that Autopen, and a box or two of green Flair® felt-tips (green Flairs being the standard Autopen instrument) a good working-over. Except, after a little while, my hand was every bit as good as the Autopen, and much quicker, so I just signed the damned things myself. Green Flair, of course.
Yes of course the Biden Autopen signatures are phonies and should be thrown out. Autopen is for bread-and-butter thank-you notes, not for Presidential pardons.
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