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The pardon of Changpeng Zhao, founder of cryptocurrency exchange Binance, drew scrutiny after lobbyists were paid approximately $800,000 before the pardon was granted.
According to Forbes, Zhao is the richest Canadian and the 21st-richest person in the world, with a net worth estimated at $88.0 billion as of October 2025
Literally peanuts. Paying bribes this cheap it's a no brainer. Compared to the median American net worth it's like paying $2.
If there isn’t some law created to stop these quid pro quo pardons then the presidential pardons should be removed.
Jackson called it. Unchecked power and running criminals enterprise out of WH.
GOP is a joke.
Hey look, the shithole banana republic is doing shithole banana republic things again!
It’s time to get rid of pardons.
I never really understood WHY the president got to pardon people if the idea behind america is that nobody is above justice there. I mean i know its a LIE, but like lie better.
There are good reasons, but those reasons only exist in some utopia once in a lifetime bullshit crap, like pardoning draft dodgers for Vietnam.
Apart from that it seems its always been used for absolute bullshit
There are good reasons
So says everyone, but WHAT ARE those reasons?
I didn’t even know that Carter did that. Fucking good. Drafting people into such an overtly bullshit war was straight up evil.
The purpose is, ostensibly, to prevent some form of miscarriage of justice or an over harsh sentencing. Think the guy who they tried to charge with a felony for harmlessly throwing a sandwich at a federal officer, if they had managed to convict instead of failing to even get an indictment. Or it could also be used to retroactively forgive people convicted of breaking a law that has since been overturned. Like if they decriminalize weed possession, those already convicted while the law was in place don't automatically get their sentences overturned.
But it is a power that should be rarely needed, judiciously applied, and have sensible guardrails on it. But the founders were confident that the people wouldnt elect self centered autocrats, that congress and the courts wouldn't be filled with sycophants, opportunists, and cowards, and that the public wouldn't stand for blatant corrupt uses of presidential powers. But here we are.
Frankly, if we can't stop blatantly corrupt abuse of the pardon powers or even have basic limitations on it (like no self pardons) then that power should be amended out of the constitution.
Many of the founders of the USA were themselves self centred autocrats so I’m not entirely certain that the system isn’t working exactly as intended.
Help me understand why presidential pardons exist?
More or less the same reason jury nullification exists, just concentrated on executive leadership. The problem isn't that it exists, the problem is the bribery and ethical issues. Theoretically, if the executive is abusing the power, the legislature is supposed to remove them, but since we no longer operate in a system where that will happen... Here we are.
Jury nullification doesn't exist by intentional design.
Its simply a function of not being able to prosecute jurors for their decisions.
I guess its similar to pardons in that the system is based on the assumption that no one would abuse these caveats.
The Taco Crime Family.
Sounds more like a Christmas special for oligarchs ... that's a pretty cheap price for a billionaire.