Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Pardon me, Josh, before we get down. Seriously,
Speaker 1: I just had a flashback. I used to do the
Speaker 1: show with Chris Pilette. Anybody who listens to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: If you don't, you should will know that he is
Speaker 1: among the punniest people on the planet. Are you invoking
Speaker 1: Pillette and my name in the same sentence? Wow? You
Speaker 1: you shoot puns like that at me? You get the
Speaker 1: you get the big guns. Alright, all right, pardon me
Speaker 1: then before we get to this business, right, I just
Speaker 1: want to say big welcome to a certain individual. All right, Um,
Speaker 1: A little girl named um Sophia Milan Harris was born
Speaker 1: today July h M. She's the daughter of my future
Speaker 1: brother and sister in law, Josh Harris and Mika Harris.
Speaker 1: People are probably like, Josh had a baby and didn't
Speaker 1: even tell us, right, yeah, the other Josh you me
Speaker 1: and her sister, both with Josh's so is that adorable?
Speaker 1: And I met both of them right at your birthday party? Sure, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: the one I was on a horse. That's awesome. So
Speaker 1: welcome to the world, Sophia Milan, who's going to be
Speaker 1: called Mila from now on. So thank you very much,
Speaker 1: Chuck for indulging. Sure, and since you brought it up,
Speaker 1: I should point out that at Josh's birthday party there
Speaker 1: were a pony, horse, bunnies, and goats. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: like the farm was brought in for the party and
Speaker 1: there weren't enough kids there to justify it, so we
Speaker 1: all know what really was going on. Yeah, you mean
Speaker 1: was like, you're so spoiled, I'm going to get you
Speaker 1: a pony, and she got me a pony. Of course,
Speaker 1: Emily spent like half the party in the goat create
Speaker 1: so well, they were pretty cute goats. One looked like
Speaker 1: pure Satanic evil, but the other one was just beyond adorable,
Speaker 1: little pigmy goat because it was three months old, so
Speaker 1: it was really little and cute. Yes, so baby goats,
Speaker 1: human babies. So far, it's been like a minute and
Speaker 1: a half and we're already like the cute factors through
Speaker 1: the roof man well, we can take care of that.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about pretty much the exact opposite of that,
Speaker 1: shall we, Okay, buddy, I was um disheartened to hear
Speaker 1: that July ten came and went and not a lot
Speaker 1: of people marked it. But this day was the day
Speaker 1: that Um Barack Obama, Mr Change, the president went past
Speaker 1: John Adams presidency or administration neglect of clemency requests. So
Speaker 1: he waited longer than the other president. It is very interesting. Um,
Speaker 1: John Adams went five hundred and thirty six days, and um,
Speaker 1: I should say, ly tenth is the day that Obama
Speaker 1: tied him. You mean John Adams, the second uh, the
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, the first vice president in the United States. Yes,
Speaker 1: that that same John Adams. Yeah. Um, So anyway, it's
Speaker 1: it's been several days since then. There's been no action
Speaker 1: taken on any um requests for pardons from Obama, and
Speaker 1: a lot of people are like, that's kind of weird. Um,
Speaker 1: he's in third place right now to Clinton, M George W. Bush.
Speaker 1: He's busy, Yeah, but as you'll find out, he really
Speaker 1: doesn't have to do too terribly much. And the other
Speaker 1: thing is what's what's odd is he's not doing anything.
Speaker 1: He's not saying. They're just denying. I'm denying of denying him, right,
Speaker 1: he's not doing anything with he He inherited a couple
Speaker 1: of thousand requests for clemency um, and he I had
Speaker 1: I think have had a few thousand more come up, um,
Speaker 1: and he hasn't taken any action on any of them.
Speaker 1: It's really puzzling, and it's not very talked about news story.
Speaker 1: But I I I don't have a good answer why
Speaker 1: I haven't been able to find one. I've looked, I
Speaker 1: mean I looked. Well, usually don't hear about clemency much
Speaker 1: till the last part of the president's final term. Not
Speaker 1: necessarily true. And I should say, well, that's when you
Speaker 1: lest I should say, that's when you really hear about it,
Speaker 1: because that's when they come flying in. Yeah, and they
Speaker 1: come hard and fast, and the real dirty ones come
Speaker 1: up around that, you know. Um, I should say that
Speaker 1: Obama has pardoned two individuals. There are two turkeys. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that he pardoned last Thanksgiving. Um. And seriously, those are
Speaker 1: the only pardons that he's given so far. Who started that?
Speaker 1: Do you have that info? We don't really know. No
Speaker 1: one knows. They think it was a lot of people
Speaker 1: say it was Lincoln, but people have turned up that
Speaker 1: it was actually Harry Truman. But Truman came up with
Speaker 1: the idea. Possibly. I think Lincoln made a joke about it.
Speaker 1: Truman came up with the idea, and I think John F.
Speaker 1: Kennedy was the first to actually ever follow through with interesting,
Speaker 1: that's what I've heard. And I think we talked about
Speaker 1: our Thanksgiving podcast, but I can't remember. So Lincoln made
Speaker 1: a joke about it as he hatcheted off the head
Speaker 1: of a turkey. Yeah, he said he was gonna pardon
Speaker 1: Tad's turkey because mom's so crazy these days. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: gotta do something for the kid. So then he cut
Speaker 1: off the head and said, l O L just kidding, right,
Speaker 1: all right, so let's get down to this show. We
Speaker 1: presidential pardons. And you wrote this and this was an
Speaker 1: awesome article, dude, Thank you. Well. It was one of
Speaker 1: those interesting ones, like the topics just interesting, you know,
Speaker 1: because I mean, you think about it, Chuck. We have
Speaker 1: a government of that consists of checks and balances, right,
Speaker 1: so I mean, well, the way it's set up, you know,
Speaker 1: the the Senate has has final approval on the people
Speaker 1: the president tries to appoint to the Supreme Court. That's
Speaker 1: a check. Um. The Senate can come up with Bill's laws,
Speaker 1: but the President has veto power over him and UM
Speaker 1: with the Supreme Court, you can impeach a Supreme Court. This.
Speaker 1: Did you know that? I did not, um, although it
Speaker 1: was in the article, So I guess I knew it
Speaker 1: at one point in time when I was reminded of it.
Speaker 1: So there's always checks and balances, Um, except the presidential pardon.
Speaker 1: It exists in this weird vacuum side of everything else,
Speaker 1: totally unchecked. You can't do anything about it. Yeah, And I,
Speaker 1: like you pointed out in the article that Congress spends
Speaker 1: a lot of time when all the pardons come flying
Speaker 1: in hard and fast towards the end, just kind of
Speaker 1: like I can't do anything. But I noted that the
Speaker 1: same congressman they want that pardon too, for when they're
Speaker 1: in trouble. You know, there's a lot of disingenuous electioneering
Speaker 1: or politic politicizing, I guess with pardoning. But originally that's
Speaker 1: not what it was intentionally created for. Uh. It has
Speaker 1: become a political tool, right, and as as a result,
Speaker 1: it's really kind of generated this uh, this ire in
Speaker 1: public perception. Um. Pretty famously, Gerald Ford took a hit
Speaker 1: in the public sector, right, Yeah, he pardoned Nixon. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was not a very popular move. No, um, and
Speaker 1: that was kind of sweeping because he pardoned Nixon before
Speaker 1: any charges were ever formally filed, which is no, no
Speaker 1: technically with pardons, but weird and hinky. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: he kind of you know, a lot of people thought
Speaker 1: Ford was a dummy president, not not a smart guy.
Speaker 1: Maybe football injury and they said on dating confused. Um,
Speaker 1: But I remember when he died learning that a lot
Speaker 1: of people considered him something of a hero because he
Speaker 1: fell on his sword. He through he gave up the
Speaker 1: presidency to heal the country and just get the Nixon
Speaker 1: era over with by pardnering the guy right and just
Speaker 1: doing it himself, taking the full ire of the American
Speaker 1: public just said forget it, I'm out of here. Right.
Speaker 1: Another big one was Scooter Libby. Right. Yeah. Every president has,
Speaker 1: you know, a slew of pardons, and every president has
Speaker 1: some shady ones where they kind of get their buddies
Speaker 1: out of trouble because when big money's involved in politics,
Speaker 1: there's usually some malfeasants going on. So Scooter Libby was
Speaker 1: pardoned by Bush. Yeah, he was j right right, and
Speaker 1: he was a um well, he was convicted of obstructing
Speaker 1: justice perjury lying to federal investigators. Yeah, exactly, except he
Speaker 1: got really thrown under the bus. But it was for
Speaker 1: the whole Valerie Plane thing, the CIA outing right right,
Speaker 1: supposedly allegedly in retaliation for Plane's husband coming up with
Speaker 1: analysis that saying like Iraq does not have weapons of
Speaker 1: mass instruction, good times. Clinton was also under fire, of course,
Speaker 1: for Mark Rich. Yeah not Mark Rick. Mark, No not,
Speaker 1: you can't. You can't pin anything on Mark Rick. That
Speaker 1: guy's so squeaky clean. Yeah. Mark Rich was the tax
Speaker 1: famous tax evader whose wife x wife left a large
Speaker 1: sum of money to the Clinton Library. And so Bill said, yeah, pardon.
Speaker 1: I was hoping you're going to do that. But one
Speaker 1: thing I thought was interesting was that it was a
Speaker 1: conditional pardon, which we'll talk about. You noticed that as well, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because he agreed basically he went to Switzerland to I
Speaker 1: guess of aid charges initially. Yeah, he pled the country, yeah,
Speaker 1: like Polansky style. And Clinton said, I'll pardon you if
Speaker 1: you agree not to defend yourself against the civil suits
Speaker 1: brought by the United States government. And so he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's fine, Sure I'll do that. But they were
Speaker 1: pretty substantial. It wasn't just text evasion. I uncovered this
Speaker 1: when I was researching for this podcast. The guy was
Speaker 1: also um indicted for selling or making oil deals with
Speaker 1: Iran during the Iran hostage crisis, and there was a
Speaker 1: full on embargo. Yeah that's light treason, right, Well, that's
Speaker 1: that's the funny thing though, on that fun But he said, sure,
Speaker 1: go ahead and pardon me, and I'll agree not to
Speaker 1: defend myself when I come back to the US. And
Speaker 1: you know, he never came back. Yeah, he's stayed in Switzerland.
Speaker 1: He's like, thanks for the pardon. It's kind of nice here.
Speaker 1: So I think when there's a couple of reasons, the
Speaker 1: Mark Rich case stands out. The Mark Rich pardon stands
Speaker 1: out so much as it seems so it's it's just
Speaker 1: the worst kind of politics when some kind of elitist politician,
Speaker 1: um pardons one of his or her own Yeah, well
Speaker 1: so far one of his own, right, um. And then
Speaker 1: also there were questions about whether Mark Rich bought that pardon,
Speaker 1: whether that that endowment to the Clinton Library was in
Speaker 1: exchange for a pardon. Right, I bought a lot of books.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you know. The other interesting thing. You know
Speaker 1: who was lead counsel for Rich William William Kunsler for
Speaker 1: fifteen years. Scooter Libby. Oh wow, he was his lawyer.
Speaker 1: And he defended him and said, oh, he didn't evade
Speaker 1: any taxes. And Clinton used Scooter Libby and said, we
Speaker 1: have a hardcore Republican lawyer that's defending this guy saying
Speaker 1: that he didn't do it. So then it's just funny
Speaker 1: how inbred it all this. I think it's funny that
Speaker 1: people still differentiate between Democrats and Republicans. Yeah, that's a laugh. Um. Also,
Speaker 1: what lastly, this Mark Rich case red hot. It came
Speaker 1: back when Obama was trying to get um Eric Holder
Speaker 1: appointed as his attorney general. Yeah, trying to get him
Speaker 1: past the Senate. That was the big contentious issue. How
Speaker 1: did you sign off on the Mark Rich pardon? It
Speaker 1: was like arguably the worst pardon ever in the history
Speaker 1: of presidents um and he almost didn't get nominated. I
Speaker 1: remember they stretched it out for weeks. Yeah. So anyway,
Speaker 1: let's talk about this and then when we we'll go
Speaker 1: back and talk about some more some more famous and
Speaker 1: not so famous but interesting pardons. That sounds good, Josh,
Speaker 1: Thanks chuckers Man. We are doing this on the fly
Speaker 1: with the record button on what we usually go and
Speaker 1: then talk about it and then edit that part out right. So, Chuck,
Speaker 1: what does a pardon do? Why would Mark Rich even
Speaker 1: be interested in having a pardon like this? Why would
Speaker 1: somebody who's been convicted of a crime, sentenced to prison,
Speaker 1: serve their time, and been out for several years be
Speaker 1: interested in in getting a pardon? What's the point? Well,
Speaker 1: first I would say, what are you kidding? But we'll
Speaker 1: spell it out for you. A pardon, Uh. The main
Speaker 1: thing it does is it gets you out of prison,
Speaker 1: which is awesome. But the really awesome thing that it
Speaker 1: does beyond that is it restores your civil rights as
Speaker 1: a as a you know, free non uh federally incarcerated
Speaker 1: individual or somebody who hasn't being convicted of a felony,
Speaker 1: you know, as a felon, Chuck, you're not allowed to
Speaker 1: own a firearm or right, which is why you couldn't
Speaker 1: vote on Tuesday, um or Jerry Ditty, which is that's
Speaker 1: kind of nice, but right, yeah, that one. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's it's a disability, but that's what they're
Speaker 1: called collectively. When you lose those rights after being convicted
Speaker 1: of a felony and that goes on your record, you
Speaker 1: you lose these rights, and that's called civil disability, right,
Speaker 1: and it restores every bit. It's it's almost like an annulmen.
Speaker 1: It's as if nothing ever happened save for the fact
Speaker 1: that it does stay on your record, right, and the
Speaker 1: records remain that. It took several hundred years for them
Speaker 1: to finally establish that. There's a Supreme Court case and
Speaker 1: I think the nineties that said the records stay. There's
Speaker 1: nice right off the top of your head too, um,
Speaker 1: but there's no they don't have any effect on you
Speaker 1: as a citizen and the longer. But that's just with
Speaker 1: the federal government, and that's not even with all branches
Speaker 1: of the federal government. Basically, the president. When the president
Speaker 1: issues a pardon, the president is daddy of the country
Speaker 1: right then and is saying, on behalf of the rest
Speaker 1: of the American family, We're gonna forgive you for this
Speaker 1: transfer transgression. I'm your dad, I'm everybody else's daddy. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna make the decision and let's just move on passes. Now,
Speaker 1: your brother, the I R S, your uncle, the I
Speaker 1: R S, I should say, is probably still going to
Speaker 1: sue your off your drunk uncle, right, but you are, Um,
Speaker 1: I can't do anything about that. But you broke the laws,
Speaker 1: and we're going to forgive you for breaking the laws. Right.
Speaker 1: Should we talk about other forms of clemency, just so
Speaker 1: everyone's squared away, Yeah, because of pardon. Clemency is the
Speaker 1: umbrella term. Ye, pardon is one type of clemency. That's
Speaker 1: the best point. Yeah, that's what you're gunning for. We
Speaker 1: can we can draw the distinction, though, my friend with
Speaker 1: um pardons, commutes, um remissions and what's the last one? Respite?
Speaker 1: Respite commutation when you commute a sentence, that means you
Speaker 1: just make it shorter, right, that's not used a whole lot.
Speaker 1: You can also commute a sentence before it even starts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's weird. That's what happened with Scooter Libby. Yeah, sure
Speaker 1: he got a commutation, but not a pardon. So he's
Speaker 1: a blemished individual as a citizen, but he didn't have
Speaker 1: to go to prisons. He can't vote no, or serve
Speaker 1: on a jury, or own a handgun or own a handgun.
Speaker 1: That's probably a good thing. Um. We already talked about
Speaker 1: the full part in the Granddaddy of them all. There
Speaker 1: is the conditional pardon, which we mentioned, which means, um,
Speaker 1: I will do this for you if and the Clinton
Speaker 1: example was one. Another good one you listed was Jimmy Haffa.
Speaker 1: Nixon pardon Haffa and said, I'll you know, I'll pardon
Speaker 1: you as long as you don't take part in any
Speaker 1: more labor organization, right And he was like, and go
Speaker 1: sleep with the fishes. But that's all I do, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And he had to go full on with the mob
Speaker 1: after that. His inevitable course was set. With that agreement
Speaker 1: remission we mentioned that is like when you say you
Speaker 1: don't have to pay a fine, it releases you from
Speaker 1: a legal obligation. Again, but that's just with like the
Speaker 1: the federal government, and it's not necessarily with the I
Speaker 1: r S. The I r S sees you in civil court.
Speaker 1: It's it can't. It can't a civil obligation you owe
Speaker 1: to a family for restitution, they can't. They can't remiss
Speaker 1: that is that right, remiss remit, but you would be remissed.
Speaker 1: Jerry's laughing in there. Respite is basically a temporary thing
Speaker 1: where the president is like, you know what, let me
Speaker 1: hold this off for a month or two while we
Speaker 1: look at it, right, like an execution. Well, isn't that
Speaker 1: a stay or is it the same thing? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know if a stay of execution is just
Speaker 1: issued by the governor, or if a stay of execution
Speaker 1: is a type of respite because this is only federal cases,
Speaker 1: because the president can't touch state or local cases. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so maybe that's a deaf does Yeah, the Feds. The
Speaker 1: Feds execute people. The president could could keep somebody who
Speaker 1: was sentenced to death through a court martial, they could,
Speaker 1: they could give them respite. It's kind of like, hey,
Speaker 1: here's a nice hot towel. Sit in the corner while
Speaker 1: we figure out whether they we're going to kill you
Speaker 1: or not, and you can you can polose on top
Speaker 1: of each other. If you need more time, you can
Speaker 1: issue them in succession and it's it doesn't interfere with
Speaker 1: the trial or anything like that. Right, So you like
Speaker 1: a lot of these kind of working conjunction like the
Speaker 1: the the booyah combo that you want is the commutation
Speaker 1: of sentence before it even starts, followed by or in
Speaker 1: conjunction with, the full parton or a rest bit maybe
Speaker 1: then the full part. Right. But I mean, if you
Speaker 1: if you love a sense of drama, yeah go you
Speaker 1: can tack the rest fit onto the beginning. I just
Speaker 1: want to keep my butt out of jail. I don't
Speaker 1: care if it's dramatic, right, just give me whatever puts me,
Speaker 1: you know, back on the sidelines or back in the game. Sorry,
Speaker 1: mixing sports metaphors that reminds me of a dream, Chuck
Speaker 1: that I had. Um. I dreamt that I was at
Speaker 1: a breakdancing championship, which I've actually been to you before. Um,
Speaker 1: but I was sitting there like watching like all these
Speaker 1: people break dance, you know, watching it. No, Actually, what
Speaker 1: I figured out was I dreamt that I was watching
Speaker 1: other people breakdance. I don't even have enough of an
Speaker 1: opinion of myself to dream that I, myself is an
Speaker 1: awesome break That's what I about to say, Dude, that
Speaker 1: would be the master champion breakdancer in my dream. Right,
Speaker 1: But you just said that you want to be out
Speaker 1: of jail, so you can get back to the sideline.
Speaker 1: That's what triggered that. Maybe we'll edit that out in post.
Speaker 1: Huh no, so Chuck, what doesn't a pardon do? It
Speaker 1: sounds like it's um basically the hand of God coming down,
Speaker 1: touching you on the head and saying, go buy a
Speaker 1: gun because you can uh one thing it does not
Speaker 1: do and you cannot touch. And they were pretty smart
Speaker 1: back when they wrote the constitution. Um, they made sure
Speaker 1: that a you can impeach a president and be that
Speaker 1: you cannot pardon an impeachment, right. Um. They they actually
Speaker 1: didn't include presidential pardons in a couple of the plans
Speaker 1: for the constitution. The New Jersey Plan and the Virginia
Speaker 1: Plan both lacked presidential pardons, and Alexander Hamilton's was like,
Speaker 1: I think Federal's paper number seventy four. Yes, yeah, Um.
Speaker 1: He argued that there are times when this could really
Speaker 1: come in handy guys, So let's put it in, but
Speaker 1: let's make sure it doesn't apply to impeachment, right, because
Speaker 1: if the president can be impeached and if he can't
Speaker 1: pardon himself while he's being impeached, then he won't become
Speaker 1: this absolute authoritarian. He can't possibly right, So, um, that
Speaker 1: was how it ended up in there. But actually that
Speaker 1: went further back, and we'll talk about that in a minute.
Speaker 1: But they almost left the whole thing out and then
Speaker 1: they said, no, we'll just follow custom. What were you
Speaker 1: going to say it came over from England? Yeah, say
Speaker 1: it man, Well it's actually the whole the whole idea
Speaker 1: is rooted in the prerogative of the king, the English king. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we got a lot of our early ideas clearly since
Speaker 1: we had just uh, you know, come from England. We're
Speaker 1: based on good old England, right, English common law or
Speaker 1: royal law, I guess is what this would be, um,
Speaker 1: And I think that's probably why presidential pardons weren't included
Speaker 1: in a couple of the really popular plans for the Constitution,
Speaker 1: because it was kind of smacked of royal tyranny, right yeah.
Speaker 1: But they Charles, the second, I think, is the one
Speaker 1: who originally thought of the impeachment idea, right, Well, either
Speaker 1: he thought of it and was a fan, or he
Speaker 1: was one of the weaker kings or one of the
Speaker 1: more benevolent kings. Because a parliament that was in session
Speaker 1: while he was reigning managed to slip that onto the
Speaker 1: custom of the prerogative of the English king. So you
Speaker 1: can overturn any court case except cases of impeachment, right, yes,
Speaker 1: which is you know, there's some other ways that the
Speaker 1: courts over the years of sort of shaped. Um. I
Speaker 1: guess you could say limited or defined how you can
Speaker 1: pardon and how you can't. Um like we said, it's
Speaker 1: only federal cases. You can't affect civil civil cases at all,
Speaker 1: and um like we all I mentioned restitution to a family.
Speaker 1: So let's say if O. J. Simpson, in a weird
Speaker 1: alternate world, were convicted of cutting his wife's head off,
Speaker 1: if he had done that, if he had really done that,
Speaker 1: he could not have been he could have been pardoned
Speaker 1: for that. But um it, let's say if the president
Speaker 1: was a big fan of the juice, but he could
Speaker 1: not have been relieved of paying a goldman all that
Speaker 1: money that he lost, Which is weird because he was
Speaker 1: found guilty or not guilty, But what do you call
Speaker 1: it's libel for her death and his son's death in
Speaker 1: a civil suit. Guilty in a court of law, criminally, Yeah, weird,
Speaker 1: so strange how that can happen in this country. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a really weird moment in this country's history.
Speaker 1: Huh um, chuck. There's some other ways that the presidential
Speaker 1: pardon has been shaped. Um, you can't force the well,
Speaker 1: you the the idea used to be was that you
Speaker 1: can't force a person to take a parton. That's my
Speaker 1: favorite little nugget in this whole article. Right, So you
Speaker 1: would think like, oh, yeah, here's your partner, especially if
Speaker 1: it's like a commutation of sentence and you get out
Speaker 1: of jail early. Um, not everybody's done with that. Some
Speaker 1: people are what we called institutionalized, can't make it out
Speaker 1: on the outside any longer. Yes, he was institutionalized. He
Speaker 1: couldn't make it, and he hung himself in the little
Speaker 1: halfway house sort of that they set him up with. Right.
Speaker 1: It was one of the sadder moments of the Shaw
Speaker 1: Shank redemption. There was another guy who, um that may
Speaker 1: or may not happen have happened to His story kind
Speaker 1: of ends slightly before that as far as we can tell,
Speaker 1: as far as we know, Um, Calvin Coolidge, the cool
Speaker 1: he uh he he gave a pardon to a guy
Speaker 1: who was in jail, and the guy didn't want to leave,
Speaker 1: so he directly ordered the warden to get the guy
Speaker 1: out of prison and shut the cell behind him. Well,
Speaker 1: that was the one caveat you did mention was, Um,
Speaker 1: you can refuse a pardon, but not when it applies
Speaker 1: to cases of life or death. So if you're on
Speaker 1: death row, you don't get a choice if you're pardoned. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court worked that out as well. They're saying like, no,
Speaker 1: if you if you want to die, we're not going
Speaker 1: to kill you just because you want to die if
Speaker 1: we've decided that you shouldn't die, And what's the deal
Speaker 1: with content of court? I didn't quite get that. Okay,
Speaker 1: So Chuck, this is this is a very very important
Speaker 1: part because this is the one too. I agree. I
Speaker 1: went back and read it, and I think it was
Speaker 1: one of those things where, um, I was just so
Speaker 1: hot and bothered about it, like, oh, yeah, here's the
Speaker 1: crux of my whole article. Yeah right, I um just
Speaker 1: kind of ram past actually explaining it. Well, so let
Speaker 1: me try to do it a little better here. Okay, Um,
Speaker 1: you were saying that if um, the president, if if
Speaker 1: for some reason O. J. Simpson had been convicted of
Speaker 1: his alleged murder of Nicole Simpson and Ronald Coldman, Right, Um,
Speaker 1: and the president had pardoned him, that pardon would have
Speaker 1: had any effect on the civil case against him by
Speaker 1: the Goldman family, by the Brown family. Right. Because murder
Speaker 1: is legally an affront to the United States. It's an
Speaker 1: affront to the laws of the United States. And by
Speaker 1: the way, also this would only only if he had
Speaker 1: been convicted in federal court. Could the president's pardon have
Speaker 1: helped him? Right? Remember that, Um, because the murdered also
Speaker 1: has an effect on this family. We have civil courts,
Speaker 1: there's civil law and criminal law. President can forgive criminal law,
Speaker 1: can't do anything for civil law because pardons only cover
Speaker 1: in affront to the United States. So, at one point
Speaker 1: in time, a guy named William Howard Taft, who is
Speaker 1: Supreme who is the chief Justice of the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: and after his presidence here it was after he was president,
Speaker 1: eleven years after he left the White House. He said
Speaker 1: he always said like he felt like he fulfilled his
Speaker 1: destiny is Supreme Court justice. He didn't like being president. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but as Supreme Court justice, he helped give a tool
Speaker 1: to Congress. Um by saying that the presidential pardon is
Speaker 1: only to cover affronts to the United States, it doesn't
Speaker 1: cover affronts to a court. Write a contempt of court
Speaker 1: charge sounds like a loophole. That is a loophole, and
Speaker 1: Congress has exploited it because Congress actually has the ability
Speaker 1: to hold people in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify.
Speaker 1: So remember that whole impeachment clause right where it literally
Speaker 1: says in the Constitution you can the president has the
Speaker 1: power to pardon people except in cases of impeachment. Right
Speaker 1: Without that court contempt of court loophole, you'd have another
Speaker 1: loophole where the president could be like, I'm gonna do
Speaker 1: anything I want and Congress can investigate me all at once,
Speaker 1: but none of my people are talking because they can be.
Speaker 1: They can be um arrested and charged and sentenced and
Speaker 1: pardoned and keep their mouth that the whole time. You
Speaker 1: know there's a pardon coming. That doesn't work for contempt
Speaker 1: of court cases because contempt of court or contempt of
Speaker 1: Congress is not technically in affront to the laws of
Speaker 1: the United States. It's in affront to Congress in front
Speaker 1: of the court. So the presidential pardon can't do anything
Speaker 1: about it. So there's the one tool Congress has as
Speaker 1: far as battling the presidential pardon, they can compel witnesses
Speaker 1: to testify, and if they don't, they can they have
Speaker 1: actually a little jail in the Senate and I think
Speaker 1: House chambers where they keep them the person in contempt.
Speaker 1: That's a nice jail. Was that any better? I got it?
Speaker 1: But however, if a president does if it's legitimate, and
Speaker 1: if and if it's legal, and if he does it
Speaker 1: right or she the woman president one day, it is
Speaker 1: completely irrefutable. Yeah, if if they do it right and
Speaker 1: it's on the well we say, on the level, like
Speaker 1: some of those last ones aren't really on the level
Speaker 1: ethically speaking, but they but they're legal, but you can't
Speaker 1: you can't challenge whether they're on the level or not right.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, ground Congress has tried to put
Speaker 1: a stop to this over the years here and there
Speaker 1: they've introduced bills uh to limit um pardon power, but
Speaker 1: they've all failed because of a couple of reasons. Because um,
Speaker 1: it's in the Constitution very clearly, Article two, Section two,
Speaker 1: and Supreme Court like stuffhold the Constitution when they can,
Speaker 1: like to stand behind it when they can. And the
Speaker 1: other reason is it's you know, it's kind of a
Speaker 1: long standing power, and uh, they're not really used to
Speaker 1: you know, they're not hip to getting rid of these
Speaker 1: things that have been around for a couple of hundred years. Right,
Speaker 1: And for everybody who's just opened their email client to
Speaker 1: send us some all these examples of the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: not standing behind the Constitution when they can't, Chuck meant
Speaker 1: specifically standing behind them the pardon power article. That's what
Speaker 1: you meant, right, that's what we're talking about. Okay, Yeah, sorry,
Speaker 1: thanks for pointing that out and stopping the flood of emails.
Speaker 1: And not only that, Chuck, they actually in Supreme Court
Speaker 1: decreed this is a it is spelled out in the Constitution,
Speaker 1: the president's power to pardon. And if you're gonna find
Speaker 1: any flaws in it, you're gonna have to go to
Speaker 1: that like one two sentence section and find your flaws there,
Speaker 1: because it's in the Constitution and you really can't touch
Speaker 1: it outside of the Constitution. Right. So, Chuck, we were
Speaker 1: talking about the origins of this. You know that it
Speaker 1: was found in um the prerogative of the English kings,
Speaker 1: and then you know, they talked about it and finally
Speaker 1: the founders put it in the Constitution, and originally it
Speaker 1: was to give the president the ability to say queil rebellion,
Speaker 1: insurrection and just basically make it deal with people who
Speaker 1: were rising up against the government and saying, look, if
Speaker 1: you guys go back home, we're going to forget all
Speaker 1: this happened. I'll issue a blanket pardon, a k amnesty.
Speaker 1: Very shortly after the constitution was written. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: and I think seventeen sev George Washington said this is awesome.
Speaker 1: There's a whiskey rebellion going on. The farmers are uprising
Speaker 1: because they don't like being tax I'm gonna just forgive
Speaker 1: all you guys if you pipe down because you've been arrested.
Speaker 1: And they said, okay, all right, we'll go back home.
Speaker 1: And that was like right afterward. Yeah, and Jimmy Carter,
Speaker 1: like you said, to heal national wounds, Ford kind of
Speaker 1: pardon Nixon just to wrap that up. Uh. Carter did
Speaker 1: a similar thing to sort of put an end to
Speaker 1: the Vietnam era by pardoning all the draft dodgers, which
Speaker 1: a lot of people probably didn't like that move very much. Yeah. Either,
Speaker 1: good point. One of my favorites, Josh is when you
Speaker 1: point out that UM pardons a lot of times can
Speaker 1: sort of undermine laws, and that was the case with
Speaker 1: Kennedy in nineteen fifty six, and National Narcotics Act was
Speaker 1: basically a big hard, one of the first big hard
Speaker 1: drug laws where they had mandatory minimums for kind of
Speaker 1: small time offenders. So Kennedy said, you know, it's really
Speaker 1: not fair that these small time offenders, are first time
Speaker 1: offenders are in prison for like five or more years,
Speaker 1: and it's no good. So I'm going to issue a
Speaker 1: blanket pardon for all these guys and gals. And it
Speaker 1: kind of overturned the law in essence. Yeah, and he's
Speaker 1: not the only person to do that. Um, there's calls
Speaker 1: right now for Obama to issue issue blanket pardons to
Speaker 1: people who are convicted under mandatory crack minimums because there's
Speaker 1: such a disparity between UM, mandatory minimums for cocaine, which
Speaker 1: is predominantly or considered a white drug, and crack, which
Speaker 1: is considered a black drug. UM. So if you get
Speaker 1: caught with the same amount of crack and coke same value, UM,
Speaker 1: you go to jail, you know, five times longer for
Speaker 1: crack under these mandatory miniums. He hasn't so far, but
Speaker 1: there's a call for that same use of the presidential
Speaker 1: pardon to use a tool. Um. Warren Harding basically overturned
Speaker 1: the Espionage Act, Right, Yeah, that was was that the
Speaker 1: Tokyo Rose No No Espionage Acts was World War One. Basically,
Speaker 1: if you were talking out against World War one war
Speaker 1: in general, or were a conscientious objector, the federal government
Speaker 1: through you in prison for up to ten years. Right, yes,
Speaker 1: And so you're talking about Eugene dev This guy is
Speaker 1: kind of a hero of mine. He was a Socialist
Speaker 1: Party candidate. Um, what I thought was funny. He was
Speaker 1: a candidate five times in nineteen hundred, oh, four, oh eight, twelve,
Speaker 1: and twenty. So he took off nineteen sixteen. I guess
Speaker 1: to regroup. I wondered if there were like two, if
Speaker 1: there was a candidate or two in there that he
Speaker 1: was like the guys better than me, let him run,
Speaker 1: or if he Yeah, I would have thought after he
Speaker 1: lost four times, he's like, I can't do this again. Well,
Speaker 1: I think he's kind of like the Ralph Nader of
Speaker 1: the turn of the twentieth century, the turn of the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century. Well, he spoke out like you said, UM
Speaker 1: against our involvement in World War One, and he was
Speaker 1: convicted as for treason a speech under the Espionage Act
Speaker 1: and then UM sinence to ten years in Harding said
Speaker 1: here in Atlanta, Yeah, in the in the federal Pokey.
Speaker 1: He got a million votes from prison. Yeah, and for
Speaker 1: his nineteen campaign, a million votes. Ninety's a lot of votes.
Speaker 1: It was a lot of votes. And he was enough
Speaker 1: of a contender that when UM Mr President Warren G.
Speaker 1: Harding issued a blanket pardon for people under the Espionage Act,
Speaker 1: he invited Eugene Debs to drop by the White House
Speaker 1: to hang out after he got out of the pen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and what Debs say, No, way, no we went. Oh
Speaker 1: he did. Yeah, he had a visit. I'm just kidding,
Speaker 1: uh Ford, Um, I mentioned Tokyo Rose. He pardoned the
Speaker 1: only American woman that was part of the propaganda reading
Speaker 1: of Japanese propaganda reading on radio Tokyo zero hour and
Speaker 1: she was convicted of um was it treason again? And
Speaker 1: years later, years later report or dug up some info
Speaker 1: that was kind of like this is a trumped up
Speaker 1: charge and this isn't really right. So Ford said, pardoned. Yeah,
Speaker 1: her story is pretty interesting in and of itself. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: the whole tokeyo roast thing is. I think Patty Hurst
Speaker 1: she got a pardon. I love Patty Hirst. She got
Speaker 1: We talked about her, I think in the Brainwashing podcast.
Speaker 1: Remember when I took you into a preppy Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: She was kidnapped and allegedly forced to commit bank robberies
Speaker 1: with the Symbionese Liberation Army, who also made an appearance
Speaker 1: by the way, for you stuff you should know fact
Speaker 1: finders in the swap podcast. What sl did? Yeah, remember
Speaker 1: they got in the shootout with the first SWAT teamer.
Speaker 1: They were one of the reasons the SWAT team came up. Yeah. Anyway,
Speaker 1: well we should point out who she was, just for
Speaker 1: those of you don't know. She was the granddaughter of
Speaker 1: a newspaper magnet, William Randolph Hurst, which is what Citizen
Speaker 1: Kane was. He was based on him. Citizen Kane and
Speaker 1: um Elvin and the Chipmunks, the squeak Will that was
Speaker 1: based on Hurst too. It was. It was basically remake
Speaker 1: as this in Kane. I had no idea, So yeah,
Speaker 1: Hurst was. She's like, oh, they brainwashed me and made me. Uh,
Speaker 1: they kidnapped me and brainwashing made me Rob Banks and
Speaker 1: so they said, and no, I don't think so, you're
Speaker 1: you're convicted. Um, just in in prison for seven years
Speaker 1: and Jimmy Carter stepped in and commuted it. And then
Speaker 1: later on he asked Billy Billy Boy to give her
Speaker 1: the full part in what she did, and then she went.
Speaker 1: She was in every John Waters movie ever made. I
Speaker 1: think since then, I've not seen a one she I
Speaker 1: think she was in cry Baby to begin with, and
Speaker 1: she's been in everyone since then, including his upcoming film,
Speaker 1: What is It? Fruitcake? Is this next one he has
Speaker 1: the best? He said, it's a Christmas a Christmas movie
Speaker 1: fruit Cake? I've never seen. We've never seen a movie.
Speaker 1: I like John Waters. He's cool. You know what you
Speaker 1: should see? I guess if you have never seen one.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't start you off with the early like really
Speaker 1: nasty ones. I actually made her It's perfect for you, Flamingos.
Speaker 1: I would think, right, get pink flamingos and watch Divine
Speaker 1: eat poop. For for the love of God, I would say,
Speaker 1: sereal mom. Another one with Kathleen Turner before she was
Speaker 1: a man. I thought that was probably during the man transition.
Speaker 1: The mansition, Perhaps, Josh, I want to talk about Arthur
Speaker 1: O'Brien just for a second. He's my favorite one because
Speaker 1: President Abraham Lincoln pardoned him from a charge of beast reality,
Speaker 1: attempted beast reality. Do you know what he was actually
Speaker 1: trying to do with what animal? I think I did
Speaker 1: when I wrote this, but I don't anymore. Not important.
Speaker 1: Let's just call it beast reality. But Lincoln said, you
Speaker 1: know what, he's a really good guy otherwise, and he's
Speaker 1: led a really good life, and he was really hammered
Speaker 1: when it happened. So I'm just gonna go ahead and
Speaker 1: pardon that. Yeah, and he did. Arthur O'Brien is now
Speaker 1: a unbesmirched beast list zoo phillist, zoo phillist. I think, so, Chuck,
Speaker 1: Actually that Arthur O'Brien cases a really exemplary of the
Speaker 1: kind of thinking that goes into a presidential partner is
Speaker 1: supposed to write. Um. Lincoln said, Hey, the guy was drunk.
Speaker 1: He's live an exemplary life, Um, And he is. He's
Speaker 1: just he's he made a mistake when he was doing
Speaker 1: that with that animal, right, and he knows that clearly.
Speaker 1: He hasn't tried to get with an animal since so
Speaker 1: I'm going to pardon him. Uh. In eighteen nine, the
Speaker 1: d o J said, you know what, the president needs
Speaker 1: help with this kind of stuff. So, um, we're we're
Speaker 1: going to take on this power. Our Congress said, d
Speaker 1: o J. Take on this power in the Office of
Speaker 1: the Pardon Attorney was created. Yeah, and he's basically I say,
Speaker 1: I keep saying he. I feel like I should say
Speaker 1: she because I don't know if we've had a female
Speaker 1: partner attorney. But they are generally they're completely in charge
Speaker 1: of handling the thousands of request that office is. So
Speaker 1: what they do is they do the same thing as
Speaker 1: they did way back with Lincoln. They dig around the case,
Speaker 1: they find out the circumstances of the case, whether or
Speaker 1: not they've made restitution and led a really good life
Speaker 1: and maybe they've left prison, or maybe they'd work with
Speaker 1: kids and have done really great things. And then they
Speaker 1: are the ones who make the recommendation to the president.
Speaker 1: But the president, I mean, if they're smart, they'll listen
Speaker 1: to what they say because they've done all the legwork.
Speaker 1: But the president doesn't have to know follow the advice.
Speaker 1: And actually the the apparently the d o j or
Speaker 1: the Partner Attorney's office said, Um, you probably shouldn't pardon
Speaker 1: Mark Rich he doesn't really fit the criteria, and Clinton went,
Speaker 1: that's going around, right, Should we close with some stats? Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do it. We can't talk about pardons without just
Speaker 1: throwing out who has done what. So we're gonna go
Speaker 1: ahead and say that the all time granddaddy of pardons
Speaker 1: was was Roosevelt, not americally, well, numerically Franklin three terms. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but there were what like over three thousand pardons there were,
Speaker 1: and it's a lot of pardons. But that's I think,
Speaker 1: um of the partners that come across his desk he
Speaker 1: signed off on. Truman led the way with percentage wise
Speaker 1: right forty something, and um, James Garfield and William Henry
Speaker 1: Harrison of course had no pardons because they weren't in
Speaker 1: office very long. No, U W H. H. Died of
Speaker 1: pneumonia after a month. I'm William Wait, here's William Henry Harrison.
Speaker 1: I died in thirty days. Uh, Jimmy. Recently, let's just
Speaker 1: go over the recent ones. Carter issued five six six,
Speaker 1: Reagan issued four oh six. Oh, Billy Clinton did for
Speaker 1: fifty six and then the Bush Boys came along and
Speaker 1: Um Bush Senior, Herbert Walker only seventy seven, and George W.
Speaker 1: Can I'm sorry, pardoned right? And m Herbert Walker pardon seven?
Speaker 1: You said one of them was Caspar Weinberger, who is
Speaker 1: the Defense secretary in the ir On Contra affair. That
Speaker 1: was his big controversial When everyone has at least one, sure,
Speaker 1: why not? It's on your way out anyway, Yeah, wacky commanders,
Speaker 1: you're going to work for Goldman Sacks afterward. Anyway, you
Speaker 1: might as well as who cares? So I guess that's it, right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: If you want to see some funny pictures of old
Speaker 1: timey presidents or George W. Bush partnering a turkey, you
Speaker 1: should probably look up presidential pardons in the search bar
Speaker 1: at how stuff Works dot com. All right, so Chuck,
Speaker 1: then what are we going to do then? Right now?
Speaker 1: A couple of little orders of business, A little pitch
Speaker 1: and thank you. So we need a new sound. It's
Speaker 1: time for pitch, all right. I have no idea what
Speaker 1: that sound was, uh, Josh, we are having We are
Speaker 1: recreating our awesome all star trivia night that we did
Speaker 1: in New York, right here in our hometown of Atlanta, Georgia,
Speaker 1: and uh, we have not got a location yet and
Speaker 1: we are not positive on a date, but it's looking
Speaker 1: like it might be the first weekend Timber the weekend
Speaker 1: of dragon Con, which is a Labor day, Labor Day weekend,
Speaker 1: we're looking at that Friday, September three. Don't hold us
Speaker 1: to that, but we are having an all star trivia
Speaker 1: in Atlanta. It will probably be the weekend of dragon Con.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna say most likely. I don't know about
Speaker 1: the Friday or whatever. I think it's probably going to
Speaker 1: be that weekend. I don't see why we wouldn't. Why
Speaker 1: wouldn't we exactly let's do it. So once again we're
Speaker 1: putting a call out to people that have venues that
Speaker 1: might be interested in hosting UM Suggestions trivia guys. Sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: whatever you got. And we also want to say thank
Speaker 1: you quickly to Mark Rhodes. Mark Rhodes is a big
Speaker 1: fan and he's been helping us troubleshoot this OS for
Speaker 1: iPhone update issue that we've been having where people cannot
Speaker 1: download directly to their phone and Mark has been a
Speaker 1: big help. So thank you Mark for that. And I
Speaker 1: want to say thank you to Tom Rhodes, the stand
Speaker 1: up comedian who was huge in the nineties whose act
Speaker 1: I caught at the Gotham Nightclub. The Gotham Comedy Club
Speaker 1: is what it was. He was hilarious. So thank you
Speaker 1: to Mark Rhodes and Tom Rhodes, and thanks to Dusty Rhodes.
Speaker 1: Yeah for just such a great wrestler exactly. Uh, we
Speaker 1: have another Rhodes chuck. Uh, Lieutenant Rhodes who's in a
Speaker 1: rock right now? Yeah? Sure, yeah, we haven't heard from
Speaker 1: me in a while. No, so hey, send in an email,
Speaker 1: will you, Lieutenant Rhodes, and let us know you're doing
Speaker 1: all right? Uh? If you know Rhods that we should
Speaker 1: be thanking, let us know. Maybe we'll thank them. There's
Speaker 1: roads all over the place. Apparently you can wrap it
Speaker 1: up spanking on the bottom and send it to stuff
Speaker 1: podcast at how stuff works dot com for more on
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