102
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 17 Apr 2025
102 points (99.0% liked)
Hacker News
1226 readers
455 users here now
Posts from the RSS Feed of HackerNews.
The feed sometimes contains ads and posts that have been removed by the mod team at HN.
founded 7 months ago
MODERATORS
Here come the pardons. Which will complete the nullification of the judiciary branch.
Shit who presses charged when a judge holds someone in contempt? Tell me it's its own thing and doesn't have to go through an attorney general or something
My understanding is that contempt of court can't be pardoned. The reasoning is that a pardon forgives an action against the (nation)state. Contempt is an offense against the judiciary and is therefore out of scope for the president. But IANAL and I am not even an American so take this for what it's worth. Benjamin Wittes et al. wrote about this a fair bit over at Lawfare a couple years ago.
Criminal contempt can be pardoned and Trump has done it before. Police sheriff Joe Arpaio was ordered by a court to end a stop and frisk policy of Hispanic people he put into place because it was racial discrimination. He ignored the order and was charged and found guilty of criminal contempt. Trump pardoned him and offered him a job with the administration.
Civil contempt cannot be pardoned but it only lasts until an order is followed. It's something along the lines of "you will be fined/jailed everyday until you do X".