Open Phone Line Friday: Pardons Edition

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This morning, jurors sent a note to the court saying,
we the jury request instructions from Judge Wiley. At this time,
we are unable to come to a unanimous vote on
count one, manslaughter in the second degree. That is, of
course the biggest of the charges, and basically, according to
the judge he told attorneys for both sides in this case,

(00:22):
I think they can't move on to count two unless
they find the defendant not guilty of count one. I
have to at least try to ask the jury to
find a verdict on count one. The count two, by
the way, we talk about the manslaughter is count one.
Count two is criminally negligent homicide, and that's a completely
different thing. He could be not guilty on count one

(00:45):
and still guilty of count two. But if he's guilty
of count one, then count two is a completely different
conversation to be having. So there is a chance of
maybe a hung jury here. I don't exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
We know.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
The attorneys are going to continue to work on what
they can do with the judge as they wait for this.
But it's been a long time and there's no signs
of this being resolved anytime soon, especially now that it
seems like the people in that room cannot get to
the same verdict one way or the other. So we'll
let you know if there are any further developments in

(01:24):
that one open vote line. Friday, four two, five, five,
eight eleven ten, we have Dan on the line. Dan,
welcome to the show today. What's on your mind?

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Be back to you. Hey, Hey, I got a question
trying to understand these pardons that Biden Biden has done
and or as voting president Biden. I'm sorry, you know,
you take a look at it. I always thought a
pardon was a convicted person and or one serving time.

(01:55):
I didn't think you could pardon time or a group
of individuals. I mean, that's the case. So he's partnering
in a group of individuals that supported his presidency between
twenty fourteen and twenty twenty four Hey, I've never tried
I voted Biden anything that I did that supported his president.

Speaker 1 (02:15):
Here I should be partnered Yeah, yeah, So Dan, this
is interesting, and I'm glad that he asked about this
because this was also a point of confusion for me
as well. But it turns out that this has been
done several times before, just maybe not as high profile
but the most high profile one in the past that
has happened was when Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for
nothing specific. He was not charged or indicted on anything

(02:38):
at that point, but basically pardoned him for anything that
would have occurred against the United States from the beginning
of his presidency to the time he resigned. So it
has happened before. I don't know how right it is.
I think this is done preemptively to protect these people
from potential retaliation against them from Donald Trump and his administration,

(02:58):
like Anthony Fauci or Liz Cheney or anyone like that.
But it is kind of fascinating that it is being
kind of weaponized right now as a political tool, more
so than actually trying to parton somebody for not doing
something wrong. You know.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Yeah, Well, I mean if it comes down to a
rural law and we get clean up in the CIA,
FBI or boj and they get in there and they
find things that we're just absolutely against the law, I mean,
it's like you're getting these guys a pre.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Past, correct. Yeah. And that's that's the other thing Dan
that there, it's a power the president has on both
sides of the aisle to be able to do. And
it's just one that I don't think anybody's gonna do
anything about because it is something that they believe that
the president should have the ability to do. It's just
here in the last you know, a couple of weeks,

(03:50):
we're realizing how political that can become, especially preemptively ahead
of a new president coming in and wanting to investigate
some of these people, just protecting them before think can
even be investigated. I think it is. It's not right,
but it's not outside the realm of the rules of
our current constitution.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
Boy, I think we ought to be getting all of
our congressman than our senators and pre addressing this because
it's just it gives up pretty pass, is what it does.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
I can't disagree, Dan, I really can't, and I will.
I hope maybe some people still decide to do investigating
even if the Department of Justice can't actually prosecute any
of those people. That way, we at least just know,
right like, we have more information about that. And I
don't know how much energy or effort or money that
would take, but it's something that I think is important,

(04:41):
you know, because a lot of the stuff that is
worth investigating is stuff that, of course the Democrats want
to make sure is protected because they don't want to
have to answer for it when Donald Trump decides, yeah,
we need to look into what happened four years ago.
Appreciate the call, Dan, Thanks so much for listening to
our show.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
Thanks for taking my call.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah. Absolutely, if you want to call in, you can
four oh two five five eight eleven ten. Is the
number four oh two five five eight eleven ten. What
do you think, Matt, You're a you know, fairly, You're
not even fairly, You're very level headed in the way
that you look at this stuff. Presidential pardons too much
power or it should be that kind of power.

Speaker 4 (05:19):
Well, my first thought is rules are made for the
rule breakers. For example, why do we take our shoes
off at the airport because of one guy?

Speaker 1 (05:31):
Right? Yeah, I guess yeah, right technically.

Speaker 4 (05:34):
And you could also make that same argument for why
should we be careful about the policies we have with
who gets to choose which bathroom because one person could
abused that privilege and make us all feel unsafe.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
Correct. So what it takes is the snake in the
bag situation. Right, if I give you a bag with
one hundred snakes in it, and you are I tell
you that, I'll give you a you know, a thousand
dollars if you pull pull one out, But I tell
you one of those is deadly venomous. That one's snake
is probably going to be enough for you not to
want to put your hand in that back, right, right.

Speaker 4 (06:05):
So a lot of times, you know, we get mad
because oh this rule, and it's just because of one guy.
It's like, that's how every rule came about. And so
it makes me think, is there going to be a
new rule because of what happened? That's what I've been
thinking is full time after I heard the news, I'm like,
are we going to get rid of pardons now?

Speaker 1 (06:20):
Well? Or maybe just have Like it has to be
done not preemptively, but it has to be done after
a conviction might be the answer, right, because that at
least allows for an investigation and for information to come out.
And if a conviction is something that happens, then at
that point, maybe then we can as an American public,

(06:42):
we at least can understand, Okay, he's being parted for
one reason or one reason or only or we know
what this person has been accused of or convicted of
or charged with and he's been pardoned insteadive in this situation,
it's hey, by the way, if he did anything wrong
over these ten years, look out he's you can't get him.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:00):
That to me is like, okay, so what are you
trying to hide? And we we won't know because they
can't actually we can't actually do anything about it now
because of that presidential pardon. Of course, that's just one example.
And like I mentioned, the most notable of that kind
of style of pardon that is being talked about and
was done for Hunter was the exact same thing that

(07:22):
Jerald Ford did to part in Richard Nixon. He said,
he partoned Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United
States which he has committed or may have committed or
taken part in during the period from January twentieth, nineteen
sixty nine through August ninth of nineteen seventy four. And
that is one of the first good examples of you know,

(07:43):
that we have in the modern era of a fixed
time pardon. And you know, just something to keep in mind.
Let's go to the phones. Brad Is on the phone
line of four h two, five, five, eight, eleven, ten,
Welcome to the show, Brad. What's on your mind on this?

Speaker 5 (07:58):
Yeah, well, Hunter Byte, and since he has business dealings
overseas Ukraine in particular, could there be trials or legal
issues for him overseas.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
If somebody wanted to try him. I don't know exactly
how that would work though, because you know, when you
charge somebody and you like have a like a warrant
out for their arrest or something, they have to be
like extradited or something. They have to actually be present
to know what they're being charged with. Most of the time,
at least, that's how our justice system works, even locally,
right if somebody is not actually in the state, we

(08:35):
have to find a way to get them to the
state in which they are charged so we can formally
arrest them and present them with the charges before we
can actually do the trial. It wouldn't surprise me if
that's something that could be done in other countries, that
you could like preemptively charge somebody with wrongdoing. But I'm
just not sure how far that would go if that
person isn't even in their country, or how they would

(08:55):
even be able to get punished, you know what I'm saying. Yeah,
So the thought yeah, I don't. I don't think that's
out of the realm of possibility. I think it's just
it's not as important as you know, the United States
basically protecting him and how our system works, and if
as long as he's within our borders, unless there is

(09:17):
an investigation done and we can trust the sources that
are done overseas about that, if they wanted to charge
him for something, then only in that situation do I
think we actually would actually like be able to learn
about some of the stuff that they're trying to protect
him from. Just a thought they appreciate it. Brad, thanks
for calling in.

Speaker 2 (09:34):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
Let's go to Mike on the phone line. Hello, Mike,
what's going on with you today?

Speaker 2 (09:39):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (09:40):
Yes, it doesn't bother me so much that President Biden
pardoned his own son, That to me seems a natural thing.
But the idea that he would blanket pardon a lot
of people in the Justice Department that might have been
guilty of, you know, offenses, that's troubling. But I also
wanted to mention, you know, for the history of pardon.
So Jimmy Carter pardoned Draft Dodgers who went to Canada

(10:02):
in nineteen seventy seven, So there's yeah, a lot of
history there.

Speaker 1 (10:05):
Yeah, and didn't Biden like pretty quickly blanket part in
a bunch of marijuana felons or people who were charged
with marijuana crimes. I think it was like fifty thousand
people or something. We're under that. Yeah, I mean, he
historically to this point hasn't had nearly as many pardons
as some of the other presidents in American history, like

(10:25):
Barack Obama had almost two thousand different pardons about different things.
But it's interesting because the hunter Biden won. I think
I have a less problem with the idea of the pardon,
and I don't really have the fact that it's all political,
but it was about the lying, you know what I mean?
Because I still think that it is important for a

(10:45):
president to be able to have some sort of power
like that if they think that it's right they were
elected to be the president. And I don't generally find
pardons to be an abuse of power. I just think
that now, if you're going to be protecting people like
Liz Cheney or Fauci or any of these other names
that we're hearing that could potentially be preemptively pardoned for
a set fixed amount of time. That makes me feel like,

(11:08):
maybe you know, we're doing this for political motivation and
not necessarily to make America as you know, great as
it possibly could be. And I don't think that's necessarily
the way that we should be doing it.

Speaker 2 (11:19):
I agree with that.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
Yeah, I appreciate the call, Mike, Thank you so much
for listening. Uh, we'll get to more calls four h two, five, five,
eight to eleven ten. If you got something on your mind,
it's open phone line Friday. We'll talk more coming up
on news radio eleven ten kfab. Hey, Maurice Sung on
news radio eleven ten KFAB. Doug's on the phone line. Doug,
welcome to the show today. What's on your mind about this?

Speaker 7 (11:41):
Okay, I'm gonna make sure i'd be able to talk
to Matt afterwards. I have something mind want him.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
To research before I say what I.

Speaker 7 (11:49):
Heard from something else about schools in the metro right now. So,
but what I was going to talk about is now
that he gives a blank and pardon, let's say he
gives one, the they can still bring him back to
ask him a question.

Speaker 5 (12:04):
If he lies to Congress.

Speaker 7 (12:06):
Then he can go to jail for lying to Congress.
So because he can't do the fifth Let's say he
does know that the truth origin of the code virus. Yeah,
he cannot use the Fifth Amendment again because he's already
been pardoned for that. Therefore, he asked to answer the question.
Same thing with his son. He could actually say, did

(12:31):
you your father make money because of you doing this?
If he says the fifth, he can't before he has
to tell the truth.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
Right, But they can't prosecute him for it. I guess
it would be my thing.

Speaker 7 (12:44):
So no, they can't prosecute him, but they can prosecute
his dad. And if he lies, then they can prosecute
him for lying to Congress. Not because that's after the
pardon's over.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
Sure, sure it is interesting. It'll be interesting to see
what the approach would be if a pardon like that
takes place against doctor fall.

Speaker 7 (13:07):
Already did it with it, They already did it with
his son, or if they call his son, he can
I use the fifth to protect someone.

Speaker 1 (13:15):
That's interesting to give the answer.

Speaker 7 (13:17):
And if he lies, then they can put him in
jail for a long hanging the tarvers, which they've already done.

Speaker 1 (13:24):
Yeah, that is true, Doug, good stuff. Thanks for calling in.
That's a good good guy.

Speaker 7 (13:28):
Talk to Matt real quick.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
Yeah yeah, we'll put you back on a hold for
the time being.

Speaker 5 (13:32):
Okay, thank you, sir.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
Yeah, have a good one. Let's go to John on
the phone. John, appreciate you for being on the phone
line with us today. What it's on your mind today?

Speaker 7 (13:41):
Uh?

Speaker 8 (13:41):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (13:41):
You earlier, you and Matt earlier had been talking about
the name Gertrude. Oh yeah, Well, there was a woman
with her husband in my parents' bridge club and her
name was Gertrude, and they called her Gerty Gerty. Uh yeah,
but uh and so it's not a name that's so

(14:02):
popular today, but back then it was. David mckella also
wrote about a girl named Gertrude. It was in the
Johnstown flood of eighteen eighty nine. So there was a
six year old girl named Gertrude Quinn who wound up
being floating down in the floodwaters on a mattress. And
a guy named Maxwell mcachron, who's become a hero of mine,

(14:27):
was floating down the floodwaters on a roof with other
people when they tried to restrain him, but he jumped
into floodwaters and swam over to the mattress to rescue Gertrude,
and then they got apparently closer to shore, but Maxwell

(14:48):
mcachrom threw Gertrude ten to fifteen feet to a man's
leaning out of window who caught her. Wow, and they
got her. They got her to other people who warmed
her up and everything dang. So she survived and then
mcachron also survived. He floted down another four miles and

(15:11):
was rescued by something.

Speaker 1 (15:13):
That's a great story. I love mcculloughy. I've read several
of his biographies and his timeline books are really really good. John,
this is great. No, thanks so much for calling in man,
thanks for listening to our show.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
Yeah, bye bye.

Speaker 1 (15:25):
All right, let's go to Justine on our phone line
four h two five five eight eleventeen. Justine, you got
something on your mind about pardons today.

Speaker 9 (15:32):
Yeah, it is. The president can put out a pardon.
Is that just a federal pardon from being federally or
does anybody from being prostituted by the state.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, So my understanding is it's only federal, So theoretically
they could be prosecuted if it's a state crime that
they're being accused of uh and so that to me,
you would need the governor to also observe a pardon,
and that would be a separate thing for a state
to have to do, is to pardon somebody from a

(16:11):
crime that would be a state crime. Obviously, there are
some states that try people on federal charges, but you
know that's one of that. That is certainly a good question, Justine,
as to what would fall under a federal crime, which
would you would be eligible to be pardoned by the
president versus something that could also be tried in the states,
because they would not be protected under that pardon for that.

(16:31):
So that's a good point, Justine. Thanks for calling in.

Speaker 6 (16:34):
Yep, thank you.

Speaker 8 (16:35):
You guys are great.

Speaker 1 (16:36):
Yeah, thank you. It makes it makes you feel good.
Let's go to Mark on a phone line four h
two five five eight eleven ten. Welcome to the show, Mark,
What do you got on your mind today?

Speaker 7 (16:44):
Good afternoon?

Speaker 8 (16:45):
Memory. Hey am I did I hear right that Joe
did issue blanket pardons for all these other people are
thinking about it. He's thinking about it, okay, because there's
a big difference between the one that he gave for
Hunter and these ones he's contemplating. Doing the cure had
been charged and convicted, right, and these other people have

(17:09):
no charges, no convictions. This just shows me how corrupt
the system truly is if somebody can be pardoned for
something they haven't even been charged for.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
Yeah, and that was my thing when I looked this up.
Apparently it's happened quite a few times. And I mentioned
the Nixon one being the most notable in the past,
where you know, Nixon wasn't even charged with anything yet,
but preemptively, Gerald Ford just pardoned him on the first
day he took office and said, you know, he's not
going to be investigated for any crimes. He resigned and
that should be that. But it is interesting, what are

(17:44):
you trying to hide from us if you're pardoning these
people preemptively and you don't want the you know, Trump
administration or anyone else to have the ability to talk
to them or prosecute them for anything that they may
have done wrong over a certain amount of time. To me,
that just makes it feel like we can't trust our
governmental system if the outgoing president just decides to pardon

(18:04):
anybody who might be doing shady things under their watch,
maybe we.

Speaker 8 (18:09):
Need to see what we need to do to change
the pardon rule that it has to be somebody that
has been convicted of a.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
Crime, I agree, or at least charged with something, right,
at least something that we know for sure they have
been charged with. That would give us a lot more
and that would you know, the Hunter thing is not
just He wasn't even just pardon for that. He was
also blanket pardoned for an entire decade of time for
anything else that he might be investigated about but wasn't
necessarily formally charged with. I think that was an important

(18:38):
detail to that too. Mark, it's a good point. Thanks
for calling in today, you bet, Thank you, no problem.
We got Brian Kelly Kenny on the phone line, and
more calls coming in at four h two, five to five,
eight eleven ten. It's an open phone line Friday. We'll
talk more about pardons and the weaponization of our government
here in the two o'clock hour. Next on news Radio
eleven ten. Kfab and Raised Songer on news Radio eleven ten.

(19:02):
Brian's on the phone line. Welcome to the show, Brian,
what do you think about this?

Speaker 10 (19:05):
Well, Russian state media is guessing about how Trump's appointees
will quote take America apart brick by brick, and this
justification for taking the chainsaw volcanic gasoline in the match
to the government is that the Justice Department dared to
notice all the Russians the team Trump was meeting with

(19:25):
saying that they love they're going to be helped with
stolen emails. And then they were convicted of lying about
their contacts with Russians and were later pardoned by Trump
and the Durham Investigation zero convictions on their investigation of
this Russia hoax. And you know, when you're dealing with

(19:49):
someone who has worships not being gracious and trying to
treat them graciously, they will just laugh in your face.
And you know it's like you asked one time, why
would if someone tell a lie? This is around the
pet eating time when everyone knows it's a lie. And
it's like the bully who says stop hitting yourself when
they grabbed the victim's hand and using it to hit

(20:10):
the person in the face. Bully knows it's a lie,
the victim knows it's a lie, the onlookers know it's
a lie. But it's just to be able to demonstrate
your power.

Speaker 11 (20:18):
It's all a lie.

Speaker 10 (20:19):
And if they can lie and say there was no
no Russia. That was just something we really need to
get revenged for. I think Biden should give a blanket
pardon to everyone on their enemies list. They can still
investigate anything they want, look for their delusions about some
sort of crime the government committed, like looking into a
national effort to get people to screen at school boards

(20:41):
and so people.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
So, Ryan, just to clarify before you don't hop to
the next call. You're saying, it's good for the goose,
is good for the gander.

Speaker 10 (20:50):
You can't trust this guy. He will go after everyone
he can. So yeah, pardon them all preemptively. I remember
my first protest I went to that chant was Vietnam
wounded me. Nixon needs no amnesty, and it was good
enough for Nixon, it's good enough for all the people.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
But would pardon all right? Well, that's certainly an opinion, Brian,
and I appreciate you sharing that with us today. Thanks
for calling it. Let's go to Kelly on the phone
line of four h two, five, five, eight eleven ten.
What's on your mind today? Kelly?

Speaker 12 (21:19):
All right, the pardons only go through twenty twenty four,
so in twenty twenty five at center is pulled up
in front of Congress, tab peanut, he can't plead the
fifth on who the ten percent to the big guy is.

Speaker 1 (21:39):
Yeah, but the pardon protect is it's like protects anything
that would have happened.

Speaker 11 (21:45):
Yeah, twenty four.

Speaker 12 (21:48):
That in twenty twenty five, if he's on the stand
and under oh, he can no longer claim the fifth Yeah,
because all the crimes he's been pardoned on, So he
cannot say I can't tell you who the big guy
is because that would incriminate me. Correct, and no longer applies.

Speaker 1 (22:06):
Correct. But at this at the same time, Kelly though,
like this would be a situation where you know he
is protecting and yeah, but he's also protected from twenty
fourteen through twenty twenty four with the idea that he.

Speaker 12 (22:21):
Protect is protecting correct, right, But he's not protected in
twenty twenty five, he's.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
Pretty he he no, you're right. If he committed a
if he made out.

Speaker 12 (22:31):
A mind wife, that then twenty twenty five he is
the permid to go and play a Congress to testifiers
to who the big guy is. That's getting ten percent.
He doesn't have the amendment to hide behind.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
Right, not testify, right, But what I'm saying, Kelly, is
that he can he can be. Correct, he can't be
he can't be prosecuted. But also I'm sure there's going
to be like another layer to that of investigating that
how much can be done if he is being forgiven
of anything that may have happened in that window. But

(23:07):
I think we're a couple of steps away from that.

Speaker 12 (23:08):
I'm not talking I'm not talking about charging him for
what he did prior to twenty twenty five. I'm talking
subpoena him in twenty.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
To get to Joe, is what you're saying. Yeah, okay,
all right, I got it.

Speaker 12 (23:21):
And then if he does not release the information, who
we're being contempt and that's when theother crime after twenty correct.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
And he's not protected by that, correct, He's not. He's
not protected of any crime he commits after what the
when the pardon was issued? Yeah, for sure, Kelly. Thanks
for calling in. That's an interesting perspective on that. Thanks
for being a part of our show.

Speaker 12 (23:41):
All right, thank you.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
Kenny's on the phone line for L two five five
eight eleven ten. What do you think, Kenny? What's going on?

Speaker 2 (23:47):
Emory?

Speaker 1 (23:48):
How are you doing today, Man, good, how are you.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
Great?

Speaker 3 (23:51):
So I have one quick question.

Speaker 5 (23:54):
Can a sitting president give himself a pardon?

Speaker 1 (23:58):
Great question? Okay, So I looked in this as well,
it's not been done because there hasn't been a president
that felt like they needed to part of themselves, I suppose,
and the courts also have never had to think about this.
So I was reading about this. If a president were
to do this, it certainly would then be tested in
the courts as if this is constitutional. The answer that

(24:20):
I have because I'm not a justice or a Supreme Court,
I have no idea. I have no earthly idea, and
I don't even think they know yet. But if he
were to do that preemptively, that would go to the courts,
I think at the highest level, and the Supreme Court
have to decide if that's a constitutional thing that he
can do. But the answer is, that's a thing that
nobody's really got a good answer for. Yet they would

(24:40):
have to wait for it to happen for them to
figure it out.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
Well, thank you for your time and thank you for
your show. Listen every day man.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
Thanks Kenny, it means a lot to us. Really appreciate that.
Let's real quick get to Jim on the phone line. Jim,
what's on your mind today?

Speaker 11 (24:56):
Hello, Emory. Yeah, well, okay, what I wanted to talk
about was the doctor Fauci. I hope he doesn't get
pardoned because they need to look under They need to
look at what all this stuff was behind that guy,
all the people that committed suicide during COVID, because he
had fradule people out there already, but with the mics

(25:17):
of CNN and doctor Fauci telling everybody how deadly everything was, well,
it's kind of he's.

Speaker 5 (25:25):
Got a lot of people.

Speaker 11 (25:27):
You know, there's a lot of a lot of fragile
people that probably committed suicide, but they we kind of
sweep that under the rug. So yeah, that's all.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
No, I agree, I appreciate it. Jim, Thanks for listening
to the show today. Yeah, and I don't disagree with
anything that he's saying there. I would love to if
there's going to be an investigation, it's the current incoming
administration that would be getting it done. I don't know
if that is a good use of resources, except for
the fact that we need to know what was known
by our government about you know, COVID nineteen post Donald

(25:56):
Trump because obviously Fauci and Trump were working together technically
for a while before Trump was out of office. But
it's an interesting thing that we'll be paying attention to.
We'll take more calls next on these Radio eleven tm
kfab