More Biden Pardons Coming

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yesterday, Catholics throughout the United States attended Mass for the
Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
This is an important feast day for Catholics in the
United States. The Blessed Virgin Mary, under her title of
the Immaculate Conception is actually the patron Saint of the

(00:22):
United States of America. A lot of different countries, regions, cities,
et cetera, have some saint designated as their patron saint,
and the Blessed the Blessed Virgin Mary under that title
is the patron Saint of the United States. And there's one.

(00:43):
And basically the thought of this is that Mary is
a kind of was foreshadowed in the Old Testament by
the Ark of the Covenant, that as the Ark of
the Covenant was the dwelling place for God among the
Jewish people, Mary became the dwelling place for her son Jesus,

(01:08):
and Catholics think a corollary of that is that Mary
was without sin, including from the first moment of her conception,
that she was freed from original sin, the inherited sin
of Adam and Eve that all of us receive. So
that is what that feece celebrates anyway. So because it's

(01:30):
kind of a significant feast day, kind of like you know,
like Christmas is. Christmas is not on a Sunday, but
it's during the week, and the church says, hey, this
is important enough, you should go to church. So a
bunch of us went to church, and most of us
Catholics who are observant of these sorts of things, we
all went to church yesterday. And there's one part of

(01:51):
the Catholic Mass, the prayer of the faithful, where we
ask God for particular things. We are praying sometimes it's
called the intercessions, and we're you know, asking for different
particular things. And in one of the intercessions, there was
a prayer at my parish, and I suspect that this

(02:15):
happened in parishes throughout the country. There was a prayer
for clemency for all persons on death row. Now, I
am amenable to the expression of the Church's teaching on
the death penalty as formulated by, for example, John Paul

(02:37):
the Second. I don't necessarily know that the death penalty
is a particularly helpful criminal justice tool nowadays. I you know,
obviously that's not a popular opinion among Conservatives, but neither
here nor there. I thought it was an odd intercession,

(02:58):
like particular on this day. Why where are we doing that?
And I subsequently learned that the Pope specifically called on
this for persons condemned to death in the United States.
He asked during his Angelus, I guess there was a
group of Catholics from the United States there. Often the

(03:22):
Pope will make a mid day address to the crowds
within Saint Peter's Square during this Catholic prayer called the Angelous,
and he'll pray the Angelus prayer and then make a
little speech, and pilgrims who are in Rome can then
see the Pope and it's cool. He prayed for those

(03:43):
condemned to death in the United States. And the bishops
of America are appealing to President Biden to commute the
death penalty sentence for forty people who are on death row.
There are people within the federal prison system who have
received a death sentence. Now, I obviously I am far

(04:12):
more concerned about the abortion issue. We're talking a million
people per year as opposed to a grand total of
forty people in the entire federal prison system who are
condemned to death. I'm not saying those cases aren't significant
or important, but it's a million innocent human beings as

(04:33):
opposed to forty condemned, forty convicted murderers. Presumably, Again, I'm
not saying I am supportive of the death penalty. I'm not.
I focus my energies where I focus them. Nonetheless, I
find it to be an interesting talking an interesting way

(04:57):
to talk about Joe Biden, to talk about Joe Biden,
and to talk about Catholicism among liberal Americans and the
liberal kind of especially Irish Catholic tradition. Now, this little

(05:17):
tradition that we've seen develop in America where Catholicism places
essentially no public obligations on at least in the way
that liberal Catholics see it. Catholicism places absolutely no obligations

(05:41):
on the public life of liberal Catholics. That is basically
how they view it. Catholicism is for liberal Catholics. And
I'm including, by the way, in this certain Catholics who
vote for Republicans, or certain Catholics who maybe are republic

(06:01):
there's a total I'll throw in, for example, Chris Christy.
There's this sense that Catholicism the practice of my Christian faith.
And in this case, because I'm on the Catholic side
of the street, I will talk about what's on my
side of the street. Evangelical listeners may maybe you will
find something analogous for your side of the street. Protestant

(06:24):
listeners may find something analogous for your side of the street.
Jewish listeners, you may find something analogous for your side
of the street. That Catholicism basically became for upwardly mobile Americans,

(06:44):
Boomer era Catholics, Catholics the age of Joe Biden, the
age of people up to twenty years younger than him,
this totally privatized thing where basically his commitment was, I
want to live exactly the way that other successful American

(07:13):
professionals in law, in medicine, in commerce. I want to
live the way they live. And if Catholicism fits into that, great,
those aspects of Catholicism that fit into that supertty duper.

(07:36):
If it's the Catholic Church's commitment to helping the poor,
sure great, I'll give money to you know, this charitable
entity that is focused on helping the poor. This is
not a knock, by the way, at Catholic charities. A
lot of Catholic charities organizations around the country do fine work.
Catholic Charities in the dioces of President does excellent work.

(07:58):
I have nothing but wonderful things to say about them,
but it's quite clear that they have a broader appeal
than say, my organization does Right to Life of Central California.
Why well, to say I support Right to Life of
Central California means hey, I am allowing my Catholic faith

(08:22):
to dictate to me that I must stay committed to
a cause of justice for marginalized people in a fashion
that is deeply unpopular or could be deeply unpopular with

(08:43):
a large segment of my peer group, that could cause
me to lose social status and social standings in the
eyes of broader society. No one gets that flack when
they donate to Catholic charities. And again, it's not throwing
shade at Catholic charities. The work they do is wonderful

(09:05):
and good and I encourage you. I encourage you. If
you're listening and you want to help poor people, needy people,
hungry people, people want clothes for their backs, I would
encourage you to give to Catholic charities. They do wonderful,
wonderful work here in Fresno, but it's undoubtedly the case
that that's an easier give. And Joe Biden as I

(09:27):
think typical of this posture of Catholicism where he refused
he has basically refused to allow his Catholic faith to
inform what he thinks, how he acts, how he does anything.

(09:47):
With regards to his public life as an America as
one of the most you know, one of the more
prominent American politicians in the history of the twentieth to
twenty first centuries, as someone who was a senator for
thirty six years, vice president for eight years, and a
one term president, I don't think his Catholicism has ever

(10:14):
meaningfully impacted his work. He could have been a Presbyterian,
he could have been a Lutheran, he could have been
an atheist. And I don't think any of the choices
he would have made for the political things he supports
or opposes, I don't think any of those things would
have changed. And I think the death penalty is a
classic example of this. I have felt challenged about what

(10:47):
would have been maybe my initial instincts on the death
penalty would be by the teaching of say John Paul
the Second, the teaching and example of John Paul the
Second Benedict the sixteenth. I think my initial instinct would
be yes, I think the death penalty is a legitimate tool.

(11:10):
And the great caution that postwar Catholic leaders had towards
the death penalty, I think was instructive. I think John Paul,
coming from you know, an iron country, behind the iron curtain,
and seeing the ways in which the death penalty was

(11:33):
utilized in capricious fashion, in such a capricious fashion, He's
got a perspective on the death penalty that maybe I
don't in America, and the conditions under which it should
be applied, which in John Paul the Seconds view were
far more limited than maybe what I would have initially thought.

(11:55):
And I have allowed my you know, as a Catholic,
I have allowed what my preconceived political notions are about
politics and in this case, criminal law, you know, law
a question with which I'm professionally interested, you know, you know,
I went to law school, I practice as an attorney.

(12:16):
I have thoughts about criminal law and criminal justice, and
I've allowed my Catholic faith to help shape and inform
what I think about the death penalty. You know, I
don't think I'm I'd say I'm one hundred percent in
everything I do trying to adhere to what the Church
authentically teaches about the death penalty. I don't think the

(12:41):
death penalty is an inherent an intrinsically immoral thing. I
just think the circumstances under which it's used are could
be fairly rare, and I don't know how helpful it
is within the context of modern Western states like the
United States of America. Now I have allowed myself to

(13:03):
I try to form my beliefs, my conscience on the
basis of what the Catholic Church teaches. Let's compare this
to Joe Biden. Though Joe Biden is a Democrat. Democrats
don't like the death penalty. They never have. It's been
a pretty consistent aspect of Democratic Party policy for going

(13:29):
back decades to not really support the death penalty. And
among liberal Catholics that was always the thing they would say, well, yeah, well,
you know, we're not really agreeing with the pope on abortion,
but we agree with him on the death penalty, you know,

(13:49):
as you know, as if that balances it out. You know,
the death penalty again, the death penalty that we have
forty total inmates condemned to execution within the federal prison system,
probably the total number throughout the entire United States of America.
I'm not sure what the number is. It is it

(14:11):
is dwarfed by the number of children aborted in one
day in America, completely dwarfed. It's a drop as compared
to a bucket. It's not even close. Now, it doesn't
mean that those individual lives aren't important, but let's get
some perspective here. Furthermore, abortion being killing of an innocent

(14:37):
is a different kind of thing from executing a convicted murderer,
where executing convicted murderer is not, I think in Catholic
teaching something that would be inherently wrong. It's just under
what conditions can you do it? Is it a very
limited set of circumstances when you can do it, or
is it just anyone who's been convicted of murder. I

(14:59):
think John Paul the second, again coming from the Communist experience,
having grown up in a country that was conquered by
the Nazis and then conquered by the Soviets, his perspective
on the death penalty is that this is not something
that's usually applied very fairly or evenly or justly. And
that's I think that's a very legitimate perspective. But here's

(15:23):
Joe Biden. Why did the American bishops even have to
ask him to commute the sentences of everyone on death row?
Gavin Newsom did that for California inmates easy. Gavin Newsom
just basically said, because this is part of the pardon
power that the president has over people, you know, being

(15:46):
accused or convicted of federal crimes. It's the same power
that a governor of a state has for people accused
or convicted for state crimes. Gavin Newsom has basically said,
as long as I am governor, I am commuting the
sentence of any person on California's death row so that

(16:08):
they're not executed because I don't believe in the death penalty.
Joe Biden, who opposed the death penalty pretty much his
whole public career, just has not done that for prisoners
in the federal system, the one area where even it
would be easy for him to have his Catholicism inform

(16:31):
his public work, and he hasn't done it. When we return,
he's pardoning Hunter, but not commuting the sentence of people
on death row. Next on the John Girardi Show, talking
about Joe Biden's Catholicism, Basically, the Pope has this appeal

(16:51):
out that President Biden would commute the death sentences for
the forty inmates on death row within the federal American
within the American federal prison system, there are forty men
who are I guess men, maybe some of our women,
who are condemned to death, and Pope Francis has asked

(17:15):
Joe Biden to commute their sentences. The fact that he
even asked to ask him is I think such a
damning testament to how anemic Joe Biden's Catholicism is. Here
is something where you some kind of a Catholic commitment.
And I wouldn't say that the Catholic tradition is unifical

(17:38):
about the death penalty being bad. I think modern Catholic
teaching has resulted in more concern and a narrowing of
the circumstances under which the death penalty can legitimately be
applied to such an extent that the popes have basically
just said, and especially after the experience of Soviet Communism
when the death penalty was applieddly, liberally, and unjustly, where

(18:03):
the popes have basically said, hey, we don't think the
death penalty is a useful thing, and we're totally okay
with Catholics, you know, agitating to abolish it. Basically, this
would be a thing where Joe Biden could very easily
allow Catholic teaching in some way, shape or form to

(18:27):
impact or effect how he has governed, how he has
lived out his public life. His life is a public official.
It would be easy. The Democrats don't like the death penalty.
He and he alone has the pardon power as the president.
You have the power every single all these forty men

(18:50):
who are on death row. With a snap of his fingers,
Joe Biden could pardon that. He could let them walk
out of jail tomorrow. But short of that, beyond, you know,
short of a full pardon, the president has the power
to commute a sentence. So if someone you know, this
is part of the president's pardon power and the pardon power,

(19:13):
give my little spiel on the pardon power. The pardon
power of the president is something that we kind of
inherited from the English unwritten Constitution and tradition that the
monarch of Great Britain has the ability to pardon people
for crimes. In fact, I actually read about Queen Victoria

(19:38):
who very often she was getting requests to pardon basically
men who found their wives in flagrante delicto with their
lovers and who in a moment of fury wound up
killing them and killing somebody killing their wives. And that
was very often the kind of per person who was

(20:00):
presented to Queen Victoria for a pardon, and Queen Victoria
eventually was like, no, I'm not going to do these anymore.
All these women are just getting killed, and yeah, what
they're doing is bad, but I don't want to give
people a free pass like that is also bad. But
it was interesting about how her views on how the
pardon power should or the circumstances under which shouldor shouldn't

(20:21):
be exercised. Anyway, in the American Constitution, this kind of
royal prerogative went to the president, and it goes to
the president over federal crimes. So if someone is suspected
of accused, of convicted of a federal crime, the president

(20:42):
has the power to pardon them. Short of a full pardon.
The president could also just commute someone's sentence. Someone's been
convicted and sentenced to forty years, the president can commute
the sentence to forty days to time sir, to twenty
years instead of forty years. And the president can commute

(21:06):
a death sentence to life imprisonment or to something less
than less than death, okay, to not the death penalty.
So Joe Biden has total complete power to absolve these people,

(21:27):
to just say all forty of these prisoners no death penalty,
and no subsequent president can remove that. It's not justiciable.
Congress can't reverse it, the courts can't reverse it. Literally,
Joe Biden can do this with a snap of his fingers.
And it's just a testament to this JFK. And it

(21:48):
started with JFK. JFK was running for president. A bunch
of American Protestants were like, still had some of this
old no nothing attitudes towards Catholics, still thought they were
a little weird o. JFK is gonna have a red
line to the Pope. And what JFK should have said was,
I'm a Catholic. My beliefs will inform how I govern

(22:12):
the principles of justice that I know through divine revelation
and through the authentic teaching of the Church. That will
be how I govern. If you like it, vote for me.
If you don't, that's fine. Instead, what he said was, well, no, no, no,
I'm you know, I'm going to do what's right for
the country first before I do what's correct, based on

(22:36):
what my religion tells me. If it's the national interest
over here and what my religion tells me, I'll do
it's in the national interest. As if for a Catholic
those two things could be it could possibly be opposed.
And from that small step came people like Mario Cuomo,
the governor of New York, who gave a speech at

(22:56):
Notre Dame in nineteen eighty four saying, well, I know
what my church teaches me about abortion, but I can't
impose that on everyone else. In the national interest dictates that.
You know that we're a pluralistic society and people should
be free to make their own choices. And yeah, I
know what my faith tells me over here. But and

(23:19):
this leads all the way to Joe Biden. Here's Joe Biden,
who even for something that would be totally popular among
Catholic among his fellow Democrats to commute the death sentence
for these people. He won't do it. Why because he
realizes it would be politically unpopular in general. Now maybe

(23:42):
he'll do it now. Maybe he'll do it now that
he's a lame duck, kind of like how he pardoned Hunter.
When we return, are there going to be more pardons? Oh? Yeah,
that's next. On the John Girardi Show, President Biden pardoned
his son Hunter. Who's next? A couple of new thoughts

(24:06):
things I've been reading from other people, hearing from other
people about the Hunter Biden pardon and who is likely
coming up next as far as pardons that the president
may very well issue. So there's two different stories. One

(24:29):
is other people in the Biden administration who might get pardons.
Two is other people in the Biden influence peddling scheme
who may get pardons. So let's start with other people
in the Biden influence peddling scheme. All right, Hunter got
pardoned about a week or how long was that? I

(24:51):
guess it was two Sundays ago. Hunter got pardoned two
Sundays ago. Why did he get pardoned in December I
had a friend who was asking me, what's going on?
Why is Hunter being pardoned so early? Is Joe gonna
step down to let Kamala be president for like a month?
I was like, He's not gonna let Kamala be president.

(25:11):
The reason why he pardoned Hunter so soon, relatively speaking,
is because Hunter was about to face a sentencing hearing
for one of his conviction slash believing guilty. So to
obviate the need for that, Biden's like, all right, well,
I'll just pardon him now. Then he doesn't have to
go through the sentencing hearing. But most of the time,

(25:36):
when presidents pardon people, they do it, you know, the
minute before they leave. They do it on you know,
on the morning of January twentieth. So the new president
takes the oath of office at noon on January twentieth.
So often the outgoing president will issue his pardons that morning,

(25:58):
you know, hours before he relinquishes his office. So there's
more Biden pardons coming, like, no question, no question that
there are whom will he pardon? So one thing to

(26:19):
think about with the Hunter pardon is the Fifth Amendment stuff,
All right, in America, we have a protection against being
forced to testify. Ordinarily, you have to testify if you're
subpoenaed in some kind of criminal matter or what have you.

(26:40):
But the one exception to this is your privilege under
the Fifth Amendment. You're being questioned, grand jury hauls you
in for questioning, for gathering evidence, you can say, well,

(27:01):
I'm invoking my Fifth Amendment rights against self incrimination. If
there's a chance that you could incriminate yourself, you may
simply invoke your Fifth Amendment rights, and then you don't
have to testify. You don't have to testify over that

(27:22):
area of concern. Hunter has now waived his ability to
do that because he's been pardoned. Hunter faces no criminal
jeopardy whatsoever for any and let's remember, Joe gave him

(27:43):
a really big, really broad, really sweeping pardon all the
stuff that Hunter's attorneys wanted in the sweetheart deal that
they tried to hatch with the federal prosecutors to give
Hunter this complete immunity bath for all the shenanigans he

(28:05):
was doing in Europe and China from twenty fourteen through
approximately twenty eighteen twenty nineteen, all the stuff he was
doing doing possible money laundering violations of the Farah, the
Foreign Agent Registration Act, anything that might have been bribery,

(28:28):
you know, et cetera, et cetera, his tax evasion, all
of it. Hunter has a clean slate. He's got it.
And the gun you know, and the gun thing clean slate,
newly sun life. Hunter faces no criminal jeopardy whatsoever. As
a result, he doesn't have a leg to stand on.
If they say, hey, Hunter, we the FBI under cash PTEL,

(28:52):
We're calling you in. We would like you to testify.
We are investigating Jim Biden, Joe Biden, Halle Biden, this Biden,
that Biden for possible criminal violations. And Hunter would say, oh,

(29:15):
I don't want to testify. Well, no, no, you've got
a grand jury subpoena. Well, I invoked my Fifth Amendment rights.
You can't self incriminate. Hunter cannot incriminate himself anymore because
he's been pardoned. He's been pardoned for anything he might
have done in that timeframe. That's how expansive the immunity
bath was that he got. He's clean, he's pure as

(29:39):
the wind driven snow. He is untouchable. As a result,
he can testify. He has to testify, and if he
lies under oath, then well, that's something he won't be
immune for from. If he lies under oath to a
grand jury, he's not immune. You know, Joe Biden can

(30:02):
pardon him for anything in the past, he can't pardon
him for anything he might do in the future. So
clearly Joe is concerned about all this stuff Hunter did. Otherwise,
there's no reason why he would have given Hunter such
a broad, expansive immunity bath. If he just said, I
pardon Hunter for his conviction for the tax thing that

(30:24):
he pled guilty to, or I pardon Hunter for the
tax stuff that he pled guilty to, and I pardon
Hunter for his gun charge conviction. If that was all
Joe had done, that would be one thing. But no,
Joe completely the parameters of his pardon were so broad

(30:44):
it's covering the entire Biden family influencing pedaling scheme, influence
pedaling scheme. So I think it would be insane to
just pardon Hunter. He probably has to pardon Jim, his brother,
and there may be other associates that he has to

(31:07):
pardon just to cover everyone's base, cover everyone's rear end.
Now I'm guessing he won't pardon himself this is. One
of the interesting things about the pardon power is that
it's it's outside parameters have not really been fully tested yet.

(31:30):
Can a president pardon him or herself unclear? It's never
been done. Does doesn't mean it can't be done. I mean,
obviously there's a kind of self serving element of it.
There's a way that it kind of, you know, makes
the president completely unaccountable for criminal law violations while he

(31:53):
is president, and then once he's out of office, he
can just kind of pardon himself for anything he ever
did that's a violation of federal law and just move
on with life. You know. Seems kind of dicey, kind
of undermines the system. Might be something the Supreme Court
would have to adjudicate. I don't know that he's going

(32:17):
to do that, but he's going to pardon enough people
to do a real cya. Now, when we return, I
want to talk about the discussions about pardons of other
Biden administration officials and how we're headed towards the downfall
of the Roman Republic. Next on the John Girardi Show,

(32:38):
Rome was governed by a republican system for hundreds of years,
and the Roman Republic its downfall that would sometimes called
the Roman Revolution was not a you know, single event,
kind of like the French Revolution that took you know,
a place over a couple of years. It was a
century long downward spile spiral from about one hundred and

(33:06):
thirty BC to thirty one BC the Battle of Actium,
when Octavian defeated mark Antony and Cleopatra and became the
undisputed master of the Roman world and established a new
form of governing the Roman Empire, making it an empire effectively,
which was called the principit, where he and he alone

(33:31):
was the chief man, the leading man of Rome, of
the entire Roman Empire, and wound up basically in his
one person governing the whole thing. One of the reasons
why the Roman Republic broke down. There were a host
of reasons why, but one of them was what we

(33:51):
might call today law fair. Julius Caesar crossed Octim slash
Augustus's great uncle, who would name Octavian as his heir.
Julius Caesar started the civil war that would ultimately result

(34:13):
in him being the master of the Roman world and
then being murdered. Why well, Julius Caesar had military command
in Gaul. His military command was running out. He was
being told to come back to Rome. He had this

(34:33):
awesome loyal army at his back, and he knew if
he came into Rome, if he left his military territory,
which was bordered by the Rubicon River sort of in
northern Italy, if he crossed the Rubicon River, he would

(34:54):
immediately need to put down his power. His military authority
was only for the regions of Gaul, Cicel Pine Gaul,
which was actually kind of northern Italy, and trans Alpine Gaul,
which is France, so that was the only place where
he was allowed to be leading armies. If he crossed
the Rubicon with his armies, he was in rebellion against
the Roman state. Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon in forty

(35:17):
nine BC. Why because he realized if he just followed,
if he obeyed orders and went back to Rome, he
would be hit with lawsuits that would result either in
his execution or his banishment from Rome. And the stakes
were raised basically because of decisions he had made when

(35:40):
he had been consul, and his political enemies were just
looking for some excuse to prosecute him because he was
gaining too much money. He was gaining too much power,
gaining too much influence. He had conquered all of France,
had amassed prodigious wealth and power. As a result, he
has these loyal armies at his back. They're trying to

(36:01):
undercut him. They want him to come back to Rome
so they can prosecute him and send him off into exile,
neutralize him as a political force. And he said, no,
I ain't gonna do it, and he crossed the Rubicon
with his armies, started the Civil War and would eventually
become the master of the Roman world for a cut
short period after Brutus Cassius and the other so called

(36:23):
liberators stabbed him to death. Well, lawfare was this huge
problem in Rome. The stakes were too high. Things people
did while they were in political office would result in
these sort of not really sort of. The Roman system
of lawfair was basically individual people could charge you with crimes.

(36:47):
It wasn't a prosecutor who would charge you. Individuals could
charge you with crimes. And the stakes were so high
you could be executed, you could be sent into exile.
And so you had these Roman power brokers, these Roman josunerals,
these Roman wealthy guys who are like I'd rather start
a revolutionary war than submit myself to that. The stakes

(37:08):
were so high. It seems as though the Biden administration
is looking at blanket pardons for tons and tons of
Biden officials basically to try to hold them immune for
all the abuses of power that they exercised while they
were in office. Discussions like this are happening within Biden
world with Biden completely absent according to the reporting, and

(37:35):
it kind of a stop. I mean, this is such
a bad thing to just ramp up the way that
Trump was prosecuted, and now for Democrats to say, basically, well,
we'll take law fair in this different direction to completely
hold immune anyone who did anything wrong. It's a dangerous
precedent that they're trying to set. That'll do it for

(37:57):
John Gerardy Show. See you next time on Power Talk.