1-21-25 - 6am - Biden Pardons On His Way Out

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good morning, goobers, Happy inauguration day.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
So, uh pardons?

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Huh preemptive pardons? Is that even legal? Apparently it's a thing.
I have a great day, everybody, Michael. President Biden doesn't
have preemptive part in power, does he.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Well, we're going to discuss that. We're going to discuss
a lot of things today. So let's just let's back
up and let's just think think about Let's do a
little overview, if we will. Let's just do one of
our kind of Okay, where are we? The world dramatically

(00:43):
changed in ways yesterday that we don't fully yet understand,
and most of those changes, I emphasize most of those
changes that we don't yet understand are really good changes.
And I think we saw the difference between uh, the
old guard and the new guard, the elites versus, which

(01:07):
I find fascinatause think about this. I think we saw
the difference between a country that is governed by the elites.
At the same time that we saw on the inaugural
stand for lack of a better term, that that riser
inside the rotunda. We saw a lot of the elites

(01:27):
that were on that stand. Yet I think they were
there and in a in a very in a very
odd way. They were there, not because they're oligarchs, which
I suppose in some ways you you could call them
oligarchs because they have a lot of sway over public policy,

(01:51):
they have a lot more access than the average person,
and of course they're wealthy beyond anybody's wildest dreams. Yet
they also are responsible, I mean all of them with
I mean Bill Gates wasn't sitting up there, but Google,
Apple obviously a long musk. Who am I leaving out there? Was?

(02:15):
I think Larry Ellison was up there anyway, This all
these tech giants whom whom have or their predecessors thinking
Tim Cook versus Steve Jobs, have absolutely changed everything about
how we do business, how we go about our lives,
how we communicate with each other, how they have spur.

(02:38):
They have spurred all sorts of innovation, and in so
doing have created all of these peripheral businesses that have
expanded the economy, grown the economy, you know, created other jobs.
And as people often like to say, I never got
a job from a poor person. You get jobs from entrepreneurs.

(03:02):
People willing to put their own you know, life savings,
mortgage of the house max out their credit cards, do
whatever they need to do to start a company, to
take that risk, to put their capital at risk, to
put their assets at risk, or someone who has taken
a company and they have expanded beyond people's wildest dreams,

(03:23):
and in so doing have spurred all of these different,
you know, offshoots that they themselves have created jobs. So
people have I heard it. I heard from some friends
I saw on X I saw other places people talking
about why are they all up there? Well, because in
many ways they represent this new world economy, and I
don't mean a global economy, but this whole new economy

(03:46):
that is pervasive all over the world of a still manufacturing,
but not kind of the old manufacturing, but still manufacturing, innovation, technology, information,
all of the things that now make the world go around.
And you saw sitting there as Trump, you know all

(04:12):
I can think about. You know, I've told you before
that when I'm watching a movie, I know where the
camera wants my eye to go, and so when my
eye sees what the camera wants me to see, I
then start looking around to look at the other things. Well,
I did that yesterday as I watched Trump give his speech,
and I thought to myself, Wow, this is as I

(04:34):
would listen to Trump, but watch the people to it
would be to Trump's left, you know, my old boss
is sitting there, Bill Clinton's sitting there, Barack Obama's sitting there.
Obviously Biden and Kamala are sitting there, and Trump is
just basically saying to all of them, your time is

(04:56):
coming gone. And even though I may be as old
as many of you, the guy to my right, who's
the next Vice president of the United States, is a millennial.
And I am truly being a transitional president because I
cannot run again. I can decide that I want to,

(05:18):
but the constitution forbids me from doing so. So I
am passing the torch on and I've got these And
while some of the tech giants behind them may be older,
people like Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are not that old.

(05:38):
And so it was a absolute repudiation as they sat there,
Trump delivering a repudiation that was directed at everything that
they had done for the past four years. And it

(05:59):
wasn't just in general terms. It was in very specific terms, like,
you know, we're going to try to reverse as much,
if not all, of the inflation reduction act. I'm declaring
a national energy emergency. I'm declaring an emergency on the border,
and we're going to do X, Y and Z. So

(06:19):
it was in terms of the pomp and circumstance, it
was still there, but it was kind of subdued in
my opinion, and it was subdued. And I, you know,
I woke up this morning and I turned on the
TV again because I wanted to, you know, I still
wanted to see what was being said this morning. And
it was interesting that on KADIVR they interviewed a couple

(06:39):
of women who had, you know, made the track to
d C. But because of the change of then you
from outside the inside, they were simultaneously upset that they
couldn't be there, but we're still happy to have found
a coffee shop or a Starbucks or something. And so

(07:00):
they huddled out of the cold and they watched everything
on their phones, which when you stop and you think
about just that, how fascinating that is that they make
the track hoping to get a glimpse of the Commander
in chief himself, to see or be a part of,
you know, whatever venue they can get in. They can't

(07:21):
get into anything, yet they're still able to be geographically
physically close to those events but still watch it on
something that those people sitting behind the president that everyone
calls an oligar, Can's upset about enabled them to do.
So you can besmirch them all you want to. Yet

(07:44):
they make so many things that we're able to do
today possible. They would we would not have otherwise been
able to do, like literally watch television on your telephone,
your phone. I guess we don't really call them on
a telephone anymore, do we, because nobody talks on the
just use them for other things. And then they I forget.
There was some state representative and George Brockler and somebody

(08:07):
else was there, and they had hoped to get in.
They had tickets to, you know, to the mall, but they,
you know, they couldn't go anywhere. So they two went
to a coffee shop and they watched everything on a television.
So so so I guess, as inaugurations go, it was
a less dramatic occasion than normal, But in terms of

(08:29):
the dramatic shift in policies, particularly of the presidency, it
was perhaps a greater a more dramatic shift in terms
of just pure transfer of power. This ever existed in
the modern era. And then on his way out the door,

(08:53):
you know, I told, I told Dragon that I the
decision to pardon Fauci Millie, the j sixth Committee, and
members of his family, some of whom I have to
honestly go, who's that right? There was some there was
some woman on there that I had to look up,
like who are you? So I think what he did

(09:17):
was he had already made the decision to do that,
but being the slag ball that he is, Biden, you know,
had some mail of staff draw up the pardons, He
signed them. Then they stuck them in, you know, in
a Manila envelope somewhere. They probably didn't even tell. I mean,
I maybe they did. Maybe they didn't tell. I don't
really care. But then they waited until Trump was giving

(09:41):
or had given his speech before they made those pardons
actually public. When you when you think, let's see, who
did he see? James Biden, Francis Biden, uh, Valerie Biden Owens,
John Owens, John John Owens, Who the hell is that?
I mean, obviously that's that's and the Valerie Biden Owens.

(10:01):
But who is he? What does he do? Sarah Biden?
The January sixth committees, and the staff of the January
sixth committees, and then of course doctor Fauci and General Milly.
Now all those formers had always kind of been discussed
out in the open, but Fauci and Milly, I think

(10:22):
came as a surprise, especially, and we'll get into this
in a minute, that the Supreme Court found over I
shouldn't say found, but the Supreme Court indicta more than
a century ago, determined that a pardon carries an imputation
of guilt, and accepting the pardon represents an admission of guilt.

(10:43):
And we'll discuss the kind of the details of that
in a minute. But think about this, that Tony Fauci
and Mark Milly were scared enough of the ramifications that
they they must have been lobbying for those pardons, because
did the president just decide on his own? But then

(11:05):
they accepted the pardons. I think that's a pretty bad
sign about what they maybe have not told us. Now
we already know a great deal about their activity. That
stink that that really is bad, I mean real bad.
General Millie and you know, informing the Chinese Communist Party,

(11:28):
his counterparts in the Chinese Communist Party about decisions that
the commander in chief here may have been making so
they could have a heads up. Really, I mean, pretty bad,
pretty pretty bad. I don't think I have to say
anything about doctor Fauci. We all know what he was

(11:49):
engaged in. I heard this morning that they were having
you know, that sipid uh, insipid Fox and Friends show
this morning, like like all morning shows are. I think
should be careful when I say all morning shows. God,
I guess technically we're a morning show, aren't we dragging? Yes? Yeah,

(12:12):
I guess we're included. So not all morning shows are insipid,
but those television morning shows are all insipid. They were
having kind of a I thought, kind of an interesting
debate that kind of just spontaneously combusted that now we
don't have to talk about that anymore all, but I
think we do. I think we do because I think

(12:35):
those pardons excuse me, should actually embolden Ran Paul, Jim
Jordan and the others to go full bore after those figures.
What did you do? I mean, if we're going to
have this new era of accountability and transparency, then you know,

(12:56):
Congress can walk in shough gum at the same time.
So Rand Paul and Jim Jordan ought to take their
investigative committees, and they really ought to, you know, because now,
assuming that they have technically accepted the pardons, that does
not preclude either Fauci or Milli being subjected to a subpoena.

(13:18):
And since they no longer suffer any legal consequences by
what they may say, they cannot invokee the Fifth Amendment
because they can't say anything about what they may be
investigating and could incriminate them because these pardons cover anything
that they may have done for that ten year period.
So unless they commit a new crime since the pardons

(13:39):
were issued, any crime that they committed during the time
period of those pardons is now fair game for investigation,
and they can be forced to compel their testimony, and
we only get their testimony. They simply can't take the
Fifth Amendment given this imputed emission of wrongdoing, and of

(14:03):
course lying under oath as a future act wouldn't be
covered by a pardon because that would be a crime
that would occur post pardon. Yet, their fear of what
oversight might find and that a new administration might turn
up about their communications, particularly with foreign powers apparently compels

(14:28):
them to this just utterly humiliating in and for Donald Trump,
his focus yesterday was, I mean, a total palette, if
you will, of executive orders which will set this administration
on a definitive path, particularly as it relates to and

(14:50):
I want you to think about this. People focus on
the southern border, but it's not just the southern border,
but it's also our relationship with Mexico, the cartels, which
essentially control Mexico. Designating them as terror groups. I don't
even know why there's a debate about that they're a

(15:11):
non state actor, except I could probably make a case
that they in many of the states of Mexico, they
indeed are state actors because they essentially control those states.
So I think that's a pretty good sign given that
the last time around with Donald Trump, kind of the

(15:33):
slow moving policy shifts that allowed Trump's opposition to coalesce
and organize their pushback. And I think that's one of
the lessons learned from the last time around. When you
know what you want to do and you have the
buy in of your political allys allies, then move quickly.
Don't waste time, keep moving, move forward. And for example,

(15:57):
Trump's supposed to meet with leaders of the House and
Senate Republicans today, and that gets my last point, and
that is, don't waste any time. But having said all
of that, as Dragon costioned you last week, sometime don't
get too excited. Change is going to happen overnight, and

(16:21):
the lawyers are going to have a heyday because the
executive orders will be challenged directly and sometimes not just
by the left. Trump's decision to end birthright citizenship via
an executive order, I think will result in immediate legal pushback.
Though that's a fight that will draw a lot of attention,

(16:43):
and Trump will probably relish the attention because it will
bring forth an issue that quite frankly, I think we
ought to have a debate, a debate about now. I
think that this particular Supreme Court probably sixty three. I
do believe sixty three that when you look at the
Civil War amendments and the historical context in which those

(17:05):
were amended, which membersils were adopted, that they do not
grant birthright citizenship. They had to do with slavery and
those who may have been brought here forcefully but were
within the jurisdiction of the United States, not those who

(17:25):
broke the law to get here and happen to be
here and then give birth to somebody an entirely different situation.
And I think those legal battles will be worthwhile, and
I welcome those legal battles. And then some of the
other stuff, I think it's just silly, silly. I get

(17:49):
the there is, for example, renaming Mount Denali front to
Mount McKinley. I think that has some historical significance, and
I think there's a little irony in there. You know,
McKinley was assassinated. You do remember that, right, Or changing
the Golf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. You know,

(18:12):
I just really don't care. It doesn't make any difference
to me. But I guess saying, you know, I'm happy
that the age of Republican isolationism is over and the
age of Republican imperialism is back. Maybe that's a good thing.
Maybe it's not. We'll see. We'll see if renaming things
keeps people satisfied when he starts making demands of Ukraine

(18:33):
or seeking ways to keep TikTok alive, even maybe with
partial CCP ownership. Despite a bipartisan congressional law forcing divestiture.
Oh yeah, there's a lot of stuff here to talk about.

Speaker 3 (18:48):
So Biden went ahead and preemptively pardoned several people. But
does that preclude a trial anyway? Shouldn't we have a
trial to expose them even though they're not going to
be prosecuted. We can still investigate them and expose what

(19:09):
has happened to the world, can't we.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
Well, that's what I just said. There's nothing to preclude
a congressional investigation. But you cannot try them, even as
you seem to imply in absentia, because it's a fool's
errand to try someone for whom you cannot convict. So

(19:36):
for the time period which I don't know definitively, but
everything I've heard, I've not actually seen the pardons for
Millie and Falci, but I have heard that they are
the same as for the family, and they go back
ten years, they go back to twenty fourteen. So let

(20:02):
me go to a text message, because here's where I
think we need to be very clear about these pardons.
Goubman number sixty four seven seven, Mike, is a pre
empty pardon really legal? If one is given, then that
gives you the right to go out and commit a
crime and not be prosecuted. No, that's not true. A

(20:24):
prempty pardon says. Now, first let's establish a baseline, and
the baseline is that the presidential pardon only applies to
offenses against the United States. So what does that mean.
That means for only federal crimes can the president pardon someone.

(20:45):
So you, in essence, to make it kind of in
Layman's terms, you have to violate in some portion of
Title eighteen, which is the United States Criminal Code. So
if they've committed a state crime. You know, for example,
most murders are state crimes. I mean, you can't there
is a federal murder statute, but there is a predominant

(21:08):
you know, murders are predominantly prosecuted at the state level,
and there are no statute limitations on a state murder.
So if Fauci or Melly were to have been found
to be or to be accused of murdering a spouse
or murdering you know, a colleague, or murdering a random

(21:29):
person in you know, if Mellie lives in Virginia, Fauci
lives in d C. Then those state level actions. Now
that raises a question in d C. I think DC
would still have a district murder charge as opposed to
a federal charge. But because they do have a district court,

(21:52):
those could still be charged. But for anything they did
that's a violation of Title eighteen, the federal statute. They're
pardoned from those. Now we can make a safe assumption
that neither Fauci. Well, I can't say it about Fauci,
because perhaps Fauci did murder people, but certainly that General

(22:13):
Milly did not. Well, maybe he did in combat, but
again that's in combat. My point about Fauci and a
Milli is that they have been pardoned for any offenses
against the United States. So when Gouber number six four
seven seven says, if one is given a pardon, then

(22:35):
that gives you the right to go out and commit
a crime. No, it does not give you the right
to go out and commit a crime. If Fauci goes
out and commits a crime state or federal past January twentieth,
then he can be charged, tried, and convicted for that crime,

(22:57):
as can General Milly. It's only for crimes or offenses
against the United States in that time period for which
they have been pardoned. Then the tax goes on to say,
if you have a pre empty pardon, can you go
out and murder somebody and not be prosecuted? That makes
it legal. No, it does not. The pardon is only

(23:21):
for offenses committed during that time period or and right
now we're talking about pre empty pardons, because we're talking
about a prempty pardon for Millie and Fauci that is
prempty for anything that they may have done during that
time period that is an offense against the United States.

(23:44):
That's the same with the Biden family pre empty pardons.
It's the same thing with the pardon for Hunter Biden.
Hunter Biden's charged with tax evasion and with a firearms violation,
both of which are federal offenses. And for the firearms offense,
have you been found guilty of that one or the

(24:05):
tax or maybe both of them, but one or both.
But he's been pardoned for both of those offenses and
for any other for any other federal offenses that he
committed between January one of twenty fourteen and whatever the
date of his pardon was. These prempty pardons for the

(24:31):
other family members implies and what will give you the
details of this in just a second. But the prempty
pardons for the other family members for that period of
time from January one to twenty fourteen to January twenty
of twenty twenty five, or whatever the date was on it.
I think it was January twenty. Those pardons are again

(24:55):
and let's think about rather than just broadly think about
any federal offenses, which it does apply to. But that's
what it does do. Why would you do that, Well,
you would do that because you think as the President
does now. He puts it in terms of he doesn't

(25:16):
want a weaponization of the Department of Justice, and he
doesn't want done to his family what he Joe Biden
and Merrick Garland did to a lot of people, including
Donald Trump and the January sixth rioters and people like
Rudy Giuliani. He doesn't want done to his family what

(25:39):
he himself did to those people, and so he issues
these prempty pardons. Well, what is it that they could
have done? Oh, maybe they gain they engaged in an
illegal scheme of influenced pedling, in which you know, the
President himself did not did not pardon himself. But I'm

(26:04):
not sure that he needs to under the Supreme Court's
decision regarding presidential immunity unless what he did was outside immunity.
But let's be realistic. Nobody's going to charge Joe Biden.
Donald Trump's Attorney General, Pam Bondy, She's not going to

(26:26):
go after Joe Biden. Nobody's going to go after Joe Biden.
The House and the Senator are not going to go
after Joe Biden, and in fact, I would encourage them
not to. Now that may piss you off, but much
like Gerald Ford, pardon Richard Nixon, our short national nightmare

(26:47):
of Joe Biden well long and in terms of his
career is now over. So let the old fart go.
He was found incapable of standing trial for the classified
documents problems, So what makes us think he's going to
be able to stand trial for an impeachment. Well, he
can't be impeached anyway because he's no longer president, so

(27:09):
you can't impeach him. And if you do, if you
do find that he engaged in illegal influence pedling, what's
that going to accomplish if you charge him, because he's
going to raise presidential immunity and that's going to take forever.
And I don't want to waste time on that I
want to waste time effixing the problems that he created.
But in so far as his family is concerned, and

(27:32):
insofar as he and his family may have engaged in
improper or illegal influence pedling to such a degree that
it might be actually be a reco violation, then yes,
I think that there ought to be some congressional investigations
and they ought to, you know, subpoena them ear lyst

(27:52):
subpoena records and try to find out just what were
they what were they doing? And the reason I want
that is because the sunshine on that is a great disinfectant.
The sunshine to shed the light on what the Biden
crime family syndicate was doing for the past ten, fifteen

(28:13):
or maybe the entire fifty years of his career. What
they were doing is something I want to know about. Now.
Do I want Congress to be bogged down solely in that. No,
And that's what I mean by Congress can walk and
shoe gum at the same time. You can put together
whether it's with you know, Ran Paul of Kentucky and

(28:36):
whoever you want to go after Jim Jordan, to go
after the Biden family, that's fine. They can, you know,
conduct their investigations while they continue to do their other
jobs too. Bord knows they got enough staff. Everybody's been
ordered back to work, so put them to work. Make
them work. But let's think about those pardons themselves. I

(28:59):
don't want to go into the great details, but if
you want to read it yourself, that the case that
everyone cites about these preempty pardons and the acceptance of
a pardon and a pardon being in the mission of
guilt is a case called Berdick b u R. Dick
Erdick the United States. It's at two thirty six US,

(29:20):
page seventy nine. It's a nineteen fifteen case involving the
New York Tribune, the New York I forget the name
of the newspaper, but involves the publisher of the newspaper
and information that he had about a story they published
about somebody and whether or not, and I think it
was Woodrow Wilson that was issuing the pardon, whether or

(29:42):
not that pardon took any effect. Well, let me just
give you a broad overview about the confession clause, and
that accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt, a
you know, a presidential pardon carries more weight than just,

(30:03):
you know, just the piece of paper. It functions two things.
It's it's a it's a legal absolution. It takes a
it you've been convicted, but even though you've been and

(30:23):
I'm not talking about preemptyve I'm talking about an actual
pardon for an offense like the January six ers. It
provides legal absolution. It wipes your record clean in the
sense that it's a fullest. It's it's restorative. It restores
all of your civil rights. It's as if you've never

(30:44):
been charged. And it acts that way, and it acts
as a tacit moral statement. Now in dicta, in dictamines
just in the discussion of the case. In the verdict
the United States case, accepting a pardon quote carries an

(31:04):
imputation of guilt and acceptance of a confession of it
meaning of the crime. So that's precedent. It's indicted, but
nonetheless it's precedent, and dicta can be used to frame
what people think currently about a particular legal situation. We'll

(31:28):
discuss more of that next.

Speaker 1 (31:30):
Good Morning Dune, Good morning gloom. I hope you guys
had a great day. It's a glorious minus nine degrees
here in the goos To spring this morning. I woke
up this morning and some strange feeling came over me,
as if I have been unburdened by what has been.

(31:51):
Y'all have a great day, and that goes for all
the awesome goobers out there too.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
That's pretty damn However, Gouble number sixty two eighty eight rights,
I hate say it, but let's not waste any more
time and money on these idiots. Haven't they done enough
to ruin this country as long as the rules work
both ways? Well no, because Gouba number sixty six twenty

(32:21):
one rights, Mike Trump should pardon all of his family preemptively.
The president has been set. No, no, no, no, no,
no no no, that's the problem. Yes, the president has
been set. Now stop it, don't do it, do not

(32:44):
do it. And the reason not to do it is
pretty clear. The residents set in berdic the United States

(33:04):
leaves no room for ambiguity. Accepting a pardon implies guilt ingranting, clemency,
clemency to Faucian Millie, Liz Cheney, Adam Gonzinger, members of
his own family. President Biden has not merely absolved those
individuals of potential legal consequences, but has also implicitly endorsed

(33:27):
their guilt. Each of those recipients' failure to reject the
pardon confirms this moral and legal reality. If a pardon
is both an absolution and an imputation of guilt, then
Biden's actions signaled a disturbing willingness to trade accountability for

(33:51):
political convenience, and in so doing, the Biden administration underscored
the fragility of justice in an age when its greatest
threat may come from within. So stop it.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
Move on.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
Doesn't mean that you shouldn't investigate and find out if indeed,
I mean if you want to wait and just let
the historians find out. If you want to wait and
let a Seymour Hirsh, for example, you know, write a
book about what the Biden crime family did, then that's fine.
But do you want to wait on them or do

(34:36):
you want to find out now? Because I'm afraid if
we wait until then that nobody will care. The you know,
us old boomers, will you know, be moving on? And
whoever is behind our shoulders looking over my shoulder, whoever's
back there, maybe won't care. But I do care, and

(34:59):
I I care deeply about the concept of justice in
this country, and so I do think it's worth studying
and understanding exactly what has happened here. Take Liz Cheney
and Adam Kinsinger. You know, they stood themselves up as
these paragons of integrity during that stupid January sixth investigation,

(35:24):
But their methods the process witness tampering, obstruction of justice,
destroying evidence that reveals a really dark narrative. A pardon
granted to those y'all who cannot undo the damage that
their actions inflicted on public trust and the credibility of

(35:45):
our institutions. In the conservative imagination, their acceptance of pardons
is tantamount to an emission that their moral crusades were
built on the quicksand of procedural malfeasans and political vindictives.
Let's get away fit. If you want political and vindictiveness,

(36:05):
you know what that is winning, And that's what we did.
We won, and Trump wasted no time, no time overturning
and think about the January six ers. Now, I don't know,
And during the break I tried to see if I
can find any new sources, and I have yet to

(36:26):
find any new sources and quite frankly, I just I
gave up last night because they're just too tired. But
when it comes to the January sixth defendants, CNN is
already out there claiming that, you know, even people that
committed you know, violence. No, I don't know what they
mean by that, but you know, people who assaulted cops.
I'm not really sure they should have been pardoned. But

(36:47):
have they or they just had their sentences commuted. If
they just had their sentences commuted, I'm okay with that.
Why because justice was still served. They were convicted, found guilty,