Hello! I was scrolling along until I saw an article about a Pardon in Texas. In the comment section people talked about how pardons are even still a thing and one User pointed out that they are totally easy to abuse. Like why can’t a governor hire a hitman to kill his political Opponents and then just pardon him? Would this be possible? Can a governor or let’s say the president just straight up do that?
Thank you all in advance!
Yes, probably. That being said, I see two immediate consequences to this.
Hiring a hitman is illegal, so the president could still be prosecuted for this. Assuming the House/Senate aren’t complete morons, they would impeach and convict the president.
Once the hitman is pardoned, he would lose his 5th amendment protection. If his testimony couldn’t be used to convict him, then the court could compel testimony against anyone involved. Which would make unraveling the conspiracy slightly easier.
Doesn’t the US hire thousands of hitmen with drones and call it the army? Or the CIA? The president can have someone killed no problem using the tools of the state.
Ordering the military to do something illegal is still illegal. The military has an obligation to not follow illegal orders.
That being said, if nobody enforces it, then it doesn’t matter what is illegal or legal.
The president is the head of the executive branch and the commander in chief of the army. Congress theoretically has to approve war declarations of the president, but they haven’t exercised that right in like a century. But the stuff the president does in the situation room is traditionally treated as above the law. Nobody is successfully suing the president over a drone strike killing their dad. Regardless of whether the average person agrees it was justified or not.
And the CIA is a whole other story. They can legitimately make anyone disappear and nobody will hold them accountable.
It’s not a question of the letter of the law. It’s a question of how it’s actually treated and enforced in practice.
There is even a case where the US used a drone to murder a US citizen abroad, extrajudicially. Apparently those “guaranteed rights” mean nothing when they don’t want them to.
But good luck convincing almost any Americans of this as the propaganda is strong and the populace idiotic.