Rick Sanchez just said that Dubya pardoned Rove!

[ej510]

[bunnies]

1. Who is Rick Sanchez and how does he know?

:shrug:

[ej510]

2. He has a show on cnn 5 days a week at 12pt-3et.

[question everything]

22. An insufferable full of himself host of CNN

who gained notoriety by "volunteering" to be tasered, live, on TV and end up screaming in pain. Surprise, being tasered is painful. Duh..

[Rosco T.]

3. Since when can you pardon treason? n/m

[onenote]

16. what makes you think that you can't?

The point is moot in this case, since Rove wasn't pardoned. But there is nothing in the constitution that prevents a president from issuing a pardon that would cover someone who was charged with or even convicted of treason. The only limit on a president's constitutional pardon power is that he can't undo an impeachment with a pardon.

[ProSense]

4. For what? n/t

[Occam Bandage]

5. He didn't. He extended indefinite immunity to Rove, invoking executive privilege forever,

which is incredibly legally dubious. First, it's probably not legally binding, and secondly, Obama could probably overturn it anyway with another executive order.

[SteppingRazor]

10. Exactly. Rick Sanchez is just, well, kinda stupid.

I don't know if he knows the difference between what you said and "pardoning."

[4lbs]

11. Jonathan Turley said that a current President supercedes a former one on those matters

so President Obama can revoke that immunity with an executive order as mentioned.

[Occam Bandage]

14. Turley is kind of a tool from time to time, but I think he's right here. nt

[napi21]

6. Sort of. Feilding wrote a letter, which Shrub signed 2 days before

leaving office, that is claiming nobody from his admin ever has to testify anywhere because Shrub is claiming Executive Privilege imperpetuity!

Boy do I want to see THIS ONE go before the courts!

[janx]

13. I'm speechless. n/t

[LittleBlue]

7. Executive privilege has only by tradition been honored by subsequent presidents

Obama is under no requirement to honor this scumbag's executive orders.

[tekisui]

8. He must be talking about the letter from chimpy.

Michael Isikoff reported for Newsweek that while many of us were fomenting about Bush preemptively pardoning at-risk members of his administration, he and his lawyer Fred Fielding (White House Counsel) were concocting one last expansion of executive privilege. Four days before he left office, Mr. Bush authorized Fielding to write letters to Harriet Miers and Karl Rove giving them "absolute immunity" from Congressional inquiry and prosecution. Preemptively. In perpetuity. Absolute and irrevocable.

The letters set the stage for what is likely to be a highly contentious legal and political battle over an unresolved issue: whether a former president can assert "executive privilege" -- and therefore prevent his aides from testifying before Congress -- even after his term has expired.

These letters were delivered before Congress or any prosecutor had initiated action against Miers and Rove. Clearly Bush sought to inoculate Rove and Miers from all attempts to prosecute them for their actions during his administration. Only when John Conyers (Chairman, House Judiciary Committee) subpoenaed Mr. Rove did the letters come to light. Waving his letter in the air, Karl Rove refused to appear before the committee.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-latt/bush-punkd-us-again_b_162501.html

[AtomicKitten]

9. Rick needs his ass tased again. n/t

[whistle]

12. If that is in fact true, then the Chimperor really did set himself above the US Constitution

...and the law

[Freddie Stubbs]

18. What part of the Constitution would that have been a violation of?

:shrug:

[onenote]

15. Chimpy did not pardon rove.

I don't know what Sanchez said, but the situation is as follows:

Bush did not grant a presidential pardon to Rove.

Bush did issue a letter to Rove's attorney indicating that ROve's testimony before Congress would continue to be subject to "executive privilege" even after Bush left office. That is viewed by many legal scholars as a questionable proposition and that a departing president cannot tie the hands of a current president with respect to invoking, or waiving the invocation of, executive privilege.

[Freddie Stubbs]

17. Sounds like Sanchez is telling a dirty lie

[NatBurner]

19. another damned dirty sanchez

...lie

i'm cracking my own self up

[Phx_Dem]

20. Rick Sanchez is a moron who doesn't know what the fuck he's

talking about. Bush did, however, attempt to grant PERMANENT executive priveledge to Rove which has never ever been done before. Whether it will hold remains to be seen. The courts will have to decide.

Bush is a pig. And a fucking criminal who knows his crimes would be exposed if Rove testified truthfully.

[Holly_Hobby]

21. He said immunity, not pardon n/t

[ej510]

23. He said pardoned before a commercial break. I missed the segment because I went to radio shack to

get monster optical cable.