More Biden Pardons Coming

is the patron Saint of the United States. And there's one. 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, 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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

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 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 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 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

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 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 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, 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 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. 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.

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 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 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 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 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.

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 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 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. 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 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.

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. 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 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 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

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,

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 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 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 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

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 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 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

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 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 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

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 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 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 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,

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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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

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 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 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

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 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 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 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. 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, 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, 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 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. 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,

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 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 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 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, 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,

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, 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 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 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 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 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 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. 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 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 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, 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 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 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 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 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 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

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

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 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 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

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. 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 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 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

John Gerardy Show. See you next time on Power Talk.