Michael Conway Why Biden should pardon Trump -- and we Democrats should want him to

[Bucky]

22. Here's a little background on Michael Conway

https://www.foley.com/en/people/c/conway-michael-m

Michael has been Peer Review Rated as AV® Preeminent™, the highest performance rating in Martindale-Hubbell's peer review rating system. He is a fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers and is listed in Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business (2008-2014). From 1991 to 2014, he has been selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America® in the field of first amendment law* and has been selected for inclusion in the Illinois Super Lawyers® lists (2005, 2007-2014). Only five percent of the lawyers in the state are named by Super Lawyers.*

For 38 years, he has focused his practice on media, commercial arbitrations, business disputes, corporate and federal tax litigation with a particular emphasis on emergency injunctive cases. More than 200 reported decisions in the federal and state court systems have involved civil cases in which he had primary litigation responsibility at the trial court or on appeal, including First Amendment, commercial, business tort, ERISA, RICO, airport environmental, and federal tax disputes

Tldr: big-business-friendly fatcat, specializes in making corporate malfeasance seem like exercising first amendment rights by Corporate-American-Citizens. Doesn't want to see Trump truly punished after all the favors he's done for corporate America


See this video of Conway being interviewed about his role in investigating Watergate. At 12:50 he describes himself as a mostly a political "moderate to conservative Democrat". Which is, of course, code for establishment big business from a very early age.


To be fair, he's arguing that prosecution Trump should be limited to state-level actions. As Mediaite summarizes:

https://www.mediaite.com/news/nbc-news-hot-take-watergate-lawyer-says-biden-should-pardon-trump-and-democrats-should-like-it/

The argument is, essentially, that a. Trump accepting a pardon would be an admission of guilt; b. Trump could still be prosecuted for state and local crimes; c. such a pardon would insulate Biden from the ugly whiff of political vendetta; and d. It would be a healing gesture that would mollify the 72 million or so people who voted for Trump “despite his misconduct (or the election results).”

The suggestion hasn’t gone over well with blue-check Twitter.

Avoiding political vendettas is good advice, actually. But excusing an alleged criminal from all federal prosecution prior to any evidence in a trial of fact is an offense to law and order.

I would not want Biden to nominate any special prosecutor tainted by a desire to "get even with" Trump. But you have to punish criminals for their crimes, and do so in the appropriate jurisdictions. Duh.