Esquire Allegation that President Bush Sr. Pardoned His Son Neil Bush

[UPDATE 12/4/2024 10:55 am: Esquire revised the post [UPDATE: see here for the revised version]; I hope to blog a bit more about that later today, but for now I just wanted to flag that.] [UPDATE 12/4/2024 5:32 pm: Esquire has now deleted the post altogether, so I don't anticipate blogging about the revised version.]

Esquire posted an item Dec. 3 titled "A President Shouldn't Pardon His Son? Hello, Anybody Remember Neil Bush?" and subtitled "Nobody defines Poppy Bush's presidency by the fact that he pardoned his progeny. The moral: Shut the fck up about Hunter Biden, please." It relates some of Neil Bush's exploits, and states:

[T]his lucky American businessman['s] … father exercised his unlimited constitutional power of clemency to pardon the Lucky American Businessman for all that S&L business way back when. The president's name was George H.W. Bush. The Lucky American Businessman was his son, Neil ….

However, as others have noted (and see also some of the comments to the article), the Justice Department pardon and clemency site doesn't appear to have any record of any pardon to Neil Bush: I've checked the name search function, the Bush Sr. pardon list, and the Bush Sr. commutations list. A 2003 Washington Post article that describes Neil Bush as "the latest manifestation of a long tradition in American life—the president's embarrassing relative" doesn't mention any pardon or clemency, or even any conviction. It says,

In the late '80s and early '90s, Bush embarrassed his father, George H.W. Bush, with his shady dealings as a board member of the infamous Silverado Savings and Loan, whose collapse cost taxpayers $1 billion.

Now Bush has embarrassed his brother George W. Bush with a made-for-the-tabloids divorce that featured paternity rumors, a defamation suit and, believe it or not, allegations of voodoo.

But nothing about a criminal conviction (though he had to pay $50,000 to settle a civil lawsuit filed by federal regulators) or a pardon or commutation. I searched for news stories that mentioned Neil Bush and a pardon or commutation, and found several stories (e.g., this one) that mentioned both Neil Bush being an embarrassment and Roger Clinton being pardoned. If there had been a Neil Bush pardon as well, one would expect them to have noted it, but they didn't.

I did find an assertion about a Neil Bush pardon on Dec. 2 on an Indian site Times Now News, but that has no support for the assertion, either. I also found a 2006 Lansing State Journal article that discussed Dick Cheney's accidental shooting of a hunting buddy, and added, "What if Harry Whittington dies? Ten to one, President Bush has a 'pardon' waiting in the wings (a la Neil Bush of 1980s savings-and-loan fame), which says, if you're my man, accountability is not an option." But there too there were no details of any such pardon.

Is there some evidence of Neil Bush being pardoned that I'm missing?

Comments

[F.D. Wolf]

I'm shocked, given the high journalistic standards one usually associates with Esquire. (The real buried lede here is that Esquire apparently still exists.)

[Dr. Ed 2]

I think that the first question is if Neil ever faced criminal charges, and wouldn't his having paid a civil fine have precluded that?

[Michael Ejercito]

It does not seem that a pardon immunizes someone from a lawsuit alleging damages from the underlying alleged conduct, e.g., a pardon for murder does not seem to obviate a wrongful death lawsuit.

[David Nieporent]

and wouldn't his having paid a civil fine have precluded that?

No. Why on earth would it have?

[not guilty]

"I think that the first question is if Neil ever faced criminal charges, and wouldn't his having paid a civil fine have precluded that?"

Not having been charged criminally is not an impediment to a presidential pardon, as President Ford's pardon of Prick Nixon illustrated. And a civil fine or forfeiture does not preclude criminal prosecution. See, United States v. Ursery, 518 U.S. 267 (1996).

[Jerry B.]

I dropped Esquire when they got all woke and dropped their "Women We Love" feature.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

ChatGPT says Neil got a pardon from his dad.

It says Bush also pardoned Haywood Jablome.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Just kidding, even Chat GPT denies Neil got pardoned.

[Drewski]

I can make it go either way. ChatGPT is extremely sensitive to phrasing.

[Stephen Goldstein]

I've found it useful to ask follow-up questions which has resulted, occasionally, with ChatGPT conceding that its original assertion was incorrect.

On one such occasion, thinking of the experience of others as reported here and on other sites, I asked if it would "remember" this correction. "No," it explained, each conversation is independent of every other; there is no feedback to the "knowledge base."

Surprised? I was.

Think of the examples of citations to non-existent cases that have been reported here. This lack of feedback, as I understand it, means that if one calls ChatGPT's attention to the error, a later conversation with another user could have ChatGPT suffering the same "hallucination."

[Archibald Tuttle]

I found that the simple follow-up "are you sure?" often provokes a different answer from ChatGPT.

I heard that there is a way that you can apply standard prompts to all your GPT queries, but I can't find how to do it. "Are you sure?" would be a good thing to add to any query. Another good one is, "analyze your reply one step at a time."

[Voize of Reazon]

Is there any reason to trust the accuracy of ChatGPT's confession of error than there was to trust its initial answer?

This is a paraphrase of a conversation I had with it this morning:
Me: Did G H W Bush pardon his son Neil?
ChatGPT: No, he did not.
Me: Are you sure?
ChatGPT: Yes, I am sure. He didn't pardon his son Neil.
Me: Are you really sure?
ChatGPT: I apologize for any confusion in my previous responses. Upon further review, there is indeed a specific case in which George H.W. Bush granted a pardon to his son, Neil Bush.

[Riva]

I wonder, was the fantasy Bush pardon oddly overbroad and did it extend back 11 years?

[AmosArch]

I've never seen either side Republican or Democrat go so fast and so hard on the whataboutism defense before. They're machine gunning whataboutisms out so fast and so desperately even the supposedly professional institutional level ones among them can't even bother to do a 10 second google check on them before they embarrass themselves..

[Randal]

I think we've taken a cue from the winner of the election and decided that just making stuff up is fine now. No one cares.

[Michael W. Towns]

Hardy har har! You so funny! Original too!

[Randal]

I'm serious. I mean, why not? We're not very good at it yet, but we'll get better.

Did you know that the reason Trump is into crypto now, and even has his own coin, is that Musk has worked out how they can embezzle from the Treasury totally untraceably? They just need to get the US Government into crypto first. Musk and Vivek have already drawn up a plan within DOGE as part of IRS "efficiency" measures to allow tax payments in bitcoin, ethereum, and dogecoin.

That's why Trump put Vivek and Musk on DOGE in the first place. Didn't you ever wonder, why does it need two people? Well, Vivek's experience with asset and hedge fund management gives him the access and knowledge for moving large amounts of money around Wall Street. He's the money launderer, essentially.

And Musk has been working out the crypto embezzlement techniques within StarLink, which already accepts crypto payments. So does Tesla, and that's why Tesla's so eager to pay Musk a ridiculous $56 Billion. They'd rather that than rusk Musk just stealing even more directly from Tesla's own crypto horde, which they know he has the capability to do if they don't pay him off.

Don't believe me? https://electrek.co/2024/10/15/tesla-moves-around-600-million-worth-of-bitcoin-but-why/

[Commenter_XY]

Try some copium, Randal. It will be a long four years.

[Randal]

Mark my words. Trump took note of how the Democrats were able to use Venezuelan satellites to manipulate vote totals in 2020, and he decided to do the Trumpiest thing possible: do the same thing but with StarLink satellites and bitcoin account totals.

[harryk]

Reynolds Wrap - now with free hat in every box...

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Despite the 100% chance of embarrassing yourself even more and a zero percent chance of success, you might try actually engaging with the argument for once.

Or you can just keep on being an ankle-biting shithead. I know where I'm placing my bet.

[VinniUSMC (Banana Republic Day 5/30/24)]

Randal dove head first into the deep end of the conspiracy pool. Too bad there was nothing there to prevent his head from slamming the bottom.

Leave it to Randal to make even flat-earthers look sane.

[Randal]

See, it's already working!

People like to compare mainstream media with right-wing media, and it leads to the impression that they're comparable. Poor Sarcastr0 fell into that trap just below. We need a left-wing media as shameless as the right-wing media, unafraid to print that Bush pardoned Neil, Wilson pardoned deButts, and DOGE is a thinly disguised embezzlement scheme. The Florida Post, we'll call it. All the lies and conspiracy theories that are unfit to print -- left-wing style. That'll level the playing field.

[VinniUSMC (Banana Republic Day 5/30/24)]

Mea culpa. I see now that you were referring to that article as an example of the "left wing version of right wing BS news".

So, you're not a conspiracy nut, but you're still a nut. As if the Left isn't already just as full of baloney as you claim the "right-wing media" to be. Have you never been to Reddit? Or seen the Occupy Democrats group on FB? The Left has plenty sources of left-wing style lies and conspiracy theories printed daily. You're daft to believe otherwise.

[Randal]

A random Reddit channel or Facebook group can't hold up against Fox News, the NY Post, and the entirety of Truth Social. We need left-wing propaganda outlets that are perceived as viable alternatives to mainstream outlets, just like the right has.

As it stands, the stupider half of the country is confused. They're like, "the Democrats say that the New York Post is partisan garbage and the Republicans say that the New York Times is partisan garbage. Who's to say, probably they're both partisan garbage."

But with a plainly conspiratorial Florida Post in the picture, regular people would see what real left-wing partisan garbage looks like. The mainstream media will go back to being perceived as the (relatively) sane, objective, trustworthy middle that it always has been.

[VinniUSMC (Banana Republic Day 5/30/24)]

The mainstream media will go back to being perceived as the (relatively) sane, objective, trustworthy middle that it always has been.

Yeah, daft.

[Jdfreivald]

We've had "plainly conspiratorial" left-wing news outlets, Randal.

Even if you don't believe -- as sensible people do -- that MSNBC is currently at least as bad as, and usually worse than, Fox News, we have the example of Air America, which was a viable progressive talk-radio show for several years before collapsing in 2010.

One might say that Air America was so over-the-top and progressives are so reasonable that they couldn't find their true audience -- the whackadoo progressive. Because progressives are so much more reasonable than right-wingers, don'tcha know.

But that's clearly not true, because the people who were on the now-defunct platform went on to be important figures in the usual whackadoo-progressive media: Thom Hartmann, Rachel Maddow, Al Franken, Cenk Uygur, and Randi Rhoades, to name a few. These are all mainstreamers in the "legitimate" left-wing news media.

And lets not forget people like Joy Reid, who are on mainstream-left markets but spout ridiculous things on a regular basis.

The problem isn't that the left wing doesn't have "plainly conspiratorial" media outlets, it's that its defenders insist that they're "more legitimate" than Fox.

[Randal]

Air America is a decent example. I'd love to get that back and more. But pointing to individuals isn't good evidence of the extremity of an outlet. Individuals know what's expected of them. Franken was on SNL ffs.

But my example above of DOGE being an embezzlement scheme disproves your thesis that somehow Joy Reid or MSNBC is worse than Jeanine Pirro or Fox. MSNBC would never float something so ridiculous. Fox does it all the time. Newsmax and the like are even worse. It's no contest.

[Malika the Maiz]

lol, on the one side, Fox and Newsmax, on the other a Facebook group page and a Reddit! Both sides!

[tylertusta]

If only history existed before 2024.

[jdgalt1]

The word "whataboutism" amounts to nothing but a confession of hypocrisy by anyone who uses the word.

[F.D. Wolf]

The media lies with impunity thanks to New York Times v. Sullivan. In 1964, the Court said the media's zealous coverage of government officials was so important that we must tolerate the occasional falsehood.

The media has changed a lot since 1964. The vast majority now act as Democrat apparatchiks. The "occasional" falsehood has become the rule, rather than the exception. This is now so glaringly obvious, I believe the Court will be ready to severely roll back the license to lie it unwisely handed the media in 1964.

[Michael Ejercito]

Sullivan was extended to more than government officials or even candidates for public office.

[Sarcastr0]

Yep someone screwed up.

For those claiming this was bad faith and they were trying to get away with making this up…this isn’t how the media lies, don’t be dramatic.
Look at how notable this was and how quickly and easily caught it was. Not a great plan.

Find your bias jollies elsewhere.

[Michael P]

Whether this was willful dishonesty or jaw-dropping incompetence and credulity, they're still fundamentally unreliable. Find a less awful target to white-knight for -- maybe Randal's fevered conspiracy theories up-thread.

[Sarcastr0]

The very fact that this one-off made headlines and was immediately caught should tell you that by-and-large they are reliable.

Meanwhile you read the NY Post, an open propaganda outfit who not many would bat an eye if they printed this kinda hogwash.

[Brett Bellmore]

It wasn't caught by the newspaper, it was caught by the readers. And, as someone once said, a lie can make it around the world while the truth is tightening its shoe laces. Published mistakes have an impact.

Is it too much to ask that a newspaper that does fact checking fact check its own output before publishing? That actually used to be routine.

Of course, part of this is what Obama's national security advisor said way back when: “The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old…They literally know nothing.”

This is the sort of mistake somebody who actually was informed wouldn't make, but things are being reported on by people who literally know nothing about the topics they're covering.

[Sarcastr0]

Do you really think Esquire was trying to convince people this was true, knowing it wasn't?
You think that was the big plan that was foiled only by lots and lots of people noticing?

Wait no that was only up to the last sentence of your first paragraph. Then you pivot to newspapers don't fact check anymore. Which this does not establish, and which indeed the fact that it made headlines would tend to indicate the opposite.

Oh wait, then on your third paragraph you pick a third thesis to push, that journalists are not experts in what they cover. I mean, that's true...but that's not new at all, and doesn't seem to be the issue here.

This is the sort of mistake somebody who actually was informed wouldn't make
You seem unfamiliar with humans and their errors. There was some kind of failure here, but
1) it doesn't indicate anything generalizable
2) it doesn't indicate some fundamental new issue with the expertise of reporters as a bulk.
3) It wasn't an intentional lie.

Media bad has become conventional wisdom on the right. Conventional wisdom means you don't really bother to polish your arguments. And so this kind of trash is what you get.
It's an issue both sides have in different areas, but Brett here has provided a bang-on example of it coming from the right.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Do you really think Esquire was trying to convince people this was true, knowing it wasn't?"

Esquire was trying to convince people this was true, not particularly caring if it wasn't, so they didn't lift a finger to confirm it. They had a narrative it advanced, that was enough to publish it. You know, "Too good to check."?

In fact, under Sullivan, actually lifting that finger could have established actual malice, so they keep that finger glued to the desk.

[Sarcastr0]

Esquire was trying to convince people this was true, not particularly caring if it wasn't
No, Brett. This isn't even your usual unsupported telepathy, it's straight obviously wrong.
If you want to fool people, you don't pick something people would have known about and easily checkable. Your theory is bunk.

It's also in factual tension with your previous post about lack of expertise by reporters.

under Sullivan, actually lifting that finger could have established actual malice
And now you confidently misstate the law. Recklessness is one of the potential mens rea allowed by actual malice, so not checking what they should have does not make you safe, rather the opposite.

Mutually exclusive theses and confidently misunderstanding baseline 1A law? That's our Brett!

[Brett Bellmore]

Just like "actual malice" doesn't mean what people ordinarily mean by "malice", under Sullivan "reckless disregard" doesn't mean what people ordinarily mean by "reckless".

""Reckless disregard," for these purposes, means conduct that is heedless and shows a wanton indifference to consequences; it is conduct which is far more than negligent. There must be sufficient evidence to permit the inference that the defendant must have, in fact, subjectively entertained serious doubts as to the truth of his statement." (Green v. Northern Publishing Co.)

[Sarcastr0]

I'll see if I have time to dig in further later, but it appears you're citing a Supreme Court of Alaska case that found actual malice.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, just for the definition of "reckless disregard", which apparently requires that you have actual reason to doubt the truth of something, not merely that you didn't bother to check.

[Sarcastr0]

You found a definition that works for Alaska state court, maybe.

[Voize of Reazon]

Masson v. New Yorker Magazine, Inc., 501 US 496 (1991):

Mere negligence does not suffice. Rather, the plaintiff must demonstrate that the author "in fact entertained serious doubts as to the truth of his publication," St. Amant v. Thompson, 390 U. S. 727, 731 (1968), or acted with a "high degree of awareness of . . . probable falsity," Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U. S. 64, 74 (1964).

[tkamenick]

"If you want to fool people"

Sarc, BB isn't claiming intentional lie, so no, their goal was not to fool people.

[Sarcastr0]

"Esquire was trying to convince people this was true, not particularly caring if it wasn't, so they didn't lift a finger to confirm it."

This is indistinguishable from accusing them of lying.

[Brett Bellmore]

Accusing them of lying would be, "Esquire was trying to convince people this was true, despite knowing it wasn't", not "not particularly caring if it wasn't."

I'm saying they wanted people to believe it and were indifferent to whether it was true, and so didn't bother checking before publishing it.

[Sarcastr0]

Your finding of bad faith in reporting something that's false is an accusation of lying. That you need to split hairs only shows you know you're on shaky ground.

[David Nieporent]

Esquire was trying to convince people this was true, not particularly caring if it wasn't, so they didn't lift a finger to confirm it. They had a narrative it advanced, that was enough to publish it. You know, "Too good to check."?

Esquire wasn't trying to do anything. Charles Pierce wrote this, and he presumably believed it was true, rather than was trying to convince people it was.

[David Nieporent]

1) Esquire isn't a newspaper.
2) While I am not familiar with the inner operations of Esquire magazine, I doubt that online commentary from Charles Pierce gets any fact checking at all.
3) Charles Pierce is not a 27-year old reporter; he's a 70-year old blogger/pundit.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Trump supporter suddenly pretends to care about truth!

LOL.

[Don Nico]

"an open propaganda outfit "
"by-and-large they are reliable."
You can't have it both ways.

[Sarcastr0]

This only makes sense if you assume with no support that Esquire is just like the NY Post in their reporting.

You can't just make that assumption - different reporting institutions are different.

[Malika the Maiz]

A very silly over generalization. The trick is the “MSM” is made of dozens of major outlets with thousands of reporters, analysts, columnists, etc., churning out news 24/7 365. The Right Wing game is to fund when, inevitably, one of them flubs and start screaming “see, MSM is teh biased and stupid!”

Meanwhile even right wing propaganda machines realize that the MSM does the most generally reliable reporting of news available:

“ Nowhere is the influence of major news providers more robust, after all, than on the airwaves of Fox News. Across the daily schedule of the No. 1 cable news network, that influence is inescapable, with host after host citing stories from The Post, the New York Times, Reuters, CNN, Politico, Axios and so on — all outlets heavy with reporters who bring scoops to bear on topics dear to Fox News viewers.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/12/03/fox-news-legacy-media-bashing/

[Drewski]

I love that you describe a conspiracy theory as "flawed," unlike the air-tight conspiracy theories you peddle on a daily basis. Tell us again how Biden coordinated with Latin American countries to empty the insane asylums into the US for the purpose of replacing Anglos by outbreeding them.

[Jerry B.]

Consider that a lot of Democrats still believe that Putin stole the 2016 election for Trump.

[Sarcastr0]

IIRC that was a Rasmussen poll. They've become...more MAGA than accurate.

[Brett Bellmore]

Economist/Yougov, actually.

30% of Democrats thought it was definitely true, 36% probably true.

[Sarcastr0]

2018 is a helluva stretch to use present tense, Brett.

You've been raked over the coals for this before, IIRC.

Sorry, your party of choice is crazier than the Dems when to comes to election denial. And recent political violence.

[Randal]

Do you tell the truth to pollsters on questions like this? You bring this up constantly but it's the weakest whataboutism ever. Hillary conceded right away. So did Kamala. That's all you need to know.

You could probably do a survey today and two thirds of Democrats would vouch that God came down and told them personally that Trump was the antichrist. Who would say no to a question like that?

[Satchmo_Lives]

"They can't be biased. They couldn't even bother to check if the story they wanted to print was true."

Hey people win Pulitzers for this shite.

[Sarcastr0]

I don't believe this incident alone is proof this is a regular event at Esquire, versus a one-off screw-up.

[Jdfreivald]

I agree with Sarcastr0 that it wasn't deliberate bias. Plenty of people are starting to use ChatGPT as a search engine, not realizing that it hallucinates.

It's an example of confirmation bias, though. She wanted to believe it so badly that when ChatGPT told her about Wilson, she believed it without bothering to verify the story. Because "journalism", or something.

[Sarcastr0]

That's not at all unlikely.

But also not sufficiently supported it's an assumption you can just go ahead and make.

I do like your point above that Dems sure can get conspiratorial as well.
Though there does seem a disparity in the magnitude and population of said embrace between Dems and GOP At least over the past couple of decades.

Though I will say the Tankie Left - the ones too left to vote Dem? They have some bangers. Russian monetary issues are a NATO plot. Ukraine is CIA...you get the idea.

[Malika the Maiz]

Remember when EV reported about how major conservative outlets and figures (Newsmax, Charlie Kirk, Laura Loomer, etc.,) not only reported that President Biden was dead but even continued to after evidence demonstrated this was laughable bunk?

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/07/technology/biden-conspiracy-theories-misinformation.html

[Satchmo_Lives]

That article was from Aug 2024. We still have a few months to go to prove Kirk and Loomer wrong. I wouldn't stake my home on Biden having "many years" to come.

[Don Nico]

Did you watch him in Uganda in a semi-catatonic state?

[Sarcastr0]

Seeing a ton of coverage. None of 'semi-catatonic state.' This a short clip you saw on Facebook?

[Darth Buckeye]

Why spoil the beauty of a thing by questioning whether it actually happened. Afterall, was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

[Swede425]

LOL!
The people in this thread white knighting for Esquire.
Esquire!
These same people read their articles on getting the manliest pedicure and buying the manliest butt plugs.
What a surprise.

[jimc5499]

Desperate Democrats trying to deflect from themselves by saying "the evil Republicans did it too."

[Sarcastr0]

Saying Esquire is better than the NY Post is not really saying Esquire is a perfect reporting publication.

[Don Nico]

The back and forth of the apologists left and right is pathetic

[Eugene Volokh]

The issue came up earlier on the thread, but ended up quite deep in a set of replies, so I thought I'd respond at the top level: The U.S. Supreme Court's interpretation of "reckless disregard" for purposes of the "actual malice" test is that,

failure to investigate before publishing, even when a reasonably prudent person would have done so, is not sufficient to establish reckless disregard.

Reckless disregard requires instead sufficient evidence "that the defendant in fact entertained serious doubts as to the truth of his publication" and thus "that the defendant actually had a 'high degree of awareness of ... probable falsity.'" "[A] deliberate decision not to acquire knowledge of facts that might confirm the probable falsity of [the] charges" might suffice, but mere careless "failure to investigate" will not.

[tylertusta]

As Sarah Palin can attest, the "serious doubt" standard is rather high bar.

[Mr. Bumble]

"Reckless disregard requires instead sufficient evidence "that the defendant in fact entertained serious doubts as to the truth of his publication" and thus "that the defendant actually had a 'high degree of awareness of ... probable falsity.'"
What kind of evidence would satisfy this requirement?

[tennvol]

A text or email saying "I couldn't find any record of this anywhere, but I'm publishing it anyway."

[Stephen Lathrop]

I think the case EV cites above must be read as a notable relaxation of the standard announced in NYT v. Sullivan. I prefer the more stringent interpretation, where failure to investigate an allegation which is obviously defamatory, and potentially false, constitutes actual malice. A problem with the more relaxed standard is that it really does discourage investigation, as no less an authority than Brett Bellmore has already noted.

[Kenneth Almquist]

NYT v. Sullivan said that the (alleged) failure of the NYT to check the claims made in an advertisement against the Times' own reporting did not establish actual malice. In St. Amant v. Thompson, the Supreme Court applied the same rule (a “failure to investigate” does not establish actual malice) when the alleged libel appeared in a speech by a political candidate rather than in a newspaper advertisement. In Harte-Hanks Communications, Inc. v. Connaughton, the Court applied the same rule to a news article. This is not, strictly speaking, a relaxation of the original NYT v. Sullivan standard. Instead, it’s applying the same rule in a context where there is (or should be) a stronger expectation that a thorough investigation will be performed prior to publication.

Though the rule is the same, the context still matters. In Connaughton, plaintiff was able to establish actual malice:

It is also undisputed that Connaughton made the tapes of the Stephens interview available to the Journal News and that no one at the newspaper took the time to listen to them. Similarly, there is no question that the Journal News was aware that Patsy Stephens was a key witness and that they failed to make any effort to interview her. Accepting the jury's determination that petitioner's explanations for these omissions were not credible, it is likely that the newspaper's inaction was a product of a deliberate decision not to acquire knowledge of facts that might confirm the probable falsity of Thompson's charges. Although failure to investigate will not alone support a finding of actual malice, see St. Amant, 390 U. S., at 731, 733, the purposeful avoidance of the truth is in a different category.

The approach taken by the Supreme Court may discourage investigation, but perhaps not as much as you might think. If you decide to protect yourself from a libel judgement by failing to investigate, that only works if you can lie convincingly under oath about your reason for failing to investigate.

[jdgalt1]

Wasn't it Eugene who advocated in a recent post a rule that all pardons must be public?

If this alleged pardon did exist as a written document but Neil Bush had the only copy, I wonder how much scrutiny the courts would give it before accepting it. Or would they not bother to consider it at all? Somehow I believe the answer (generalized to everybody) depends mostly on what party the pardonee is in, and what party the judge is in.

[John R. Ellis]

Esquire.com now says, "This Column Is No Longer Available. ... Editor's Note: This column has been removed due to an error. The original article stated incorrectly that President George H. W. Bush gave a presidential pardon to his son, Neil Bush. Esquire regrets the mistake."

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a63082689/neil-bush-george-hw-bush-presidential-sons/

[not guilty]

George H. W. Bush may not have pardoned his son, but he did issue pardons to various individuals involved in the Iran-Contra scandal of the Reagan Administration, including Caspar Weinberger, who had been indicted on charges that he had lied to Congress and obstructed Government investigations. Had those cases come to trial, it is likely that Bush's conduct as Vice-president under Reagan would have come under scrutiny.

Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon may have been brokered prior to Nixon's resignation by Alexander Haig, who served as Chief of Staff for both. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/12/21/raising-the-option-of-a-nixon-pardon/e95b0bc3-3b5e-4648-bf67-012d17caae85/

It seems to me that these self-serving pardons were far more nefarious than President Biden's nepotism.

[zztop8970]

Is "revised" the new word for "completely removed"?

[Eugene Volokh]

They revised it, and then they completely removed even the revised version (correctly, I think).

[Daddyhill]

I think an important question should be asked. Facts are facts, and so there shouldn't be any doubt or disagreement about whether they could be/have been pardoned or not, and whether they were actually pardoned or not. A more difficult question is, whether or not they should be/have been pardoned. There are no answers to this question, only opinions. This question in turn begs two more hard ones: whether or not the currently unlimited presidential pardon power should be limited in some way; and how could this be done.

It seems that in the view of many the pardon power is an obsolete relic of the framing era, another compromise made in the struggle to reinforce the balance of power between the three branches. It probably did work as they intended to start with--there's little evidence that it was an important political issue in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The pardon power has been reviewed and approved in the federal courts. In this century the power has been used in ways that attract as much attention as the pardon of Richard Nixon. It's quite apparent now that the pardons given to cronies and family members are offensive to many of us. Favoritism, nepotism, and a lot of other -isms, demonstrate that the rule of law is not absolute in the US, that if you're well-connected you can get away with almost anything. We ask, "Is this democracy?"

No, it isn't. Neither is the electoral college. At some point we need to bite the bullet and endure the pain we'll feel when we actually get to work on some overdue amendments.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"We" may not feel the pain, but people who are wrongfully convicted in the federal system, or given excessive sentences, may experience some pain.

Any power could be abused. Not just the pardon power, but the prosecution power and the conviction power.