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Comment by hereme888 | Hacker News Reader

So our obsession with jail is nuts, because... you lean towards no one willfully signed off on a lie, in a company with a history like Meta/Facebook, in a $25B fine?

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Full presidential pardons go for just a couple of million, a rounding error on that fine. Invoking social media and complaining about a democrat judge or deep state conspiracy and forking over the money using the right attorneys is all it takes. Nobody with that kind of resources will go to jail.

I'm sure the crime reached into all 50 states. Maybe they should be tried and sentenced in all of them, so avoiding jail would need 51 pardons instead of just one.

I just want to note that the president can give pardons for federal crimes, but not for state level crimes.

> I just want to note that the president can give pardons for federal crimes, but not for state level crimes.

He can and he did, it just does not work.

But he can make the governor do it, which did work at least once.

Yes, you do a state prosecution even if there are already federal charges, since Trump can only pardon federal charges. Pardoning state charges, though, can be done by the state governor, same deal. So you do all 50 states to be very nearly sure.

And your source of information is internet hearsay, I gather?

Just this week the New York Times reported the case of a venezolan banker who received a pardon after hiring a former lawyer of the president. There probably will be litigation if they misreport it so this does not seem hearsay to me.

AI readily provided me a list of 8 other well documented cases of "pay for pardons" and offered detailed research on all of them.

Huh, you were right. I chatted with AI for a while on this as well. Interesting cases, especially the crypto king CZ's pardon. Though unproven by courts, their circumstances and timelines strongly smell like pay-for-pardon, even without proof of agreements.

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