Daily Archives: 24 January 2025

Pardons and Culpability

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Then-still President Joe Biden (D), if only barely at the time, issued pardons to the rest of his immediate family, to the J6 Congressmen and staffers (more on this in a separate post), overwrought bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci, and to wokesters like General Mark Milley (Army, Ret) just in case they might have committed criminal offenses and be haled into criminal court to answer charges. Among the resulting hues and cries is the angst that this puts those folks beyond retribution. While the last minute and preemptive nature of the pardons has the potential of setting an ugly precedent, they are not at all beyond retribution.

All of those pardoned folks, every single one of them, is still legally open to Federal subpoena to testify before Congress concerning the things they did, are accused of doing, and are reputed to have done. Their pardoned status, which does inure them against Federal criminal charges, actually greatly weakens their ability to resist requirements to testify with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth on the witness stand. The only criminal consequences they could suffer would stem from that post-pardon testimony, should they choose to lie at that time.

Beyond the inability to resist providing testimony, Presidential pardons extend only to Federal crimes and Federal charges of Federal crimes. They do not provide any protection from State or local criminal charges (which would be their only shield against Federal subpoenas to testify). Especially, Presidential pardons provide no protection against civil suits over those very same behaviors, accused behaviors, and reputed behaviors.

All that’s lacking for any of this to happen is the public’s and Congressmen’s will to bring the suits.

A Good Move in the Offing

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President Donald Trump (R) and some of his new appointees are looking at downsizing the Federal government’s office holdings and at downsizing the General Services Administration, the agency specifically tasked with being the landlord of those office facilities.

The Trump administration is considering selling two-thirds of the federal government’s office stock to the private sector, according to people familiar with the transition operations.
About three-quarters of the 70 million square feet of office space the GSA leases from private landlords in DC is also likely to be canceled, according to Don Peebles, a longtime Washington, DC-based developer.

The Federal government doesn’t need all that office space and uses very little of what it has.

GSA-owned buildings in Washington, DC, average about a 12% occupancy rate. The government owns more than 7,500 vacant buildings across the country, and more than 2,200 that are partially empty.

Reducing GSA holdings of government office space will become even more important to the extent Trump’s plan proceeds to move many Executive Branch Departments and Agencies out into Left- and Progressive-Democratic Party-disdained flyover country. On top of that, the upcoming reduction in civil service employment will further reduce the need for government office space wherever located.

Nor is there any reason why two or more Departments can’t occupy the same building, two or more Agencies can’t occupy the same building, or Departments and Agencies can’t occupy the same building. That’s teamwork and collaboration facilitated by colocation—work in the office rather than remotely—extended to entire government functions. What a concept.