Conservative groups influential with the Trump administration have pressed for the preemptive acts of clemency.
There’s a world of difference between a pardon issues to prevent malicious prosecution for non-crimew and one issued to people you’ve been instructing to commit crimes
I hear what you are saying, but legally that isn’t how it works. The previous commenter is correct, legally speaking in the US. A pardon is absolutely an admission of guilt.
There are ways around this. You can submit an Alford Plea at your original trial, which again would still indicate guilt under the law, but is a way that a defendant can legally enter into the record that they are “innocent of the charges, but due to circumstances beyond their control, one will submit to the punishment.”
IANYL. I don’t know how this would actually play out inside the bureaucracy.
No a pardon doesn’t have to do with guilt. Guilt is depicted by a judge/jury or by taking a plea deal. A pardon can occur before charges are even filed, and one cannot be declared guilty until a conviction is made… Which would never come to be.
So legally yes, that’s exactly how it works. If Trump pardons Kushner for using U.S. funds and negotiating on behalf of the U.S. like Kushners lawyer recognized he was the signatory on an account holding $770 million dollars but did not make any decisions without Trump approval.
No charges have yet been brought against him. If said pardon goes through it doesnt mean he actually did anything wrong… it means he won’t have to appear in a federal court and explain where/when he turned over access to those accounts when Trump left office(he likely never did)
But in the U.S. you are innocent until proven guilty, and in such a case… He wasn’t proven guilty.