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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBREAKING NEWS: Trump rescinds Cuellar clemency, citing "totally illegal" pardon
Angry at what he perceived to be insufficient gratitude, President Donald Trump announced today he is now rescinding his own pardon he awarded Congressman Henry Cuellar, with specific instructions that the Texas Democrat immediately be remanded to the custody of the Department of Justice, where he will be returned to his prison and serve out the remainder of his sentence.
In March 2024, Cuellar was indicted on federal charges of money laundering, bribery and conspiracy, but was granted a pardon by Trump last week; as of the time of his pardon, Cuellar had not yet been convicted, sentenced or even gone to trial on those charges.
Cuellar did express gratitude for Trumps pardon but then announced he would be running for re-election as a Democrat as opposed to switching parties, a move that infuriated the President and caused him to take the unprecedented move of revoking what was previously deemed to be a full and unconditional pardon of Cuellar.
As grounds for the revocation, Trump cited his alleged use of the so-called Autopen on Cuellars pardon document as reason to declare it null and void.
Maybe if Representative Cellular had been lucky enough to have been pardoned under Sleepy Joe Biden, who loved to use the Autopen so, so much, maybe things would have been different for him, Trump told reporters gathered at the Oval Office earlier today. Unfortunately for him, hes dealing with a different President, a President who knows that any document that uses the Autopen has no effect whatsoever.
Trump has previously decried his predecessors use of Autopen on various documents and has even threatened to declare all of President Joe Bidens actions null and void on such grounds, alleging that there was no proof that the former President had knowingly signed any such documents while in office.
Try enforcing a mortgage or a car loan with anything other than your own in-person signature, Trump continued. You cant do it. It cant be done. Everyone knows that for a document to be fully legal, it has to be signed with your own hand and with an actual pen or thick sharpie marker. Or a quill, which many of our founding fathers used. Quills. They dont teach that to our children in schools anymore, that our founding fathers used to write with quills. Not pens, but quills. Which people dont realize are actually just big feathers. I guess quills arent just woke or politically correct enough these days. But thats going to change now, believe me. Were all going to be using quills again soon.
Ill tell you this, though, Trump added. If I knew Representative Cellar was going to do the right thing and immediately express his undevoted loyalty to Trump, instead of that Autopen I would have used that real pen to sign his pardon. Or a quill, even.
The President then proceeded to justify to reporters his revocation of Cuellars pardon on other grounds, including his own mental awareness of the pardon.
Im sure you all saw me pictures of me napping during that recent Cabinet meeting, Trump said. And it was a wonderful nap. Id even say it was the perfect nap. But maybe thats when I decided to pardon Representative Cooler. When I was sleeping. It was a sleep pardon.
But everyone knows you cant enforce a sleep pardon, Trump continued to explain. Because think of iteveryone sleeps. So technically, anyone could attempt to pardon anyone in their sleep, and that would mean chaos. Only I can pardon people. Thats not just me who says that. Its in the rule book. You can look it up. It says right here that sleep pardons are just not as good as real pardons.
The President then proceeded to hold up what appeared to be a black planning notebook with the words Presidential Rules of Pardoning People crudely written on masking tape affixed to its cover and waived it around in front of the media.
Meanwhile, Representative Cuellar appeared fully resigned to his fate and had reportedly already packed his bags for an undetermined prison sentence at an unspecified location.
Am I disappointed? Cuellar asked. Certainly, I am. But for an ever-brief moment, I learned the one thing a person needed to gain the respect of Donald Trump, and that one thing was to be charged with multiple felonies. And at least Ill have that, I suppose.
DETAILS AT ELEVEN.

Happy Hoosier
(9,347 posts)PatSeg
(51,735 posts)Jmb 4 Harris-Walz
(1,102 posts)low weve sunk!
Ocelot II
(128,631 posts)hookaleft
(1,066 posts)MarineCombatEngineer
(17,403 posts)but it's believable.
riversedge
(79,006 posts)Texin
(2,824 posts)niyad
(129,031 posts)niyad
(129,031 posts)frequently posted here on DU.
Celerity
(53,345 posts)PCIntern
(27,908 posts)I can see it occurring without question
bucolic_frolic
(53,597 posts)but I doubt Trumpie would want to go down that rabbit hole
MarineCombatEngineer
(17,403 posts)this is something Flim Flam Man would try to do, in fact, I'm kinda shocked that he hasn't taken to his "Truth Social" platform yet to announce this.
Ocelot II
(128,631 posts)Will he try to rescind the pardon for the failure of the expected quid pro quo? Bush the Younger did revoke a pardon, and the revocation was considered effective because the pardon hadn't been delivered, that is, made final:
Based on information that has subsequently come to light, the President has directed the Pardon Attorney not to execute and deliver a Grant of Clemency to Mr. Toussie. The Pardon Attorney has not provided a recommendation on Mr. Toussie's case because it was filed less than five years from completion of his sentence. The President believes that the Pardon Attorney should have an opportunity to review this case before a decision on clemency is made.
The action by Mr. Bush to revoke the pardon is considered unprecedented, and it is unclear that the president has the power to withdraw a pardon. However, the Justice Department has stated that the pardon was never official, having never been delivered to the person who requested it, and that Toussie would have no legal ground on which to challenge the withdrawal. It appears that the pardon would have made it possible for Toussie to re-enter the real estate business in New York state, which he would not be able to do as a felon.
So, what was the status of Cuellar's pardon? Trump is infamous for not submitting his pardons to the Pardon Attorney. Was this one executed and delivered?
MarineCombatEngineer
(17,403 posts)Vinca
(53,129 posts)niyad
(129,031 posts)rampartd
(3,335 posts)i predict the supremes will allow this stupid business on the flimsiest of "originalist" pretenses.
next step : rescind all pardons from biden, and maybe obama and clinton as well. "autopen, ya no."
Fiendish Thingy
(21,778 posts)Tommy Carcetti
(44,351 posts)I'll grant myself a sleep pardon on it.
WhiskeyGrinder
(26,105 posts)Disaffected
(6,068 posts)It is self-indulgent crap.
niyad
(129,031 posts)Disaffected
(6,068 posts)All I see in that image is a Fox news desk with two talking heads.
niyad
(129,031 posts)It is from 'toon news, a satire site that is frequently posted here on DU.
Disaffected
(6,068 posts)dickthegrouch
(4,224 posts)Only at the penultimate paragraph did I begin to question that.
niyad
(129,031 posts)gfarber
(175 posts)There once was a Prez with a thrill,
Who signed pardons with gusto and will.
But when thanks felt too thin,
He revoked what he'd been
Declaring, Return him to prisonuntil!
A Texan named Cuellar one day
Found his pardon had faded away.
For the signatures fake
An Autopens mistake!
A true pen or quill's the right way.
Said the President, proud and verbose,
Quills are best! Let me make this real close:
Our Founders agreed
That a feathers what you need
Not a pen that a robot can pose.
He mused, I may have pardoned him deep
In a moment I drifted to sleep.
But a nap-made decree
Has no power from me
Dream-pardons are simply too cheap.
He waved a notebook hed compiled,
With tape labels crooked and wild.
These rules are legit
Theyre all written in it!
(Though the legal world might be beguiled.)
Poor Cuellar just sighed at his lot,
His bags packed for some nameless spot.
Though my freedom has flown,
At least now Ive known
That indictments impress hima lot.
Kid Berwyn
(22,547 posts)Boffo ratings, for sure. Might even get through a few thick MAGA skulls.
MustLoveBeagles
(14,292 posts)I kinda wish it was true.
yardwork
(68,775 posts)This sounds so much like Trump:
Tommy Carcetti
(44,351 posts)One of his most frequent tangents is windmillshe seems to really hate windmills.
Another one is the concept of asylum
Someone once talked about immigrants applying for asylum and his brain screwed it up and thought they were talking about mental asylums and thats why hell insist a bunch of immigrants are coming from foreign mental asylums to the US.
These weird little quirks are how you capture Trump in all his Trumpishness.
SSJVegeta
(2,168 posts)Or perhaps you are just predicting tomorrow
Response to Tommy Carcetti (Original post)
Martin68 This message was self-deleted by its author.
niyad
(129,031 posts)by some of the responses to the OP, because it isn't clearly marked SATIRE. Should we require a della comedia icon? Anybody who has been here on DU for any length of time has surely seen that image at the bottom of the OP, the well-known logo of a satire site.
Are we not to be allowed a moment of not-utterly-horrified?
Justice
(7,233 posts)And has been for several years.
Tommy Carcetti
(44,351 posts)They were the first stock image I happened upon years ago in my Google search for local newscasters (you know, the guys who always tease Details at eleven!) and Ive just stuck with them ever since
Celerity
(53,345 posts)Intractable
(1,469 posts)Tommy Carcetti
(44,351 posts)
but I suppose that would be futile, no?
Nixie
(17,932 posts)Jack Valentino
(4,162 posts)Nothing in the U.S. Constitution allows you to reverse a pardon which you have already bestowed.
(Yes, I realize you don't care what the Constitution says,
and want to make up the rules as your diaper brain wants as you go along, but the rest of us
are still attempting to live under it, including a significant number of judges...)
More 'Truth Social' diaper leakage.... pffffft
eppur_se_muova
(40,688 posts)"Quills, they're coming back."