1) The uranium interests that Dick Wilson was serving are powerful and well connected.
2) The President fears that a pardon would alienate the FBI, and feels that he needs the FBI to protect the nation, himself and his family.
3) An official admission that Peltier justly deserves immediate release opens the government up to court action against it, not just for damages due Leonard for nearly 40 years of wrongful imprisonment, but the issues of the US gov's illegal abrogation of the 1868 treaty, who actually owns the Black Hills and South Dakota, and the sketchy legal basis of claims of land ownership by any non-natives anywhere in the U.S.
4) The repugs will pitch a fit and try to make political hay if Prez O. pardons Leonard.
But 1) I've never seen anything that ties the President to those uranium interests in any close way. 2) Any good people in the Feds who know anything at all about the case know Peltier is innocent, the bad ones aren't kindly disposed toward the president anyway, and pretending the bad ones have a legit point just demoralizes the good ones. 3) The gov can cross the bridge of a civil suit by Leonard when they come to it. They've managed to deny justice for all these decades, fending off a civil suit shouldn't be too difficut for them. Or even paying damages to him wouldn't hurt them. Even lowly cities do it all the time for police brutality and wrongful death lawsuits. The federal gov can afford it. 4) The repugs will pitch a fit and attempt to make political hay about any issue or non-issue, any time, all the time, regardless. Timing the pardon right could catch the repugs mid-outrage about something else, leaving them unable to figure out whether to piss or go blind. Hit them with a bunch of things like this at the same time, and they'll go into outrage overload.
The Natives aren't a large voting bloc, but they're a Dem constituency. It's hard to believe that the Prez didn't think that there would be some good things he could accomplish when he was first running for office, a reason for him to want to be President. He's been blocked by repugs on anything that requires their involvement. But doing this one right thing doesn't require any repug cooperation. And millions of people worldwide would celebrate if he would just do the right thing.
= new reply since forum marked as read
