Going into CMMS and IRS records almost certainly puts them in jeopardy of state crimes. Tight collections of only young, fervent ideologues have one role in military and political systems: cannon fodder.
Supremacy clause will likely protect them. Even fed lon horiuchi, charged with sniping an innocent woman with a child in her arms, was able to claim supremacy long enough the state case was too stale to win.
>In 1997, Horiuchi was charged with manslaughter for killing Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge; the charges were later dropped due to Constitutional supremacy, granting federal officers immunity from actions taken in the scope of their practice
I think we might be confusing "state" here. "this guy" as you say was an FBI agent, a federal not state agent. Elon is gaining access to federal data, not state data.
Maybe I'm confused, but why do we think Elon is committing offenses that a state could charge so that a pardon from Trump would not be possible?
Aside from the fact that I'm sure you can find such crimes ...
Prosecutors have the power to ask 2 years incarceration for jaywalking, without proof, 10 years for ignoring a stop sign and having not paying because the state has a wrong address for them and can let someone who empties a machine gun into a kindergarten walk free. But why go so far as to actually convict them of anything?
An IRS agent (and every state has them, not just the Federal government) could just accuse anyone of tax fraud 9 years ago, arrest, then deny bail (if the accusation is tax fraud it is the IRS agent that gets to approve or deny bail, not a judge), and then think about what they'll do next, for 3 years. They also have the power to block any particular bank account US-wide, or all bank accounts "that benefit an individual", so they can damage the person's family too.
No worries, after those 3 years, those now freshly declared innocent people will have to be paid 20 or so dollars per day to make it all alright (technically they don't, as they would not even be innocent, as the IRS does not need a conviction to declare you a criminal, but that's kicking someone hard in the nuts after incarcerating them for 3 years).
None of this requires even a single judicial decision, just an executive on your side. And Trump does NOT have the power to grant pardons over any non-federal matter (which is pretty ironic since part of the reason presidential pardons exist, is to prevent state or local governments from using state justice systems to influence the Federal government)
I think the fact that this is possible in the US is proof positive that your state needs exactly the sort of radical downsizing that Musk and Trump are trying to achieve.
I think you'll find neither Musk nor Trump nor republicans will change this. In fact, expect the opposite. They will do nothing that threatens or weakens state power, now that they control that power.
Who said that it is not problematic for Biden to pardon his son?
However, if you put them on a scale blanket pardoning the mob who stormed the capitol, attacked and injured police officers, threatened congress members, planted bombs and were looking to hang the Vice president because he would not overturn the election results where do you think it will lean towards?
The one is bad optics the other is literally giving blank checks to convicted enemies of the State.
Depends on who/when any of these theoretical charges occur. If they were to happen now-ish, then Biden would be thrown under the bus. Which I'm assuming is the opposite response to what you're trying to apply rational reasoning to. I think for at least the remainder of the next four years, applying rational reasoning will be a fool's errand.
