The growing scandal of "chief law enforcement officer" and crime family boss Donald "Impeached Forever" Trump's use of the pardon power has made one factor glaringly obvious:
All 11 recipients had an inside connection or were promoted on Fox News. Some were vocal supporters of Mr. Trump, donated to his campaign or in one case had a son who weekended in the Hamptons with the president’s eldest son. Even three obscure women serving time on drug or fraud charges got on Mr. Trump’s radar screen through a personal connection.
Whoever wrote the headline for that story ("The 11 Criminals Granted Clemency...") deserves a hand, btw. They are criminals, just like "Individual 1," "unindicted co- conspirator," serial fraudster Trump.While 14,000 clemency petitions sit unaddressed at the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, Mr. Trump eagerly granted relief to a former football team owner who hosted a pre-inauguration party, a onetime contestant on “Celebrity Apprentice” and an infamous investor championed both by Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, and by the billionaire who hosted a $10 million fund-raiser for Mr. Trump just last weekend.
There's also the fact that Trump plans to pardon (or commute sentences) of his criming cronies Paul Manfort, Michael Flynn and Roger Stone (whose was sentenced to 40 months in prison today), and this cascade of pardons is simply to de- sensitize us to the abnormality of what's happening, and grab some attention to himself:
Trump looking for the “celebrity felons” to pardon like when he needed to juice flagging Apprentice ratings. https://t.co/1KEpptosZB— Schooley (@Rschooley) February 20, 2020
They also offer instant gratification to a president who desperately craves it.— George Conway (@gtconway3d) February 20, 2020
And his specific invocations of the pardon power appear unwedded to any notion of mercy or public good; they are impulsive expressions of Trumpian spite and self-interest.https://t.co/3PX6PoAl6A
Pardongate is meant to normalize white collar crime, bribery, and corruption — and to anesthetize the public to Trump’s emergence as a full-blown autocrat in the style of Putinhttps://t.co/UL9vEjP4HA— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) February 19, 2020
“Trump’s insight [is] that unabashedly attacking and obstructing law enforcement in plain view makes it seem less shady, reverse-reinforcing his original claim that efforts to ferret out the wrongdoing he does want concealed are illegitimate.” Diabolical https://t.co/aCjQWpqoFH— Laurence Tribe (@tribelaw) February 20, 2020
The antidote: vote blue, no matter who.
