Were they all in the same fraternity?
Rod Blagojevich: disgraced former Democratic governor of Illinois convicted of trying to sell Barack Obama’s U.S. Senate seat. Junk bond king Michael Milken: convicted of insider trading and more. Former New York police commissioner Bernard Kerik: pleaded guilty to federal charges of tax fraud and lying to investigators. Former San Francisco 49ers owner Eddie DeBartolo Jr.: convicted in a gambling bribery scandal involving former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards.
The acting president of the United States handed out pardons and commutations on Tuesday to those four and seven others. Like past pardons granted by Donald J. Trump to former Bush II official Scooter Libby (obstruction of justice, false statements, perjury), to former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio (contempt of court), and to conservative author/filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza (campaign contribution fraud), the majority of this latest batch involve forgiving public corruption and/or defrauding the government. Tuesday’s felons are mostly well-heeled and well-connected. It is almost as if Donald J. Trump feels a kinship with them.
The New Republic’s Matt Ford assesses what Trump is doing:
Trump’s acts of clemency serve multiple purposes. They punctuate his growing sense of political invulnerability after the Senate’s acquittal vote in his impeachment trial two weeks ago. They send an implicit signal of support to Trump’s allies who are still in legal and criminal jeopardy, especially after the Justice Department’s upper ranks intervened last week to request a lower sentence for former advisor Roger Stone. More than anything else, the pardons aim to discredit the idea of federal anti-corruption prosecution itself—a campaign by Trump that serves his short-term political ends and, possibly, his long-term legal goals as well.
Just as 45’s flood of lies are meant to exhaust our capacity to resist them, these actions serve notice to the Department of Justice that so long as Trump holds office the money and manhours spent on prosecuting white-collar crime will be for naught, so why bother? His pardons and commutations also signal associates who might provide evidence against him to remain silent.
Trump’s sword and shield against investigation of himself or the Trump Organization, Attorney General William Barr, has already notified employees no investigations of a politically sensitive nature will begin without his say-so. Trump’s actions Tuesday added an exclamation point to Barr’s recent memo.
More than 2,000 former Department of Justice officials have signed a letter demanding Barr’s resignation for his interference in the sentencing of longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone.
Trump announced to reporters Tuesday that he considers himself, not the attorney general, “the chief law enforcement officer of the country.”
Rachel Barkow, professor of law at New York University, served on the United States Sentencing Commission from 2013 to 2019. Barkow told the Washington Post, “Trump is wielding the power the way you would expect the leader of a banana republic who wants to reward his friends and cronies.”
Walter Dellinger, Professor of Law at Duke University School of Law, reacted to Tuesday’s pardons on MSNBC’s “All In.” Dellinger explained that Trump is using the powers of his office to corrupt law itself, “threatening opponents, rewarding those who would commit crimes on his behalf, going after judges and jurors” [timestamp 10:50].
“I don’t know where we go from here,” Dellinger added. “I think we need 2000 former prosecutors not just to sign a letter, but perhaps to think about being arrested blocking the entrances to the Justice Department.”
Rational people ask themselves how anyone can buy the authoritarian snake oil Trump is selling. I alluded to this yesterday but did not state it plainly. The New Age movement I observed closely represented a community’s tacit agreement to suspend disbelief and critical thinking, and to accept as authentic anything its members proposed. Less benign, Trumpism represents a much larger movement to do the same. Except one very damaged man-child’s authoritarian whims are this movement’s organizing principle.
Trump the First has already declared himself “the chief law enforcement officer of the country.” Will it take him demanding people change their underwear every half-hour to break the spell? Or him declaring “all children under 16 years old are now… 16 years old!”?
“What’s the Spanish word for straitjacket?”
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