Aaron T. Rupar runs down the list of Trump’s pardons yesterday and it’s even more shocking than I realized. He’s not even trying to hide his corruption now:
The backdrop to all of this is Trump’s recently completed impeachment trial — one stemming from the president getting caught trying to leverage congressionally approved military aid to Ukraine into politically motived investigations of the Bidens.
Trump tried to justify his actions by arguing that as president, “I have an absolute right, perhaps even a duty, to investigate, or have investigated, CORRUPTION.” That logic was echoed by his legal team during the trial. But it was belied by the fact that a top Defense Department official told Congress last May that Ukraine had made good enough progress on anti-corruption efforts to merit the aid — not to mention the glaring hypocrisy stemming Trump’s refusal to divest from his business, one that enables foreign governments, corporations, and US politicians to curry favor with him by patronizing his properties and directly enriching him.
Then, in the hours following Trump’s string of pardons and commutations, the Daily Beast reported that family members of one of the men Trump pardoned, Paul Pogue, donated lavishly to his fundraising committee and campaign in the months leading up to the pardon — a chain of events that appears to be about as corrupt as it gets.
He points out that both Bush Sr and Bill Clinton had pardon scandals but they at least claimed to have a principled reason for doing it and went through the normal channels. Trump doesn’t even try:
The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Michael Shear reported that Trump didn’t follow Justice Department vetting process before making the announcements, which they described as “mostly aimed at wiping clean the slates of rich, powerful and well-connected white men.” And statements released by the White House listed a number of Fox News personalities as character witnesses.
He’s making it pretty clear that this was also part of his revenge tour:
Meanwhile, in comments to reporters, Trump erased the DOJ by describing himself as “the chief law enforcement officer of the country.” He went on to suggest that any prosecution in which former FBI director James Comey was even indirectly involved is fair game for pardons.
Rupar concludes that the purpose of Trump’s pardons is:
[C]onsolidating power; dismissing the sort of obstruction of justice and financial crimes he’s been implicated in; and laying the groundwork for pardoning or commuting the sentence of longtime confidante Roger Stone, who’s scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday.
Blatantly using the pardon power for personal and political purposes is yet another Trump innovation. It’s hard to imagine how to put that evil genie back in the bottle either. Some other authoritarian will almost certainly find it useful as well.