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Where will Trump go next? DOMINICK REUTER/AFP via Getty Images
The Trump presidency is fizzling out, but it has one more big impact to make. An impact that might change a few lives for the better, including, potentially, the President’s.
A presidency that has reliably done what sweet-smelling people in big American cities believed could not be done, is about to do it again. Trump is going to go out with a pardon bang. There won’t be enough room in heaven for all the people he’s going to forgive.
First, as he has already demonstrated with the pardoning of Michael Flynn, his dishonest former national security adviser: when his people need help they are going to get it. CNN reported recently that “hundreds of his allies — including some of his closest business associates and many high-profile criminals — are ramping up their efforts to squeeze out the final ounces of his presidential power”.
There is, apparently, a White House spreadsheet keeping track of requests. The President is energised and engaged in this enterprise. He has told advisors not to share any information with Biden’s team that could be used against him in future.
Does this matter? Not much. After all, previous presidents have behaved in a manner that Donald Trump would find hard to match. President Andrew Johnson pardoned, in 1868, all soldiers who fought for the Confederacy during the Civil War. In the 70s, Peter Yarrow of the folk rock band Peter Paul and Mary had been convicted of indecent behaviour with a girl of 14. Jimmy Carter pardoned him.
Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother Roger who had been in prison for selling cocaine. Roger repaid Bill rather poorly: less than a month later, he was arrested for driving drunk and disturbing the peace.
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SubscribeMaybe i have become jaded over last few months, but i seem to have developed a high rejection filter when reading paragraphs that contain the words like could, may, possibly or might.
These are all words that only carry the weight of suggestion with no obvious other credential as to their correctness other than possibly the usual smoke = fire argument that childishly posits all rumours must be based on fact and by association must be true.
Cross referencing external sources does not add credence or weight any longer in support of anything for me unless the source being referenced is one i personally trust. Specifically it raises the alarm bell in my mind about becoming mired in fruitless hearsay arguments. I also nowadays tend to green pen my reading quite aggressively if I suspect a category error has occured between news, opinion, analysis or just speculation and wu wu.
On re-reading, I will update my starting sentence to follow my own new preference: “I have become more jaded……”
Spot on. Unfortunately this is the style of journalism that now dominates MSM and is best described as utter rubbish.
TDS, from the BBC, playing fast and loose with the truth and doing some projection. Shocked I tell ya!!!
I couldn’t agree more.
I gave up in paragraph 3 (his dishonest….), No point wasting any more time on this drivel
This writer is already getting out the pitchfork and torch, and that is why Trump MUST pardon himself! Remember the sham witch trial of an Impeachment? The one which would have made Khrushchev blush? Well that is what a Biden/Harris regime will bring, but even more so.
Also, free the Tiger King. Not that he deserves it, but it would be cool, national anti-heroes are great for the Press. Think how dull the Guardian and Daily mail will be post Trump.
I doubt that Biden wants to keep the conversation on Trump after Jan 20. He likely wants people talking about his own administration. Plus if any president starts this, harassing his or her predecessor, it goes forever, with each successive president, democrats included.
Yes impeachment was a sham but that was clear from the overwhelming vote in the Senate not to convict. In my view, it was just payback for Clinton’s impeachment.
I disagree. The entire world MSM and political parties were mobilized in wanton Trump Bashing, and that tidal wave is not something you turn off so easily. This writer could not help himself, just think how the more Liberal MSM will go! TDS mark II.
I think the Democrats are so confident in their perfidy that saying ‘Where’s Hunter’ will not work. They own the prosecutors and Judges, and Biden can pardon Hunter and the rest at will.
Yes the media will continue to focus on Trump because he is more sellable. But Biden will want the conversation on himself. The media hated GWB as well. Did Obama want the conversation to focus on Bush after he left office?
What does the, (sorry but creepy is the word which keeps coming to me) VP want the conversation on? I worry she is going to be about cynical wokeisms, and if Biden does pop off, will really be a loose cannon.
Yes, Harris is woke (unless it comes to crime then she has been very unwoke, locking up pot smokers while indulging herself and snatching kids from parents over truancy). But like Biden, Harris will want the conversation on their administration, in fact, this could be quite amusing. Trump drags the entire MSM along with him wherever he goes while Biden becomes the desperate attention seeker who can’t stay awake in the WH. “Hey, look over here, I’m the president now. Seriously I won, you should be writing about me, me me”.
Plus the Biden gaffes could really ramp up when he is under pressure and the media won’t want to cover that. They’ll want to protect him from that as well as anything that comes up with Hunter. Could be the least media covered administration in history. Reverting back to the Kennedy days of let’s just not cover the bad parts.
Trump will have to work like a plough horse to come close to matching the 300 pardons Obama issued on his last day in office let alone the thousands he gave out over eight years.
There’s a huge difference here of cronyism. The majority of Obama’s pardons were for people given lengthy sentences under the mandatory sentence directions of the war on drugs, including the commutation of some life sentences, ie they were acts of clemency. None of the pardons or commutations were for family members, friends or cronies. And in particular, none were for members of his administration or team, some of whom, Flynn and Stone, were convicted of, or pled guilty to, lying to protect the President from criminal investigation.
Uhu. So, the mandatory sentence directions are an inherent flaw in the US justice system which have to be corrected by presidential clemency. On the other hand, the plea bargain arrangements — which are the grease that keep the whole thing turning and require innocent people to plead guilty to lesser charges in order to avoid decades in federal supermax — are NOT an inherent flaw in the system. Consequently, when Trump pardons Flynn, that’s cronyism, whereas when your guy pardons a ghetto full of three time losers, that’s justice. OK, thanks for straightening that out.
Joe, cronyism has nothing to do with either mandatory sentencing guidelines or plea bargaining. Nothing. The problem with the kind of pardons DJT is handing out is that they are to people who were hired by him to do things at his direction, just like Ollie North and Cap Weinberger years ago. This is the problem. Obama’s pardons weren’t to friends, co-workers, or employees. They were to people that, as Annette says above, were convicted under terms where the crime didn’t fit the penalty.
Some of the people Obama pardoned had sentences of a month or less. It was t all about mandatory sentences. Plus Obama pardoned bank fraudsters, mail fraudsters, Medicaid fraudsters, espionage convicts (sentence commuted) , people convicted of stealing federal property. It wasn’t all ghetto drug dealers.
Flynn’s son was threatened. Is it okay with you for federal prosecutors to threaten someone’s child if they don’t plead guilty? Is it okay to conduct phony baseless investigations intended to entrap people? This is banana republic stuff.
Obama pardoned people for embezzlement, bank fraud, healthcare fraud, espionage, wire fraud, tax evasion, false statements, car theft, even a convicted terrorist bomber.
Annette, don’t know where you’ve been for the past century, but prosecutors ALWAYS threaten people, their children, their spouses, their finances… they threaten ANYTHING in order to leverage cooperation out of a witness in a case. Always. Flynn’s son was par for the course.
I have little doubt that you’d be okay with threatening someone’s kid to coerce a guilty plea. But the slight of hand you use here to change “coerce a guilty plea” to “leverage cooperation out of a witness” is telling, and of course, won’t fly. There’s a gigantic difference between the two. In Flynn’s case, they coerced a guilty plea by the threat.
You also forget that the FBI had the tape of Flynn with the Russians so they knew what had been said. There was zero reason for an interview in the first place as the DoJ has subsequently admitted. Then the judge decided to act as prosecutor after the prosecutor dropped the case. Judges don’t get to be prosecutors, that’s not how it works.
Sorry Sidney but the whole thing stinks.
So why then did he lie? It does stink, and the reason for that is DJT. How many arrested, convicted, doing time? It stinks all right, but you’ve been holding your nose and looking away since access Hollywood came out, along with lovely Stormy.
But oh! Obama wore a TAN SUIT!!! And eats Dijon mustard!!!!!
The largest money heist in history happened under Obama – the 2008-2009 bank collapse. This was totally a manipulated recession whereby the money elites harvest the money built up by workers savings. That is what a recession is, the elites taking the money. Up to 100 Trillion was harvested world wide, and NO ONE OF ANY SIGNIFICANCE went to jail.
Obama did become very wealthy around this time…..
The FBI wanted Flynn to plead guilty even though the FBI itself based on their 302s did not believe Flynn lied in their interview. Plus they had the transcript so they knew that they did not have a crime with the Russians to charge him with. So we have someone who isn’t going to be charged with a Logan act violation because he didn’t commit one which the FBI knew. But they still wanted to charge him with something. So even knowing that Flynn did not lie, they told him that unless he pled guilty to lying, not to a crime with the Russians, they were going to go after his son. And this is okay with you?
Fortunately we now know from the investigations into the Flynn matter exactly what the FBI knew (that there was no crime with the Russians) and we know that the FBI didn’t think he was lying and so decided to pull a fast one by threatening his family to induce him to plead guilty so they could forever scream “but he pled guilty to lying!”
BS and you know it.
Hey, Justin, I’m so perplexed. What exactly does Trump have to pardon himself for? What was his crime? What you are doing is a blatant anti-Trump smear campaign, just smutty propaganda, that has no basis. Show us the pending court cases, show us the formal charges, and show us one single conviction. It’s easily seen you were a BBC employee. Just like CNN.
Russ, he cited quite a few if you read them, including multiple examples of the violation of the emoluments clause in the Constitution. Beyond that, there’s “Individual #1” in the campaign finance case of Michael Cohen’s. Remember that? There are no current court cases, of course (and as you know) as he can’t be charged while sitting. However, why would he even contemplate pardoning himself if he hasn’t done anything? Obama didn’t. Bush didn’t. Clinton didn’t. Carter didn’t. Reagan didn’t. NO ONE has over 235 years. Why Trump, Russ?
If your answer is to protect himself from those damn TDS Dems… again, I say, no other president had to protect themselves from their following number from the opposite party, in spite of the hatred many felt for previous presidents.
So as to citing pending Federal court cases, unless he gets Pence to pardon him (clearly legal, and his most probable route), I’ll let you know in about a year. Convictions will follow. In the states he can kiss his ass goodbye. He’s toast.
A very interesting though process and one the Democrats should be very very careful off because they don’t come to the table with clean hands. Bill Clinton and his friendship with Epstein could be “interesting”. Obama and his use of the IRS to investiage his political oponents was left alone by Trump but represent corruption. Trump was very happy to ignore the FBI investigation into his team which was reportly authorised by Obama and then there is the big one, what about Biden and his son’s business activities and tax affairs. By the sounds of things Biden could be more deeply mired in corruption than any of the 3,403 cases mentioned here.
No, Trump won’t need to pardon himself, the Democrats will happly brush it underr the carpet so that they don’t have to wash their own dirty linnen in public. The can of worms will stay tightly shut!
I agree completely in principle. No politician would like to set this kind of precedent. But isn’t the process most likely to be led by the SDNY attorney general and the team of prosecutors there? Not sure whether the Democrat leadership has much sway over them?
Lol. Because there is no politics in the prosecutor offices.
The SDNY doesn’t handle federal crimes.
David, I hope you’re wrong, and time will tell. When the president is above the law, we have a king. That can’t work, and if the Dems want to look the other way for whatever reason, it’s a big mistake. While any power can be abused, there is nothing wrong with a current administration prosecuting a previous one. France is currently prosecuting a former president (Sarkozy). No biggie. Not a big news item. It’s called justice.
The author of this piece knows nothing, nada, nowt.
We could just read CNN for this. Why do we need him regurgitating this on “unherd”?
I thought I was reading Guardian Lite.
I think Webb will find if there ” won’t be enough room in heaven for all the people he’s going to forgive”, then certainly Obama – given the number he pardoned, will be festering in hell… or should be.
This writer is full of Trump-detanged cant.
A divine cult that may find their “journalistic” lives without purpose if Trump does leave the stage.
FFS. This place is getting worse. Four massively clickbait headlines in a row. Rashford, Trump, Thunberg and Trans.
Is there a room in the basement of Unherd with half a dozen bitter old
men wired up to blood pressure monitors and spittle collecting tubes ?
Random headlines are tested until they find they find the ones that have them bouncing off the walls with rage.
Calm down Sturmbannfuhrer, you’ll get your chance for an antisemitic rant!
Momentum will be proud of you.
I’ve been called many things Mark, even Islamophobic, but never
before ‘antisemitic”. Netanyahu would be proud of you.
Sturmbannfuhrer Kevin, you have a very poor memory or else are in complete denial.
Only four days ago in conversation with Daniel Goldstein Esq you made a blatantly anti Semitic comment.
I suspect you and your moronic chums in Momentum just can’t help it.
You must be more cautious or the future bodes ill.
As you well know Mark, I told Mr Goldstein that people who talk about being ‘indigenous Brits’ would welcome him as much as they’d welcome a Patel, a Chan or a Ryan.
You want to label me antisemitic? Not anti-Indian or anti-Chinese or anti-Irish? (You being someone who drops the insults ‘Fu Manchu’ and ‘Sinbad’ on a regular basis)
You know, for all your pretensions of being a well-educated, English gentleman….underneath it all, you’re a bit of a weasel.
How you do disappoint me Sturmbannfuhrer! Not only an unrepentant anti Semite but ‘chippy’ to boot! You only demean yourself.
You must learn not to be so easily provoked.
However! as a gesture of Anglo-Irish Christmas spirit, I shall endeavour not to tease you again without good cause.
And you pulled me up….
What would Trump pardon himself for?
But like any US President Trump can and does issue pardons to people in miscarriage of justice federal cases.
Maybe all these prosecutions will ensure that never again will a businessperson with ample assets ever again venture into the corrupt political world. The various sinecures of politicians who have become quite wealthy via public graft given their minimum salaries shall never be threatened by outsiders. Let’s not rock the boat too much, else more will be revealed to the public! No Trump need not fear the wrath of politicians. But the press aided by stories like this one pant on hoping the story never ends.
Hardee, clearly you missed something. The point of conflict of interest laws are just that… so that when someone you hire to make decisions about something important to you does so, he does so in the interests of the entity he’s been hired by, and not his own. Pretty simple, really. I know you’d like to dumb it down into a ‘the libs don’t like successful businessmen’ meme, but that’s not it and you probably know it. Kennedy was from one of the wealthiest families in the US in the 1950’s, as was FDR and many others. However, conflict of interest laws (laws ignored by DJT) and their own honor gave citizens faith that they were acting in what they perceived was the country’s interests.
You believe the Kennedys acted in the country’s interest rather than the Kennedy family interest?
If DJT ignored conflict of interest laws, are you claiming that the democrats in congress somehow missed that? Or that they knew it and just didn’t do anything about it? People who impeached Trump over a phone call.
What specific law did he break and how did he do that? Just parroting MSM claims with zero evidence is lame.
The writer of this article is a despicable liar. Only a leftist with end justifies the means values could spew the utter Leftist BS that he writes in this article. These people are dangerously insane.
Would you be able to identify one of the lies?
“There is an example of this under Trump: he is alleged to have told Department of Homeland Security officials to shut down the Mexican border entirely to migrants.”
Here’s an example. No proof whatsoever. No indication of who, if there is any who, is “alleging” this or if they have any basis for an allegation. Just throw it out there and hope something sticks. On top of that, the president has the emergency authority to do this.
It’s not a lie to say he was alleged to have done that. A quick search shows that alarmed officials at the Department of Homeland Security went to the media with their concerns.
No, a quick search names not even one person who did that. It is a lie unless the people alleging this are named. Anyone can make up anything and allege someone said it or did it.
Anonymous briefings have been a feature of journalism for approximately ever. Remember “Deep Throat” in Watergate? If there were no anonymous briefings, then people in positions of power could not be held to account.
You’ll have to prove it’s not a lie. And you can’t do that because you don’t even know that anyone alleged that Trump did that. All you have is an allegation of allegations. Just not enough. And you’d feel the same way if the media alleged there were allegations of wrongdoing on your part. The witnesses in this case say it didn’t happen and even had it happened, why do you believe the president has no emergency authorization to shut down the border?
You are pathetic, I almost hope America does become communist so that they’ll do what they always do and turn on there own. It’s high time you democrat bolsheviks were taught a lesson you’ll never forget. I’d turn communist to help do it.
Sorry Annette, but if you’re offering this up as a lie told by the author of the article (per Chuck Burns), then you’ve failed because he WAS alleged to have told DHS officials to shut it down. Whether he did or not isn’t the question, as the author’s claim, not a lie, is that he was alleged to have done so. He was indeed alleged to have done so. Not a lie. Try again.
Was alleged by whom? Name a person who alleged this. Everything someone in the media says is true in your view? See the game is up, Sidney. People know this is BS. Say it was alleged and presto, it’s considered an allegation. Here’s how this works…..
It’s been alleged that Sidney committed benefit fraud every year since 1990. Uh oh someone made an allegation. Who? No idea but there’s been an allegation. But everyone who lives and works with Sidney says it isn’t true, the benefits system says it isn’t true and Sidney himself says it isn’t true. Too bad, there’s been an allegation.
And as I asked, why do you believe the president doesn’t have the emergency authority to do this anyway?
Annette, you’re not understanding, and I’ll use your example to try and be clearer. You write that it’s alleged that Sidney committed benefits fraud. Chuck then writes and says that Annette is a liar. Is she? No, because someone did allege those things about Sidney. Now whether that person that made those allegations was lying or not is a separate question. Annette, however, didn’t lie when she reported the fact of the allegation.
Chuck called the AUTHOR a liar, and you posted what you did as an example of the author lying. Like you in the example above, the author didn’t lie. Whether the original ALLEGATION was true or not is a separate question.
Yes, in this case Annette is lying in reporting that allegations were made. There is no fact of any allegation. See how easy that was? Who alleged those things about Sidney? You’re simply going to take Annette’s word that she isn’t lying even though in this case she was?
The very idea of a presidential pardon is terrible.
I hope Trump ramps it up to the max, and then Biden doubles down and ramps it higher, and then Kamala Harris pardons everyone, provided they voted Democrat, and then Ivanka comes in and pardons the Republicans. The five independent voters still locked up will be kicking themselves.
Hopefully, finally, they’ll get rid of what is a corrupt practice with no checks and balances.
A pardon is a check and balance. It’s to address miscarriages of justice.
You have a point, but there has to be a better way.
Well, you do want an elected position to be making these decisions so there is some voter accountability. Who would you suggest other than the president? Surely you are not saying that any legal system never provides miscarriages of justice?
“But will he ever be caught? I wouldn’t bet on it.”, whether he is or not, or even guilty of any wrong doing , he will be fighting court cases for years and will need deep pockets, there will be many career’s built and money to be had by pursuing him for the rest of his life.
Let that discourage others from seeking high office best left to professional thieves.
Serious non-partisan constitutional/legal question : Can Trump – or anyone – pardon himself if he hasn’t actually been convicted of a crime? What would he be issuing a pardon for? Crimes he may have committed? Do Presidential powers allow him to grant himself, his family and associates immunity from putative/future prosecutions?
More cobblers from a bbc shill.
Thank your lucky stars you get to pay this shills wages.
Cancel your tv licence
Free your mind
Spread the word
Even Trump can’t avoid the IRS, if he’s defrauded his taxes then they’ll come after him. Interesting how it seems that no one apart from the Trump hating media seem to have an issue with it
Wouldn’t it be simpler to get rid of the presidential power to grant a pardon? Full stop. If someone is innocent, they can go through the due processes of appeal and show their innocence that way.
No. The US “justice system” is a complete disaster. We need more pardons not less. The author of this article seems to imply Trump can pardon anything. I think this is only for federal crimes.
Do you believe there are no miscarriages of justice even including the appeal process in any legal system? The anti death penalty argument depends entirely on the fact that any legal system has miscarriages of justice. Should that argument be dispensed with?
And it isn’t simply miscarriages of justice as in wrongful convictions. There are cases where the penalty doesn’t fit the crime.
Annette, the issue isn’t should presidential pardons exist. The framers put them in for good reasons, your miscarriages of justice and penalty not fitting the crime issues being among them. The problem is when one pardons those convicted or threatened by conviction while acting illegally but at the presidents direction. Casper Weinberger and Ollie North spring to mind, and that is precisely what DJT is doing… demanding that those around him break the law and then handing out get out of jail free cards… that THAT kind of a pardon is what needs to be ended.
Re-read the post I responded to. It was indeed proposing that presidential pardons should not exist.
You’re forgetting that the DoJ dropped the charges, Sidney. Because Flynn did not break the law. You’re also forgetting that coerced guilty pleas are well……we consider them kind of bad, you know? You could coerce people to plead guilty to lots of things by threatening their kid.
If you have evidence that Trump demanded anyone break the law, you should certainly bring that forward. With details and evidence. Witness names, etc. that’s how the US legal system works. It does not work by staging interviews based on no legal pretext and then coercing guilty pleas by threatening someone’s kid.
Please. Read anything Michael Cohen has said. It’s one big grifting crime family, and if you don’t see that, or see it yet forgive it for some reason, I won’t bother any more.
The Michael Cohen convicted of lying? Why do you find a convicted liar credible? Because he said something about someone you don’t like? That isn’t a basis for credibility.
Plus how gullible do you have to be to believe someone not only convicted of lying but who said nothing at all about Trump until Cohen himself got in trouble that had nothing to do with Trump? No possibility in your mind that he wasn’t trying to better his own position with prosecutors? I have a bridge I’d like to sell you.
No mention of Clinton’s pardon for Marc Rich? At the time the number one on the most wanted list, or the donations by Rich’s exwife?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
I sincerely hope that the insightful Mr Webb finds himself a new job
after Biden becomes POTUS as surely there will be nothing further to
write about? Perhaps it will be something more suited to his
abilities, as investigative journalism is not one of his
competencies. This whole article simply meanders through rumour and
innuendo. Standard hack comment “(again I stress he denies all
wrongdoing)” Mr Webb’s conspiratorial nod that he knows better
tells us all we need to know about the article. Why is UnHerd giving
this MSM bot so much print space? There are plenty of Herd
publications for his outpourings
I was interested in the comment Trump pardoning himself. Yes , he will step down and then get vice president to then pardon him in getting Pence as a acting president before the hand over to Biden. Yes , the move is to save his own skin. What every single person on this planet should be concerned in this saga or soap opera is how much corruption and manipulation has occurred and will justice prevail . Will the truth ever come out , and we are not talking pocket change here , try millions . Only time will tell.
I appreciate that this article is included on Unherd. I want to read differing opinions and not be in an echo box. Much of the article I think is suspect and its conclusions up to interpretation, but I want to be challenged not coddled.
I read somewhere that Trump can only pardon himself for possible crimes already in the public sphere. The likelihood is that new crimes will come to light after he leaves office. He won’t be able to pardon himself for these.
Bring them on. The man is a disgrace to his office.
He can only pardon federal crimes. He can’t just pardon everyone.