President Trump Hints At Still More Pardons

Earlier today, President Trump pardoned Dinesh D’Souza. I don’t have much of an issue with it as I consider campaign finance laws to onerous unconstitutional bullsh** designed to help incumbents and in nearly all cases violations are adjudicated by a civil fine. Obama’s favorite prosecutor, Preet Bharara, decided to make an example of D’Souza because he could.

As he was handing out this one pardon, President Trump hinted that he has others in mind.

President Trump on Thursday pardoned Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative author, commentator and filmmaker, and said he was strongly considering commuting the sentence of former Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois, a Democrat.

Flexing his clemency power as he and his team face multiple criminal investigations of their own, Mr. Trump also said that he was thinking about the case of Martha Stewart, the lifestyle mogul who spent five months in prison for lying to investigators about the timing of a stock sale.

The president was focusing on cases where he argued that the justice system had unfairly treated celebrity figures, all of whom were convicted of crimes that in some ways mirrored charges that have been made or mentioned in connection with allies of Mr. Trump in recent weeks, including campaign finance violations and lying to investigators.
…
Moreover, all three of the cases were tied to prosecutors who have become nemeses of the president. Mr. D’Souza was prosecuted by Preet Bharara, the United States attorney in New York who was fired by Mr. Trump last year and has been one of his fiercest critics. Ms. Stewart was prosecuted by James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director who was fired by Mr. Trump last year and has engaged in a running war of words ever since.

As for Mr. Blagojevich, he was prosecuted by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, a close friend and colleague of Mr. Comey. Mr. Trump previously pardoned I. Lewis Libby Jr., a top aide to former Vice President Dick Cheney, who was also prosecuted by Mr. Fitzgerald.

This is what Ken White, aka Popehat, had to say about it. White is pretty much a libertarian but he does strongly suspect that Trump is actually Satan.

Trump’s pardons of D’Souza and Arpiao and Libby, and rumored contemplated pardons of Stewart and Blagojevich, show consistent messaging. /1

— KneelBeforeHat (@Popehat) May 31, 2018

/2 The Libby pardon and rumored Stewart pardon say “the government abuses its ability to prosecute people for lies and obstruction when being investigated.” That message is obviously helpful to his team. It’s true, to some extent, though he’s not a credible or sincere proponent.

— KneelBeforeHat (@Popehat) May 31, 2018

/3 The Arpaio and D’Souza pardons say “the liberals persecute people with conservative views,” which again is helpful to him and his team, particularly since he’s convinced some dim partisan people that Mueller and Rosenstein are “liberals.”

— KneelBeforeHat (@Popehat) May 31, 2018

/4 The rumored Blagojevich pardon, and to some extent the Libby and Arpaio pardons, say “partisan political maneuvering isn’t criminal,” which again is a message that serves his team in the current investigation very well.

— KneelBeforeHat (@Popehat) May 31, 2018

For the record, I think Rod Blagojevich is sleazy even by the standard used to judge politicians, but I think he ended up in prison because he was sleazy and not because of any overt criminality.

/5 It’s significant to note that if he pardons Stewart and Blagojevich he’d be extending this message far enough to pardon partisan Democrats, which gives him a veneer of credibility.

— KneelBeforeHat (@Popehat) May 31, 2018

/6 Mostly, though, the consistent message is to his current and former allies, saying “I have your back” — hoping they will not cooperate against him or against other allies. He’s not sincerely against political/excessive prosecutions at all. They’re in his stump speech. /end

— KneelBeforeHat (@Popehat) May 31, 2018

This last is White taking a swipe at the “lock her up” chants and Trump musing about the death penalty for drug dealers.

As I said earlier, I think the overarching purpose of the D’Souza pardon and the prospective pardons of Stewart (who was really prosecuted because she was a big, slow-moving target) and Blagoujevich is laying the predicate for a pardon of Mike Flynn and George Papadopoulos, at a minimum.

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