Trump pardons all top insurrectionists for trying to overthrow government (except himself)

Of course thanks to the Unspeakable Wisdom of John Roberts, Trump doesn’t have to pardon himself because he can’t be prosecuted for anything he does in in the course of his official duties, and because of the Unitary Executive ™ everything he does while president is part of his official duties.

President Donald Trump has pardoned his former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, his former chief of staff Mark Meadows and others accused of backing the Republican’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, a Justice Department official says.

Ed Martin, the government’s pardon attorney, posted on social media a signed proclamation of the “full, complete, and unconditional” pardon, which also names Sidney Powell, an attorney who promoted baseless conspiracy theories about a stolen election, and John Eastman, another lawyer who pushed a plan to keep Trump in power. The proclamation, posted online late Sunday, explicitly says the pardon does not apply to Trump.

Presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes, and none of the Trump allies named were charged in federal cases over the 2020 election. But the move underscores President Donald Trump’s continued efforts to promote the idea that the 2020 election was stolen from him even though courts around the country and U.S. officials found no evidence of fraud that could have affected the outcome. It follows the sweeping pardons of the hundreds of Trump supporters charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, including those convicted of attacking law enforcement.

BTW in its report which I’m not going to quote because FTFNYT the Times describes all this as “largely symbolic” because none of these people were facing federal prosecution. The real symbolism here is precisely that none of the top insurrectionists ever faced any federal prosecution, for a trivial thing like trying to overthrow the government. And why exactly was that?

For pretty much the exact same reason as yesterday’s disgraceful and disgusting collapse of Democratic opposition, which is that the Democratic opposition isn’t a real opposition: it’s a Potemkin opposition that will scream that liberal democracy and the rule of law are being eliminated right before our eyes — which happens to be true! — when begging for money, but will then turn around and prove to everyone, and most especially to the marginal voters who decide elections, that they don’t really mean any of it, as soon as any actual opposition to the Trump regime is required. (Another horrible consequence of this is that Miller, Vought, Noem, Hegseth, and the rest of the cumulative radicalizers are being told unmistakably that Trump’s use of the pardon power will absolutely insulate them from any consequences for their constant lawlessness).

Politics in this country are now divided between nihilistic death cult radical reactionaries who believe that Donald Fucking Trump might as well be the risen Christ with an unusual hairdo, and utterly feckless careerists, institutionalists, and how do I get in on the grift that is American politics opportunists, who signal at every critical moment that they have no stomach to actually resist any of this, despite their bumper stickers and lawn signs.

How about In This House We Believe That Unilateral Surrender Is Not a Winning Move in the Face of Nascent Tyranny? Not catchy enough I suppose.