We told you there were no magic pardons in the Trump-Russia scandal

| 5:05 pm EST February 22, 2019
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For as long as it’s been clear that Donald Trump’s underlings would end up facing criminal charges in relation to Trump’s scandals, various pundits and observers have expressed certainty that Trump would simply pardon them all. For as long as this discussion has been happening, Palmer Report has been pointing out that pardons are not a relevant part of the Trump-Russia conversation, because they don’t work that way. Now the State of New York just reminded us of as much.

Donald Trump can try to pardon his alleged co-conspirators like Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, or Donald Trump Jr on federal charges. We say “try” because no president has ever tried to pardon an alleged co-conspirator, not even Nixon. So such pardons would be legally challenged and would end up in front of the Supreme Court.

Trump has five conservative votes on the Supreme Court, but he doesn’t appear to have five pro-pardon votes. We believe this is why he hasn’t even tried to pardon any of his friends and underlings who have been charged and/or convicted. In any case, even if Trump did manage to pull off federal pardons, the State of New York was always going to respond with parallel state-level charges. Sure enough, according to CNN and other news outlets, New York District Attorney Cyrus Vance confirmed today that he has such charges ready to go against Paul Manafort.

This, of course, means he has them lined up against every Trump associate who is based in Manhattan. Other state-level prosecutors surely have similar charges lined up against other Trump associates who live in other districts. Any argument about double jeopardy is nullified by simply making sure the state-level charges are slightly different than the federal charges. If you were wondering why Manafort and other Trump people weren’t hit with federal charges on every possible count, there’s a reason for that.

So yeah, there were never any magic pardons in the Trump-Russia scandal. It was never an option for Donald Trump. Even he seems to understand as much, which is why he’s never tried it. That ship has already sailed for most of Trump’s people. The whole point of pardoning people like Michael Flynn and Rick Gates would have been do it before they cut plea deals and spilled their guts about Trump’s crimes.

Donald Trump could still try, out of sheer desperation, to pardon himself and his kids on his way out the door. But that’s not going to work either. The New York District Attorney just made that abundantly clear. Let’s move on from these irrelevant discussions about “magic pardons.” They’re little more than a ratings-friendly narrative to scare you into staying tuned in on a slow news day.