Donald Trump’s new pardon reveals he’s scared to death of Trump-Russia
For months, the optimists within Donald Trump’s base and the pessimists within the anti-Trump Resistance have been predicting that Trump was about to simply pardon everyone involved in his Trump-Russia scandal. But in reality, Trump’s moves have become more tepid by the day, as he appears to fear that he’s one false Trump-Russia move away from ouster. Today Trump finally did pardon someone, but instead of being a bold stroke, it revealed just how scared he is of the Trump-Russia scandal.
Trump issued a pardon today to a member of the Navy who had taken photos inside a classified engine room, according to several major news outlets. Trump had previously ranted on Twitter that it was unfair that this individual had been sentenced to prison for violating classified information protocols, when Hillary Clinton didn’t go to jail for her use of email. Back in the real world, Clinton didn’t come within a million miles of violating any law, of course, and a year long FBI investigation proved as much. So what does this pardon have to do with Trump-Russia?
Nothing, and that’s the entire point. The window for Donald Trump to try pardoning people in the Trump-Russia scandal was six months ago, back before Paul Manafort was arrested and the average American began to figure out that the scandal was indeed real, and back before Michael Flynn cut a plea deal and spilled his guts. Pardoning the likes of Flynn or Rick Gates wouldn’t do Trump any good now, because they’ve already turned over the evidence and testimony against him. That’s before getting to the odds that the courts would strike down pardons of his own co-conpirators, and the fact that he can’t pardon anyone on the parallel state level charges that Mueller has been arranging as an insurance policy.
Donald Trump seems to be figuring out that it’s too late to even bother trying to pardon these people. He sees they’ve cut deals against him and given Robert Mueller what he needs. So what’s Trump doing? He’s taking out his frustrations by pardoning someone he can safely get away with pardoning, someone who has nothing to do with Trump-Russia, someone he believes is somehow a victim of Hillary Clinton. This is similar to how, once Trump realized he’d missed his window to try to fire Trump-Russia investigation leaders Robert Mueller and Rod Rosenstein, he instead took out his frustrations by annoying Andrew McCabe into retirement, even though McCabe had nothing to do with the investigation.
Last summer, Donald Trump pardoned his pal Joe Arpaio on a matter that had nothing to do with Trump-Russia. The media, along with the pessimists of the Resistance and the optimists in Trump’s base, insisted that it was a harbinger for Trump’s imminent pardons of his Trump-Russia co-conspirators. That of course never came to fruition. Trump was just making a safe, if irrelevant, move he knew he could get away with. This is more of the same. Trump is more tepid than ever. He knows Trump-Russia is going to get him, and the boldest move he can muster is to pardon some random Navy member who has nothing to do with the scandal.
