Trump’s henchmen aren’t buying his pardon scam

| 11:45 pm EDT May 31, 2018
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Back in August of last year, right around the time that the first batch of Donald Trump’s underlings were becoming aware that they were on their way to being indicted and arrested for their roles in his crimes, Trump embarked on a rather odd strategy. As we’ve explained, he knows he can’t pardon his way out of this. But he tried to con his underlings into thinking he might pardon them, by issuing an unrelated pardon to rogue Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Let’s just say that it didn’t work as hoped. Now he’s at it again.

At the time Trump pardoned Arpaio, Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort both knew they were primary targets of the Trump-Russia probe. Flynn wasn’t buying what Trump was selling, and he decided to cut a plea deal just before he was about to be arrested. Manafort decided not to flip, but it’s still not clear if that’s because he hoped a pardon was coming, or simply because he hoped his high priced lawyers could beat the charges. Rick Gates tried holding out for a few months, but he eventually cut a plea deal against Trump as well.

In other words, Trump’s pardon gambit only went one-for-three. That’s not nearly good enough. You need to keep all of the crucial witness from testifying against you. Robert Mueller can build a plenty strong case with Flynn and Gates, but without Manafort. Now that we’ve learned that Manafort is out of money after all, that may turn into zero-for-three. But that isn’t stopping Trump from trying again with his next round of henchmen.

Now that Michael Cohen and Roger Stone are on the verge of getting arrested, Donald Trump is pardoning anti-Obama loon Dinesh D’Souza, while also talking about pardoning Martha Stewart and Rod Blagojevich. Cohen is a stupid criminal, and Stone lives on another planet. But if Flynn and Gates weren’t buying Trump’s pardon scam, it’s difficult to see Cohen and Stone buying it either. They can see that Trump never did pardon Manafort for his loyalty. Trump already blew it.