The mystery of the non-pardons
It’s a mystery why various House Republicans are even bothering to deny that they sought Trump pardons. The 1/6 committee and the media wouldn’t be alleging this without either documentation or credible witnesses. The denial arguably makes them look even worse.
Accepting a pardon is legally considered an admission of guilt. So perhaps they’re afraid that if they admit they sought a pardon, it’ll increase their odds of being charged or convicted. That’s not how it works, but these folks aren’t the brightest to begin with.
Perhaps they’re just trying to maintain cover with their own base, as they continue to fundraise on false claims about how they’re the real victims. It’s not clear how having sought a pardon would harm their fundraising, but again, not the brightest.
It’s also possible Trump has told them to deny that they sought pardons. If you’re already in that deep with Trump, you’re going to feel compelled to keep doing whatever dumb or incoherent thing he tells you to do, no matter how far gone his mind gets.
It’s also theoretically possible these pardon claims are false. But if someone in your circle makes up a false claim like that about you and feeds it to the media or to congress, you’d call them out and discredit their supposed evidence, not just generically deny it, right?
One of these House Republicans reportedly sought a pardon for alleged underage sex trafficking, while the other House Republicans were in relation to January 6th, so these are two different storylines. But they’re now dovetailing together. Of particular interest is why Trump denied these pardons. By late January, Trump certainly knew he was going to be leaving office and would not magically get a second term. Perhaps he feared that granting these kinds of pardons would only make his own legal troubles even worse.
And yeah, it’s possible these House Republicans are denying they sought pardons because they now think they’re off the hook because they haven’t yet been indicted. But anyone in congress should be familiar enough with DOJ probes to know that’s not how anything works. Again, not the brightest.
