Donald Trump pardoning a person every week who he is convinced will make him look good to a group or person he cares about that week is an almost inevitable thing.
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As I put it to my colleagues this morning — before we knew Trump would be mentioning the possibility of pardoning Blagojevich! — Trump knows he has this thing now, and it’s fucking golden.pic.twitter.com/mu9BbW0ZlH
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None of that is to say it's right, or appropriate, or good, or good for the rule of law, or anything like that — something that should be obvious but who knows these days. But, it is.
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My point is not to diminish criticism — not at all — it is to assess what Trump is doing and why. And the most Trump thing is: I have the ability to do something, and I am doing it to make money, to settle scores, or to try to get people to like me.
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As
@nycsouthpaw notes (about what I've written elsewhere), this is *not* about self-pardon questions or questions about using the pardon power to obstruct an investigation into himself, this thread is about what he has done thus far.https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1002228405780254720 …Show this thread -
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From
@tparti and me, on today's pardon: "The former official said he doesn't think Trump is playing 'the sort of three-dimensional chess people ascribe to decisions like this. More often than not he's just eating the pieces.'" https://www.buzzfeed.com/tariniparti/trump-allies-dont-see-three-dimensional-chess-in-dinesh?utm_term=.rneQqOgly#.whYOl4zgE …pic.twitter.com/QYkXCUs4mI
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Rudy Giuliani tells me that Trump told him about the D'Souza pardon decision last night. As to the 3D chess talk: "I say there’s nothing to that," adding that he’s had no discussions with Trump about sending any messages with his pardons.https://www.buzzfeed.com/tariniparti/trump-allies-dont-see-three-dimensional-chess-in-dinesh?utm_term=.rneQqOgly#.whYOl4zgE …
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Well, as you rightly note, the courts haven’t resolved whether the President can pardon himself. And they have never answered whether he can exercise the power for an improper purpose under obstruction statutes, such as tampering with witnesses in an investigation into himself.
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Yes! And, that has nothing to do with what I'm saying here!
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I see people starting to build a case that he’s deploying pardons strategically to deter witnesses from cooperating with the Mueller probe. If it turns out that is demonstrably his purpose, I don’t think precedent answers whether he can do it without incurring his own liability.
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Wonder what the right would’ve said if Obama pardoned everyone on death row because he didn’t believe in death penalty.
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First, Obama would have to not believe in the death penalty.
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except in cases of impeachment. Which one could presume is coming.
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(That, and much more, is covered in the story.)
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