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Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin

(107,112 posts)
Sat Jul 11, 2020, 01:29 PM Jul 2020

'Unprecedented, historic corruption': Why Trump's pardon history is so extraordinary

President Trump has attempted to make law and order his calling card in the 2020 election. In fact, he’s tweeted or retweeted the words “LAW & ORDER” — in ALL CAPS — more than two dozen times since May 31.

The same president just commuted the sentence of a political ally, Roger Stone, who was recently convicted of seven crimes, including ones aimed at shielding the president himself.

The first thing that jumps out at you about Trump’s pardons and commutations is the inordinate number of them which have gone to people with either personal or political ties to Trump (or both): Joe Arpaio, Dinesh D’Souza, Conrad Black, Bernard Kerik, Rod Blagojevich, Michael Milken, Paul Pogue, David Safavian, Eddie DeBartolo Jr. and now Stone. It’s hardly unheard-of for a president to pardon allies — see Marc Rich et al. — but Trump has taken it to another level.

And the Stone clemency both reinforces this pattern and brings it to an entirely different level. The five counts of lying Stone was found guilty of included his effort to obscure his contacts with WikiLeaks, which published information on Democrats as part of Russia’s effort to interfere in the 2016 election. Trump is, quite literally, pardoning crimes that served to protect himself personally.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/unprecedented-historic-corruption-why-trumps-pardon-history-is-so-extraordinary/ar-BB16Cfin?li=BBnb7Kz

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