A Parting Insult to Democracy and the American People From the Ex-President and the Enabling GOP Leadership

The GOP: Now remade in his image and standing for 

him and his interests

The pardons and commutations the ex-president granted yesterday were a direct insult to the rule of law and people who respect it. His clemency was for criminals who were corrupt and/or betrayed the public trust. The New York Times writes:

Randy “Duke” Cunningham maintained a “bribe menu” on his congressional office stationery that featured different levels of payments he required from military contractors if they wanted his help to win corresponding levels of federal contracts.

As mayor of Detroit, Kwame M. Kilpatrick turned City Hall into what prosecutors called “a private profit machine,” taking bribes, fixing municipal contracts and even using hundreds of thousands of dollars from a city civic fund to spend on friends and family, as well as campaign expenses.

Robin Hayes, a former member of Congress serving as chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, pleaded guilty to lying to F.B.I. agents about his role in a plot to bribe a state insurance commissioner as part of an effort to secure $2 million worth of donations toward state re-election campaigns.

All received clemency from Donald J. Trump early Wednesday morning in one of his final acts as president. And Mr. Trump’s choice to use his unchecked clemency power on their behalf highlighted a theme that coursed through the more than 235 pardons and commutations he issued during his presidency — a disdain for a justice system that seeks to hold public officials to account for violations of the public trust.

In announcing the pardon last month of Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who had been convicted of financial violations, witness tampering and conspiracy to defraud the United States, the White House noted that his conviction stemmed from the special counsel’s investigation, which Mr. Trump’s aides asserted in their explanation “was premised on the Russian collusion hoax.”

Within weeks of stepping down as the president’s lawyer in 2018, John M. Dowd, who defended Mr. Trump in the special counsel’s investigation, began marketing himself as a potential conduit for pardons. He told some would-be clients and their representatives that Mr. Trump was likely to look favorably on petitioners who were investigated by federal prosecutors in Manhattan — who regularly took on cases that touched Mr. Trump or his associates — or tarnished by perceived leaks from the F.B.I., which he openly came to distrust and criticize during the Russia investigation.

One of Mr. Dowd’s clients, William T. Walters, a sports gambler convicted of charges related to an insider-trading scheme, had his sentence commuted by Mr. Trump early Wednesday. Mr. Dowd denied that he had boasted to anyone about his ability to obtain pardons and declined to answer questions.

So there it is. The ex-president's parting shot at democracy, the rule of law and the American people. We get an outrageous insult wrapped in corruption and based on lies. The man was toxic from the beginning to the end of his rotten, illegitimate presidency. There is every reason to believe that he will continue to inject as much poison into society and politics as he possibly can, just as he did before he was sworn into office.

Culpability in the GOP

After all, the ex-president is a completely unrepentant criminal, a traitor and a full-blown fascist tyrant wannabe. And that goes a long way toward describing most of the GOP leadership. Sadly, it also describes too many of its rank and file members. Some really are fascists and do not much care about the criminality, corruption, mendacity and treason of their leadership. That's the real heartbreaker. The people at the top know exactly what they were doing and why. They get not one shred of sympathy. It's the deceived, manipulated and betrayed rank and file that are in a different moral situation.