Some of the People Trump Pardoned Are on a Crime Spree

Regarding presidential pardon power

A NYT Editorial Board opinion (not paywalled), focuses on the topic of Trump’s criminal pardons. Probably more clearly than anything else, the pardons show his callousness, cruelty and utter contempt for the rule of law. Under the Constitution presidential pardon powers are essentially unlimited. Before Trump, public opinion and presidential “decency” were the only meaningful checks on that power. Trump blew the old system of presidential restraint and decency to smithereens.

Trump’s pardon business

There are so many self-serving Trump pardons that the public cannot keep up. The high volume of pardons is just one small part of the MAGA strategy that Steve Bannon described years ago as “flooding the zone with shit”. People cannot easily follow the wreckage Trump’s pardons caused. He released so many criminals that no one can easily keep up with either (1) the consequences to crime victims, or (2) criminal activities once the pardoned thugs are turned loose on us.

Asdiscussed here before, Trump runs a pardon industry. Part of the wreckage is ~$1.3 billion that crime victims will be screwed out of. The pardons included nullifying court-ordered payments to the crime victims. Trump callously screws innocent crime victims, even though some of the criminals are very wealthy and can easily afford restitution. Oh well, that’s just Trump being Trump.

Trump’s racket works like this. Convicted thug-criminals pay people with White House connections in return for a pardon. It’s simple pay-to-play politics. The pardons include wealthy tax cheats, murderers, drug dealers, and dozens of fraudsters, i.e., crooks just like himself. Trump really likes fraud. Fraud is why he’s a convicted felon.

Among the drug dealers, Juan Orlando Hernández, a former president of Honduras bought a pardon. That drug lord helped traffic hundreds of tons of cocaine into the US.

On the first day of his second term, Trump pardoned all the rioters and traitors who stormed the Capitol in his Jan. 6, 2021 coup attempt. He did not distinguish between rioters who were relatively peaceful and traitors who attacked police officers. All ~1,500 got a clean slate. That’s serious contempt for the rule of law.

What they’ve been up to

So, what has the happy band for criminals and thugs been doing since they were given or bought their pardons? Not surprisingly, some have been busy doing more crime. At least 12 have been charged with other major crimes, including child molestation, assault, harassment, murder plots and a vicious dog attack. That outcome was predictable. Trump’s pardons signaled that crime has no consequences. Some people who commit crimes but are absolved will become repeat offenders.

One of the pardoned “fine people” at Trump’s 1/6 coup attempt, Andrew Paul Johnson, is especially disgusting. On 1/6, Johnson entered the Capitol through a broken window and attacked police officers. In March 2026, a Florida court sentenced him to life in prison for molesting a 12-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl. His pedophilia began some months after he received his pardon. He used online gaming platforms to make his initial contact with the children. Johnson kept his pedophilia victims quiet by promising to pay to them from a federal Jan. 6 restitution fund that he falsely claimed he would receive.

Andrew Paul Johnson - pedophile &

pardoned Trump supporter

The NYT opinion mentions other examples of pardoned crooks getting caught in post-pardon crimes, e.g., one 1/6 traitor who attacked capitol police with a baseball bat and a riot shield, committed felony vandalism in Minnesota and organized an illegal anti-Muslim rally in New York City that turned violent. What no one knows is what new crimes the more intelligent criminals have committed. Presumably, most of the white-collar criminals that Trump pardoned now know better how to commit crimes like fraud without getting caught again.

For the most part MAGA politicians in congress openly support most of Trump’s pardons, especially for the rioters and traitors in the 1/6 coup attempt. One congressional MAGA elite refuses to answer questions about about Trump’s pay-to-play pardons, offering the ludicrous deflection that it is “looking backward” to comment on them.

Oh Canada, time to build up some defenses, pronto!

 Donald Trump’s national security strategy proposes a "Greater North America" concept, aiming to establish U.S. dominance over the entire Western Hemisphere as a, "secured zone". This strategy focuses on controlling the region, from the Arctic to the Panama Canal, and minimizing influence from foreign powers like China. It represents a "three bully world" approach, focusing on securing the homeland from immigration and foreign interference, with an emphasis on acquiring control over natural resources and strategic locations.

Actually the idea was being presented by Peter Hegseth, but you gotta know he was just mouthing what Trump is thinking.

How should Canada respond?

With typical laid-back, don't take it all so seriously, Canadian approach? 

Hell, no.

My ideas:

Form an partnership with other nations being bullied (Mexico, hell, even China, Australia, Brazil) that includes an mutual defense agreement. Can it be done? Maybe not, but try. 

Ask the UK, since Canada is still part of the Commonwealth, to station a few warships and airforce assets in Canada. 

Canada should quickly take some of it's nuclear material and build an arsenal of dirty bombs - since actually building a real nuke would take too much time.

Enhance the military and place them in locations likely to be struck by the US. 

Canada can in no way withstand aggression from the US but we could make any attempt miserable for them.

I would even consider turning off the power that Canada supplies to some of the northern states on a short term basis to let them feel what it would feel like to lose Canadian power.

Or are my ideas too extreme and Canadians should just sit back and take laid-back, don't take it all so seriously approach? 

Regarding authoritarianism inherent in free markets

Context

The reality of American politics and government is very bad and getting worse fast. We are operating under a highly energized, corrupt, structurally authoritarian/oligarchic, demagogue‑friendly system. There is an ongoing war between that and what is left of the old status quo, i.e., a frozen, obsolete Constitution and system of law. The big picture is complex. Far bigger and more complex than a single ~400 word blog post can convey.

This post links a trait of unregulated free markets in capitalism with what that means for America’s bitter war of authoritarianism (concentrated wealth & power) vs democracy (less concentrated wealth & power).

Two relevant research data points: First, most experts now believe that the US is sliding toward authoritarianism, which is tightly linked to Trump’s mendacious demagoguery and bad behaviors. Second, research consistently shows (and this, and this) that that economic inequality is one of the strongest predictors of democratic erosion and failure. Concentrated wealth and power push democracies toward authoritarianism.

How unregulated free markets behave

A 2019 SciAm article, Is Inequality Inevitable?, asks a key question about free markets. It turns out that inequality is the norm in unregulated markets, but not in reasonably regulated markets. This trait of capitalist markets is simply inherent. Absent regulation, wealth usually trickles up to a few. For better or worse, wealth naturally concentrates and tends toward oligarchy unless there is wealth redistribution by law or other wealth-distributing factors, e.g., taxes.

 
Later research continues to reinforce this data point. Given current forms of capitalism, weak labor power, and porous tax/ownership laws, rising inequality is structurally likely. If Trump and MAGA maintain (1) their current tax cuts (already tilted to favor the rich), (2) gutted regulations, and (3) open legalized influence‑buying (corruption), the probability that US inequality will rise further is extremely high. Current evidence shows that is happening right now. Link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4

A plausible (likely?) end game for American democracy

With increasing wealth inequality comes increased inequality in power. Power goes with the wealth. The wealthy elites buy policy and law that protects and expands their wealth and power. The US Supreme Court protects and expands the scope of legalized corruption (and this). In the end, we probably wind up with some form of kleptocratic (and this) authoritarianism, most likely a combination of Trump/MAGA elite dictatorship (and this), oligarchy (and this), and bigoted Christian nationalist theocracy. In the end, the American experiment in democracy and self-government will have failed.

The US approaches bankruptcy

Context

The US government just might be insolvent, or getting close to it. The US owns $6.06 trillion in total assets and owes $47.78 trillion in total liabilities as of September 30, 2025. That’s based on the Treasury Department’s consolidated financial statements for fiscal year 2025. This news was released last week. It elicited near-total silence from our mostly incompetent and complicit mainstream media.

Every year, the US Treasury quietly releases a report that reads like a slow‑motion horror story for public finances. In the latest Financial Report, debt held by the public sits around the size of the entire economy, roughly 99–100 percent of GDP, and is projected to climb far above its post‑World War II record if nothing changes. The Congressional Budget Office now expects federal debt to reach ~120% of GDP in the 2030s and keep rising after that. That’s before you even factor in the long‑term costs of Social Security, Medicare, and interest on the debt as the population ages. Link 1, link 2, link 3, link 4

A brief insolvency primer

A driver of how we got here is a deliberate political strategy called “Starve the Beast.” Since the late 1970s, radical right activists and conservative politicians, now MAGA authoritarians, have pushed the idea that you can force government to shrink by cutting taxes, even if the cuts blow holes in the budget. The theory was simple: if you deprive Washington of revenue, it will eventually have to slash spending. But in practice, the tax cuts went with higher spending. That created bigger deficits, not smaller government. The beast has been fed with borrowed money. Link 5, link 6

Behind this strategy is firmly entrenched wealth and power. That power is in wealthy donors, corporations, and networks that ideologically support or benefit from low taxes on capital and high‑end income while relying on the state for contracts, subsidies, and bailouts. These interests have corrupted the tax code, spending priorities, and budget deals in ways ordinary voters rarely see because its is rarely reported with coherence and clarity. Also, politicians lie about the problem all the time. Recent analyses by the Congressional Budget Office show that new budget laws usually reduce resources for households at the bottom while boosting them some the middle and a lot for the top. That pattern is no accident. It reflects who has the wealth-power in political decisions and policy. Link 7, link 8, link 9

Multiple analyses show that fiscal consolidations in advanced economies typically increase income inequality, especially when they lean on spending cuts rather than progressive taxation. Cuts fall on public services, and employment that matter most to the bottom and middle. At the same time, wealthy-powerful people and businesses work to shape tax changes to their advantage to minimize their pain. Link 10, link 11, link 12

So what happens when the herd finally spooks? That’s when wealthy investors and asset owners decide the numbers no longer add up and they stampede for the exits. History and international evidence suggest that when the bill for decades of easy deficits comes due, the pain usually falls hardest on people with the least wealth-power. Fiscal “consolidation” packages almost always cut public services, social benefits, and jobs that matter most to average households. Meanwhile those at the wealth-power top lobby our corrupted, endlessly money-hungry two-party system for protections for their tax breaks, portfolios and assets. Unless we change who writes the rules, the next fiscal crisis won’t just be about numbers. It will be about who gets sacrificed by how much to save a system they never controlled in the first place. Link 13, link 14

What about Trump and MAGA?

During Trump’s first term (Jan. 2017–Jan. 2021), the gross national debt rose from about $19.9 trillion to roughly $27.8 trillion, an increase of around $7.9–8.1 trillion (~40% increase). Analyses of his major policies estimate that the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, bipartisan budget deals, and other legislation he approved collectively added about $8.8 trillion in new ten‑year borrowing to the debt trajectory. Link 15, link 16

Peanut gallery commentary

Peanut 1: Don’t worry deficits will be a big fucking deal again the next time a democrat is in office when all of a sudden government spending matters once again. I’m 40 have have seen this GOP hypocrisy game play out for my entire life.

Peanut 2: Me too and I’m 73.

Peanut 3: I’m 50, same here. I think the deficit really grew out of control and passed $1 trillion during Reagan admin. I'd love to never hear that "fiscally responsible" lie from Republicans again, but I know it'll never go away.

Peanut 4: The trickle down will happen any day now!

Peanut 5: It has been happening. But by "trickle down" they really mean golden shower.

Germaine: Nah, they really mean road apples.

Peanut 6: There won’t be another Democrat because the American experiment has failed.

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