So much of the coverage of President Donald Trump’s pardons is focused on how political they are. And they are certainly political — extraordinarily so.
But as Trump’s latest batch of pardons reinforces, that’s only half the story.
The more ominous trend is not just that he’s pardoning political allies; it’s that he’s pardoning allies in very transactional ways.
He’s pardoning lots and lots of people who helped Trump, specifically.
After previously dangling pardons over allies involved in sensitive investigations involving Trump himself — and later delivering those pardons — he’s now pardoned oodles of people who took illegal or legally dubious action on his behalf.
Trump is creating a permission structure in which people will credibly think they can’t be held accountable in federal court, as long as what they’re doing benefits Trump.
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