Last week, I predicted that none of the Trumpians who you expect would disagree with the deal Israel made with Hamas would criticize Trump in the paper. The closest we got to a comment was from Rabbi Schonfeld disagreeing with Trump’s assessment of this being a “great deal.” However, there was no admission by Rabbi Schonfeld that the deal happened because of Trump.
Now on to my main topic: the Trump and Biden pardons. To the surprise of some people, Trump gave a blanket pardon to over 1500 individuals who either were pending trial or had been convicted for their actions on January 6. According to information on the DOJ website now removed, of those who pled guilty to felonies, 170 pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement; 128 pleaded guilty to obstructing law enforcement during a civil disorder (riot); 69 pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement with a dangerous or deadly weapon; and 4 pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy. This does not include the approximately 250 individuals who went to trial and were found guilty or the 300 open cases pending trial. Not exactly being allowed in by smiling guards through open doors to peruse the Capital as tourists, as some of my fellow writers or letters to the editor want us to believe.
Trump, in issuing the proclamation issuing the pardons, wrote that “This proclamation ends a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years and begins a process of national reconciliation.”
The only “grave national injustice” was the blanket pardon. The Federal District Judges who presided over these cases, who know more than most people, criticized the pardons and stated that Trump’s claims were a false narrative of what occurred. For example, Judge Howell wrote, “Having presided over scores of criminal cases charging defendants for their criminal conduct both outside and inside the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, which charges were fully supported by evidence in the form of extensive videotapes and photographs, admissions by defendants in the course of plea hearings and in testimony at trials, and the testimony of law enforcement officers and congressional staff present at the Capitol on that day, this Court cannot let stand the revisionist myth relayed in this presidential pronouncement.” Judge Chutkan wrote, “It cannot whitewash the blood, feces and terror that the mob left in its wake.”
As to the portion of Trump statement referring to the American people, I did not know the American people engaged in criminal conduct, including seriously injuring law enforcement during an attack on the Capitol to stop the lawful transfer of power. I guess to Trump, his violent supporters are the American people. If Trump meant that Americans thought all of those arrested and convicted for activities on January 6 should be pardoned, that is false, since the majority of Americans did not support it.
As to the last part of Trump’s statement that the pardons will begin a process of reconciliation, Judge Howell also addressed it. “I am not sure how giving these thugs pardons will begin a process of reconciliation. The defendants themselves are unrepentant about what they did. It has opened another wound in the country between those who claim they support law enforcement and the rule of law except when it relates to their own supporters, and the majority of the people who feel otherwise... No process of national reconciliation can begin when poor losers, whose preferred candidate loses an election, are glorified for disrupting a constitutionally mandated proceeding in Congress and doing it with impunity. That merely raises the dangerous specter of future lawless conduct by other poor losers and undermines the rule of law.”
Not only did some Republicans defend the pardons, but they met with the head of the Oath Keepers, Stewart Rhodes, who was convicted of among other charges of seditious conspiracy. Rhodes was later seen three rows behind Trump at his Las Vegas appearance. This is another example of how the parties have switched positions. In the past, the radicals were Democrats, such as in 1968. Now they are Republicans, and they are being embraced by the party. Another change is supporting law enforcement and the rule of law. The Republicans can say they are supporters of law and order and the police, but the pardons and their support of it show otherwise.
The same day many Republican members of Congress said they did not want to talk about the pardons because they want to look to the future and not the past, they set up a special House Committee to look into January 6 ,2021.
This was not the only horrible pardon done by Trump. Ross Ulbricht was convicted of distributing narcotics, distributing narcotics by means of the Internet, conspiring to distribute narcotics, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiring to commit computer hacking, conspiring to traffic in false identity documents, and conspiring to commit money laundering. This was done through his operation and ownership of “The Silk Road” a website used by thousands of drug dealers and other unlawful vendors to distribute hundreds of kilograms of illegal drugs and other unlawful goods and services to more than 100,000 buyers, and to launder hundreds of millions of dollars deriving from these unlawful transactions. In 2015, Ulbricht was sentenced to life imprisonment and ordered to forfeit $183,961,921. Nevertheless, Trump pardoned him.
Biden, at the last minute, pardoned his family. Unlike the pardons of the January 6 individuals and Ulbricht, none of them were charged with a crime and convicted. However, it sets a bad precedent that a president, no matter what criminal conduct his family engages in, will pardon them. Guaranteed that Trump will do the same when he leaves office.
Maybe it is time to eliminate the presidential pardon power. There would have to be an amendment to the constitution to do it. If a president tried to change it by executive order, as Trump has tried relating to automatic birthright citizenship, the result would the same. As a Reagan-appointed judge said in stopping the enforcement of Trump’s executive order, it was the easiest decision he has had to make in his 40 years on the bench.
Warren S. Hecht is a local attorney. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
