Though the issue is no longer of interest to the media, a bit of a postmortem on the Trump pardons seems in order. The issue of presidential pardons by President Trump had been a front-burner story for more than two years. The original bogus reports speculated that Trump would be pardoning all kinds of his associates, his family and even himself. If re-elected, he would pardon just about everyone ensnared in the bogus investigation into Russian collusion by the Trump administration.
Democrats and their media allies promoted that conspiracy theory for three years, but Special Counsel Robert Mueller totally debunked it. Still, individuals fell victim to what is known as the “perjury trap” – finding someone allegedly lying about an investigation into a crime that never occurred.
If Trump was not re-elected, we were told that he would then pardon more aides and advisors, including himself. There was speculation – even “confirmed reports” (malicious gossip, that is) from unnamed sources that Trump was going to pardon himself. In other words, Trump was being repeatedly attacked for something the press alleged he could to … might have done. But not a scintilla of evidence concerning what he might be planning to do – vicious rumors paraded as news.
Based on alleged insider information, Trump was all but certain to pardon General Michael Flynn, political gadfly Roger Stone (who had previously received a commutation), former Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, campaign aide Steve Papadopoulos, Trump personal attorney Rudi Giuliani, his daughter and son-in-law, his son and himself.
These speculative accusatory negative stories were filled with hypothetical responses to the falsely alleged Trump intention. Is it constitutional to pardon himself? Can presidential pardons be nullified? Do we need to change the Constitution to limit a President’s pardoning powers? All that negative reporting on pure partisan speculation. No evidence that Trump intended to do all or any of those things – and in the final analysis, he did none of it.
With the latest bogus theory deflated by reality, the media tried desperately to salvage their unsalvageable reputation. They suggested – again without evidence – that the events on Capitol Hill were so damaging to Trump that his aides convinced him that he could not follow through with his plans. They tried to inflate the Steve Bannon pardon to epic proportions to fill the void left from the collapse of their vicious speculations. The Bannon angle was just not big enough to fill that vacuum. So, they just walked away from their reporting as if they never misled the public – no retraction, no apology.
The pardons story is now a small speck in the rearview mirror. But do not expect the east coast news establishment to admit a mistake, apologize or issue a correction. If they did that for all their false stories, they would hardly have time or space to create new false speculative narratives against half the population.
So, there ‘tis.