“The outgoing and incoming presidents both abused their pardon powers on Monday, undermining the rule of law and setting dangerous precedents that perpetuate America’s divisions,” they wrote. According to the pundit logic here, Biden “started the trouble” after he preemptively issued pardons to immunize members of his family, administration, and Congress from future prosecution related to their activities during his term in office. Then Trump “ended the day by giving clemency” to the aforementioned insurrectionists. Just a bad day all around, and everyone’s to blame!
Then, once “the trouble began,” the editors suggest that Trump’s decision to pardon the January 6ers naturally followed from Biden’s actions—leading the reader to make the logical leap that the pardons handed out in the morning forced Trump’s hand later that day. But again, a reminder: Effect follows cause, and it was actually Biden’s hand that was forced when Trump repeatedly made the wanton persecution of his family and colleagues one of his big campaign promises. Meanwhile, Trump’s plan to pardon the insurrectionists has been a done deal for some time; it was another one of his oft-repeated campaign promises.
Maybe these two things aren’t the same? It sounds to me like I’d grade the Biden pardons as a 3 out of 10 on the “I’m Worrying About the Precedent This Sets Whilst Stroking My Chin Thoughtfully” scale, whereas it’s safe to say I’d give the potential for “future acts of barbarity” a substantially higher rating. What if—and I’m just spitballing here!—one of these theoretical consequences is a lot graver than the other? And honestly, what if one of these theoretical consequences is a lot less theoretical than the other, given that an attempt to unlawfully overturn a legitimate election result actually happened?
I can’t (frankly, I won’t) say the same thing about the January 6ers. One of those whom Trump pardoned this week—specifically a guy who tossed an explosive device into the Lower West Terrace tunnel of the U.S. Capitol—has already been rearrested on a gun charge that had been left pending. According to Politico, he’s got some fun priors: a previous conviction for “domestic violence battery by strangulation in June 2017” and “resisting law enforcement with violence and battery of a law enforcement officer” in October 2021. In short, a real gem, and I’d be willing to bet there are other jewels among his scofflaw comrades. The granting of clemency to this sort of criminal is the kind of thing that more often than not ends a political career. We’ll see how Trump fares now that he’s taken ownership of all of these Willies Horton.
Here, the fears go well beyond the actual mob of men and women who stormed the Capitol four years ago. These pardons signal that anyone is welcome to get into the game; that a get-out-of-jail-free card is waiting as a reward. And as writer Julian Sanchez noted, Trump needn’t be an active field marshall of these irregulars: “An efficient fascism does not require much direct state violence. It merely requires the assurance that private violence aligned with the desires of the regime will go unpunished.”
This should be easy to understand. Whatever the ethical implications of Biden’s pardons—and I’ll stipulate to the fact that there are some that are worthy of concern—he actually hasn’t established a precedent that other future individuals might exploit, as there isn’t going to be another Biden administration or Biden family for Trump to threaten with unjust prosecutions. Trump’s pardons, on the other hand, beckon forth future acts of violence. Overnight, America has become a more dangerous place to run for office against the GOP, to say nothing of how risky it now is simply to be the person charged with counting votes and certifying elections. It’s disconcerting that the people running a major newspaper in our nation’s capital aren’t intelligent enough to grasp these distinctions.
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