An additional observation of the fifth televised hearing has occurred to me, which I have not seen otherwise addressed, and that’s this:
There’s all this mention of pardons, and yet many of those desiring said pardons were left destitute of a pardon on January 20th, 2021, when Biden was inaugurated.
What’s going on?
It’s necessary to remember that Trump is a bully, narcissist, and wannabe mob boss. The most valuable people he knows are those that are dependent on him. Most often, it’s because they’ve criminally blundered and are staring at a possibility of prison, dishonor, and/or loss of wealth.
Keep in mind that, once a pardon is awarded, it cannot be taken back.
So Trump doles them out sparingly. He reasons that no one else can or will save these applicants, so by showing he’ll give them out, such as to former Sheriff Arpaio, who’s too old to really be of service to Trump, he reminds the others that they’d better be prepared to jump really, really high to get the tuna pardon. Through this mechanism, he extracts maximum value from the pardons.
He takes risks, of course, but that’s just part of the game.
A clumsy effort, about average for Trump’s fourth-rate group of sycophants.
In this case, he keeps teasing the chance that he’ll run again for the Presidency. And maybe he will, although I personally doubt it. But so long as he can tease these dependencies that they can yet win pardons, perhaps pardons for any damn thing they might have done, they’ll keep leaping out of the water as high as they can go.
Because that’s how corruption works.
