Rep Brendan Boyle (D-PA) has issued a plea to President Biden in the wake of the noising about of Kash Patel as a replacement for FBI Directory Christopher Wray, and that being read as the former and future President being out for revenge:
“By choosing Kash Patel as his FBI Director, Trump has made it clear that he is more focused on settling personal scores than on protecting the American people or upholding the rule of law. Patel has openly published an ‘enemies list’ in his book, naming individuals he and Trump plan to investigate and prosecute—targeting those who stood up to Trump’s lies, abuses of power, and baseless attempts to overturn the 2020 election. This is no hypothetical threat.
The people they’re targeting include law enforcement officers, military personnel, and others who have spent their lives protecting this country. These patriots shouldn’t have to live in fear of political retribution for doing what’s right. That’s why I’m urging President Biden to issue a blanket pardon for anyone unjustly targeted by this vindictive scheme.
If we’re serious about stopping Trump’s authoritarian ambitions, we need to act decisively and use every tool at our disposal. Norms and traditions alone won’t stop him—Trump has shown time and again that he’s willing to ignore them to consolidate power and punish his opponents. The time for cautious restraint is over. We must act with urgency to push back against these threats and prevent Trump from abusing his power.”
And I’m curious: How will the Republicans look in 2026 if Trump is down 30-NIL in these abusive court cases, and the midterms are coming up? How about in 2028, down 60-NIL, as Vance runs for President?
Issuing preemptive, proactive pardons isn’t going to impress independent, low-information voters, and there’s lots of them. Pardons. Signal. Guilt. Rinse and repeat.
But if you don’t issue any and Trump tries to take some sort of revenge, most of the judiciary will cut him off short, even among his own judges, because judges can go to jail for corruption, and they know it. And Trump will swiftly be shown to be a repeat failure.
Is it a disruption to be arrested, spend some time in jail before bail is paid, and then have to deal with the circus of publicity and all that before a judge throws your prosecution out of court and reprimands the prosecutor and the FBI Director? Certainly. But if you want to be part of politics, this is the price to be paid in this era gross incompetency in both major Parties, and folks like Boyle should be prepared to endure it – or get out and go back to the private sector office.
Look, I’m not necessarily advocating for a repudiation of Boyle’s plea. This issue needs a great deal of discussion, game simulation, and other evaluations before a decision should be reached. Sadly, Biden has displayed some weakness in this area with his pardon of his son, although, of course, families are special.
But repudiation needs to be part of the discussion. For a lot of people, pardon signals guilt, and, in the absence of a concerted effort to reform the Democratic Party, a blanket pardon will just add to the self-inflicted damage of a Party in the midst of a struggle between self-interested incompetents, who sounds like autocrats, and competent leaders.
For another view, which I read since I composed this post, here’s Andrew Sullivan (behind a paywall):
A pro-active pardon for criminality ordered by the president is, after all, another phrase for the categorical end of the rule of law. It means that a president’s flunkies — or anyone else in presidential favor — can commit any crime in the secure knowledge there will never be punishment. It thereby puts an entire class of people selected by the president effectively above the rule of law. It makes the president a king.
A slick summary, although I doubt SCOTUS would permit pardons for future crimes (Hunter Biden’s pardon is for all crimes he may have committed 2014-2024, i.e., in the past), but Biden’s sweeping pardon is bad enough.
I’d explore the possible consequences of doing nothing, if I were a politico. And if Kash Patel does try to be abusive, at Court demand a signed letter from Patel admitting to it being a revenge prosecution.
One must have mementos, after all.
