{"id":11319,"date":"2017-08-28T20:35:41","date_gmt":"2017-08-29T01:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=11319"},"modified":"2017-08-28T20:35:41","modified_gmt":"2017-08-29T01:35:41","slug":"ill-bet-bannon-will-never-get-one-of-these-ctd-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2017\/08\/28\/ill-bet-bannon-will-never-get-one-of-these-ctd-3\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019ll Bet Bannon Will Never Get One Of These, Ctd"},"content":{"rendered":"

A couple of more opinions come in concerning the Arpaio pardon<\/a>. Steve Benen on MaddowBlog<\/strong><\/em>:<\/p>\n

In case this isn\u2019t obvious, a president isn\u2019t supposed to intervene with the Justice Department about an ongoing criminal prosecution of someone the president likes. What\u2019s more, note that Trump didn\u2019t even bother to consult with his own Justice Department \u2013 or pay any attention to the department\u2019s pardon protocols \u2013 before rescuing his right-wing pal who acted as if he were above the law.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the near future to consider. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is moving forward with his investigation into the Trump-Russia affair, and as of Friday night, everyone received a stark reminder that this president is comfortable abusing the powers of his office to keep his allies out of prison.<\/p>\n

Indeed, it\u2019s easy to imagine Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn waking up on Saturday morning with a spring in their step. After all, in Donald Trump\u2019s America, loyalty to the law is nice, but loyalty to the president is almost literally a get-out-of-jail-free card.<\/p>\n

Trump has told\u00a0a staggering number of lies<\/a>\u00a0since entering politics, but his vow to restore \u201claw and order\u201d may be the most painfully ridiculous of them all. It\u2019s difficult to guess where this story goes next, but let\u2019s not forget that as recently as last month, the president reportedly\u00a0sought information<\/a>\u00a0on his power to issue pardons to White House aides, members of his family, and even himself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Making “law and order” into a ridiculous proposition in order to pardon a law and order sheriff does have a certain irony to it, but I suspect that’s lost on most Trump supporters. Not that they lack a sense of humor, but they don’t have the knowledge base to realize just what’s going on.<\/p>\n

The Editors of National Review<\/strong><\/em> also disapprove, but cannot resist<\/a> irrelevant digs at their favorite voodoo dolls:<\/p>\n

We are mindful of the hypocrisy of the Left regarding abuse of the president\u2019s constitutional pardon power. President Clinton put it on sale for the benefit of donors and cronies. President Obama used it to effectively rewrite Congress\u2019s narcotics statutes, for the benefit of drug felons and in circumvention of his duty to execute the laws faithfully. Both commuted the sentences of anti-American terrorists from the FALN and the Weathermen. These were disgraceful acts.<\/p>\n

But that past doesn\u2019t make Trump\u2019s pardon any less objectionable. Trump acted for the benefit of a political crony, just like Clinton. He did it \u2014 just like Clinton \u2014 outside the Justice Department\u2019s pardon process. While presidents have the authority to go around DOJ, the regular process is in place to ensure that presidents make fully informed pardon decisions. To short-circuit the standard procedure is to consciously avoid facts that might show that clemency is unwarranted.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

These superfluous shots at opponents tends to dilute their outrage and makes it seem as if all the politicians are equally bad – a deft sleight of hand of which they should be ashamed. I think most serious commentators would agree that Trump is way beyond most elected politicians, and is unique among those with him amount of power, in his failure to responsibly manage his position. To imply otherwise, simply to maintain one’s menacing posture against ideological opponents, is dishonest and actually fairly dangerous.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A couple of more opinions come in concerning the Arpaio pardon. Steve Benen on MaddowBlog: In case this isn\u2019t obvious, a president isn\u2019t supposed to intervene with the Justice Department about an ongoing criminal prosecution of someone the president likes. What\u2019s more, note that Trump didn\u2019t even bother to consult \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11319"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11321,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11319\/revisions\/11321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}