Trump threatens to pardon national security advisor who pled guilty of lying to FBI in Russia probe
For once Donald Trump has used quotation marks properly in one of his tweets.
Unfortunately, the context of that he used them in was in highlighting the flimsiness of his excuse for “strongly considering a Full Pardon” for General Michael Flynn, his first National Security Advisor who has been trying to reverse his guilty plea after confessing to making false statements to the FBI about his contacts with Russian diplomats during the transition to the Trump presidency.
So now it is reported that, after destroying his life & the life of his wonderful family (and many others also), the FBI, working in conjunction with the Justice Department, has “lost” the records of General Michael Flynn. How convenient. I am strongly considering a Full Pardon!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 15, 2020
Yes, the quotation marks around “lost” indicate that the supposedly missing records connected to the case are a complete mischaracterization of the legal dispute over FBI notes made while interviewing Flynn and compiling a report on his activities initiated by Flynn’s new legal team and that the president likely sourced from Fox News who have been pushing this deep state conspiracy theory.
Besides being another example of Trump focusing on politics and interfering in the normal course of justice to try to exonerate his 2016 campaign from the taint of Russian assistance in his election —interference that has been confirmed by every major US intelligence agency — Trump’s foreshadowing of yet another pardon of a corrupt associate after a spew of controversial pardons that include a NAVY Seal accused of war crimes and politically connected figures who have been convicted of many of the same types of crimes that the president himself has been accused of — former Arizona Sherrif Joe Arpaio (obstruction of justice), former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik (tax evasion), former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich (abuse of power and corruption), among others — adds insult to injury at a time when the nation expects the president’s full attention to be on the government response to the coronavirus pandemic.
Twitter denizens responded to his tweet with amazement and derision.
#TrumpResignNOW and let someone competent take over.
— Grant Stern (@grantstern) March 15, 2020
His timing could not be worse. There are people dying and he's thinking about this? But sure, let's see the president pardon yet another criminal associate by making out he's been unfairly treated and has no other option.
— Mike P Williams (@Mike_P_Williams) March 15, 2020
Did you get your doggie a good treat for getting rid of those records for you? pic.twitter.com/e0Th93YmE9
— Cheryl Gage (@dancer39532) March 15, 2020
Childish Gambino literally predicted this! https://t.co/S2WcDg3XDM
— Jack Jones (@JackJonesxtra) March 15, 2020
Still, to this day, Trump has never apologized for the role he played in their immense suffering. Even after they were exonerated with DNA evidence, he still called them punks and criminals. Meanwhile, he pardons war criminals and traitors as President.
— Eugene Gu, MD (@eugenegu) March 15, 2020
Using your disastrous response to a
global pandemic as cover to keep members of your criminal syndicate out of prison is incredibly not surprising.— Chidi®️ (@ChidiNwatu) March 15, 2020
Cool story, cool cool … hey, where are the coronavirus tests?
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) March 15, 2020
This is exactly what the 52 Republican senators voted for when President Trump declared that if senate cut his impeachment trial short he will be even more incompetent, cruel, corrupt, disloyal, authoritarian.
— David Rothschild (@DavMicRot) March 15, 2020
Now that Trump is at least using quotation marks to correctly delineate his weasel words, it’s time to start using those same quotes when using the title of “president” before his name to emphasize the ersatz nature of the job that he is doing in the role.
Even better, let’s remove the quotes around “president” and append the prefix “ex” in front of the title as soon as humanly possible.
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
