Here Come The Pardons: The Beginning of the End for trump

(Update: Thanks this weekend to Tengrain for including this article in Crooks&Liars' Mike's Blog Round-Up! Have some pardoned turkey while you're here...)

And no, this is NOT the annual pardoning of the turkey I'm talking about. Per Ryan Lucas at NPR:

President Trump has pardoned his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who spent years enmeshed in an often bizarre legal war with the government that sprang from the Russia investigation.

Trump announced the news Wednesday on Twitter as Americans prepared to observe the Thanksgiving holiday this week.

So, yeah, he just... tweeted it out. Again. Back to Lucas:

Flynn pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador and then cooperated extensively with prosecutors. But he ultimately reversed course and accused the government of trying to frame him.

Flynn went so far as to withdraw his first plea of guilty and substitute a second plea of not guilty, even though he'd acknowledged the underlying conduct that was against the law and been close to receiving a sentence...

The Justice Department was not consulted about the Flynn pardon in the way it often takes part in the preparation of presidential pardons, a department official said on Wednesday. The official described the situation on the condition the person not be identified.

The Justice Department did get a "heads-up" on Wednesday, the official said, and the person said "this is obviously an appropriate use of the president's pardon power."

Justice Department leaders would have preferred, however, for Flynn's case to have been resolved in court, where federal Judge Emmet Sullivan still had not ruled on the government's request to abandon its prosecution...

It's that ongoing matter that may still be an ongoing matter even with this pardon. It all depends on the exact wording that will end up in the paperwork. For more, let's head over to Emptywheel who's been covering the Michael Flynn case for the past few years and (catches Emptywheel finishing off a once-full bottle of scotch) uh let's give it a minute, okay here we go:

None of the outlets reviewed how complex successfully pardoning Flynn will be, without making Trump’s — or Flynn’s son’s — fate worse. That’s true because the posture of the Flynn case before Judge Emmet Sullivan is such that Sullivan has multiple possible options for holding Flynn accountable, depending on when Sullivan moves and when Trump does.

If Trump pardoned Flynn for the crimes to which Flynn pled guilty, false statements, today, a Foreign Agent of Turkey pardoned right alongside a Thanksgiving turkey — then DOJ’s motion to dismiss the prosecution for Flynn’s false statements charges would likely be mooted. But there’s still a pending motion to withdraw Flynn’s plea before Judge Sullivan, which by itself mooted DOJ’s promises not to prosecute Flynn for hiding that he was working for the government of Turkey rather than just a foreign business in a FARA filing in March 2017. Plus, when Flynn pled, it was understood that would end the investigation, but given that he reneged on his plea, there’s nothing stopping DOJ from investigating Mike Jr for his involvement with Turkey, if Flynn were pardoned.

But that’s still not adequate. Flynn made multiple materially conflicting statements before Judge Sullivan and the grand jury. When directing amicus John Gleeson on what he should consider, Sullivan asked whether he should hold Flynn in contempt. Gleeson said that, instead, he should consider those additional lies when sentencing him on the charged crimes. DOJ argued that Sullivan should, instead, refer the charges to DOJ. Even if Sullivan referred those charges today and Bill Barr declined prosecution (as DOJ made clear in hearings they would), Biden’s DOJ could reopen the case. So to get Flynn out of trouble for his efforts to blow up his own prosecution, Trump would have to pardon those crimes as well. But if Trump pardoned Flynn today, Sullivan could wait and ultimately hold Flynn in contempt; while Trump succeeded in freeing Joe Arpaio of criminal contempt with a pardon, it’s not clear whether that could work preemptively.

Assuming Trump does pardon Flynn for some or all of these crimes, it would add several overt actions to obstruction charges against himself. So unless he’s sure that Mike Pence would give him a last minute pardon (or certain that his own self-pardon would withstand legal review), then pardoning all Flynn’s crimes would pile up his own exposure.

Then, if Trump does pardon Flynn, it will surely become a matter for a hearing before one or the other of the Judiciary Committees into Trump’s abuse of the pardon power. Flynn will have no Fifth Amendment privilege and Biden’s DOJ will have the ability to enforce contempt motions from Congress. As I have noted, in the process of attempting to blow up Flynn’s prosecution, Ric Grenell and Sidney Powell and DOJ have released documents that will make it far harder for Mike Flynn to sustain his claim not to remember what Trump’s involvement in the “collusion” with Russia was. Public testimony (or even depositions run by staffers) might elicit evidence that would subject Trump himself to conspiracy charges or might result in new false statements charges...

Not that any of this matters to trump. What's happening here, since there's little Flynn can do for trump personally anymore, is that trump is starting to clean up as much evidence of his criminal misdeeds that he can. For all of trump's bullshit about the 2020 election results - that Biden "stole" the win from him - he can't avoid the facts that Biden honestly won the Popular and Electoral votes and that no matter what Biden is getting sworn into office January 20, 2021. trump has a deadline now, and even he knows it.

This pardon is one in a long line of expected moves involving many of trump's handlers - Manafort, Stone, etc. - designed to "pay off" or confirm the loyalty of these corrupt people to the corrupt lord for whom they've done the dirty work. Even with the arguments about the Fifth Amendment and what these crooks may face in future criminal investigations, this is trump's way of making sure they remember they are all in the same boat and that they'll need to keep their damn mouth shut, any investigations and legal systems be damned.

This is all for show, political kabuki, trump giving these men a "clean bill" that they can then use to crow to trump's base. You can see it already with other Republicans hailing Flynn as a "victim" of wanton librul witch-hunting. This is trump playing to the cameras, not to the legal system or the history books. 

But like everything else trump does, as Emptywheel is pointing out, it's being done in a haphazard way, without much thought or care into the process. Meaning that, despite all of trump's hopes, his pardon power doesn't have the reach he thinks it has. Flynn is still vulnerable to jail time. Prosecutors are bringing up their arguments that Manafort should face his state charges - which had been dismissed earlier - because the federal ones he's been convicted for are about to get washed away.

And has been noted before, any pardons trump thinks he can make for himself isn't going to save him from New York's legal system: Rumors abound that both the criminal and civil investigations into possible tax evasion and fraud are set to go out the second trump is no longer in office.

trump's faithful can yell and scream all they want. The media punditry chiding Biden into offering trump a pardon so "we can put this behind ourselves for the good of the nation" need to recognize that JUSTICE should matter more than their fantasies of bipartisanship (THAT ship sailed the minute Mitch decided to obstruct Obama 24/7 back in 2009). trump's caused too much damage to our political norms, trump has committed too many crimes in office and beforehand to be so easily forgiven.

trump is at the end of his last big con. This is all just him flailing about as he falls into the deep pit he deserves. It's now a question of how many deluded souls fall in with him.