Trump isn’t just going to pardon all of his henchmen. He doesn’t care about any of them. He’ll pardon the ones he’s afraid will cut a plea deal against him. He won’t pardon the ones where the Fifth Amendment could be a problem. His pardons will be all about him, not about them.
Too many variables for me to go through and try to figure out which henchmen fall into which category. Trump is fairly addled and his lawyers are crap, so he’ll probably guess wrong on a lot of them anyway. But pardoning EVERYONE wouldn’t work out well for him.
If I had to guess: Trump will pardon himself, his family, his henchmen with strong kremlin ties (Flynn, Manafort), and people like Rudy who know where all the bodies are buried. Anyone beyond that, and he’s just creating witnesses compelled to testify against him at his own trial
Trump’s self pardon will very likely get thrown out. Trump’s pardons of his co-conspirators may get thrown out (there is no past precedent for this either way, never been tried before). Notably, if Trump pardons his kids, they could be argued as his co-conspirators as well.
But the thing to remember is that this was always going to come down to New York State charges for Trump and his family. The only person who can pardon state charges: Governor Cuomo. Obviously not happening.
One thing to watch: Trump can definitely pardon any friend or pal, no matter how guilty they are, so long as their crimes aren’t related to his own crime spree. He can pardon any murderer he wants, for instance. Watch closely to see if he tries to secretly sell such pardons.
Remember, bankruptcy is a more immediate problem for Trump than prison. His criminal trial could take a year. His creditors will shred him the minute he leaves office. So his pardons could be more about money than anything. If we catch him in the act, those will be thrown out.
Then there's the question of whether people like Barr and Pompeo will even want pardons, which are humiliating and career-crippling admissions of guilt, when it's not clear if the DOJ will have enough on them to get a conviction. It's a heck of a roll of the dice.
Roger Stone's sentence has already been commuted. But he was being investigated for additional felonies when Mueller got shut down. Will Stone now demand a blanket pardon to prevent the DOJ from bringing his case back to life? Trump will get a lot of phone calls from these types.
Bottom line is that not all of Trump's henchmen are going to end up in prison. Just not realistic. We just need to make sure that many or most of them end up in prison, to send a clear message to future thugs not to try something like this ever again.
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