Trump's pre-Christmas pardons trample on core American principles
By Harry Litman
President Trump’s latest spate of pardons hits a new low in treachery and dereliction of duty.
In no aspect of his presidency has Trump acted more immorally and done more damage to the rule of law and constitutional norms than in his exercise of the pardon power. But Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s spree opens up a whole new perverse chapter of disgrace for the most disgraceful of all our presidents.
From the start, Trump’s pardons have been legally repugnant and, in some cases, patently corrupt. They have two general themes: erase or discredit the consequences of the Robert S. Mueller III probe into Trump’s 2016 campaign’s Russia connections, and reward certain reprehensible cronies — remember Arizona’s former Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Dinesh D’Souza?
Some argue that Trump’s pardons are beyond denunciation because clemency and commutation, like so much of executive power, partake of a mix of personal and public-spirited motives and the two can be hard to tease apart. But Trump is always an extreme case; his acts of “mercy” are driven almost exclusively by self-interest, with little to no identifiable alloy of public purpose.
https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-12-24/donald-trump-pardon-robert-mueller-russia-investigation-charles-kushner-hunter-duncan
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