The thing about Trump and his entire team is that they simply don't care if you think they're crooked. They believe winning an election gave them a God-given right to be crooked, their lawyers (including Trump's new attorney general) are publicly and in courtrooms stating that Congress has no power to do anything about the crookedness or even ask about it, and the Mueller report's repeated insistence that absolutely nobody in the Department of Justice has the authority to even point out when Trump is being crooked has seemingly had the effect of convincing Trump he's now got a ticket to be as crooked as he wants to be.
And for a man who surrounds himself with crooks, there may be no presidential power as rewarding as being able to pardon every crook you know, knowing neither Congress nor cops can do a damn thing about it.
Wednesday night saw two new Trump pardons, both going to Trump and his family's personal allies. Ex-California state assembly Patrick Nolan, who was convicted of campaign violations, was described by White House everyman Jared Kushner as his "friend," and has spoken out to criticize the Trump-Russia investigation that Trump has obsessed over since its inception. The other pardon, however, is a doozy: Trump pardoned the conservative billionaire and Trump business partner who wrote a fawning love-fest of a book about Donald Trump's staggering success and genius.
Conrad Black spent over three years in prison after a 2007 conviction on fraud and obstruction of justice charges—if you see a trend in what those around Trump tend to land in prison over, you are correct—before penning a particularly maudlin ode to Trump called Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other.
It defends Trump against charges that he is a racist, stating flatly that he is not. It hails his “very successful” foreign policy ventures. It credits his “unquenchable energy,” “sheer entertainment talent” and “raw toughness.”
It also claims Donald Trump is a sex machine, has the reflexes of a jungle cat, and can hard-boil eggs using only the power of his mind.
But back to the point, there's no particular attempt by anyone involved to pretend Trump's pardon of a fraud-convicted business partner is anything but Donald using the powers of the presidency to erase the crimes of his own allies. Black himself penned a column about the pardon, suggesting in it that he and Trump bonded over the unfair "antics" of law enforcement prosecuting the wrong people.
“We’ve known each other a long time,” the president told me, “but that wasn’t any part of the reason. Nor has any of the supportive things you’ve said and written about me.” I suggested that he knew ”better than anyone” the antics of some U.S. prosecutors.
Just two very remorseful billionaires who understand they've done society wrong and are now chastened, eh?
We can most definitely look forward to more of this. Trump has given out pardons exceedingly sparingly, but nearly all of them have been for the benefit of big-name allies. Arizona ex-sheriff and vocal Trump ally Joe Arpaio got a preemptive pardon for ignoring laws and the courts entirely, in his quest to mistreat immigrants; he did not have to serve so much as a moment's sentence. Far-right conspiracy nut and history-hoaxer Dinesh D'Souza, an omnipresent attacker of Trump's enemies-of-the-moment, every moment, was pardoned for election fraud. Trump's pardons have been dispensed to allies who break laws that Donald Trump believes his allies should be allowed to break, and makes no effort to dissuade anyone from thinking so.
We can be absolutely certain that Trump will dispense pardons to absolutely everyone caught up in the Russia probe or related criminal probes who has retained loyal to him. It is only a matter of time. And Trump will absolutely use his pardon powers for the benefit of his friends, above all else. He has no reason to stop; so long as he remains in office, there is not a single person who has the power to make him.