PARDON THEM ALL!!!

Yesterday, the news was that President Biden’s senior aides have been “conducting a vigorous internal debate” as to whether Biden should issue preemptive pardons to current and former public officials who could become targets for Donald Trump’s desire for vengeance against those he believes thwarted him, following his return to the White House.

Today, it became known that it is not just “senior aides” who are engaged in this discussion. President Biden is personally and directly involved in the process.

This is a serious prospect.

The Biden Administration is concerned that these current and former officials ould find themselves facing inquiries and even indictments. The sense of alarm has only accelerated since Trump announced the appointment of Kash Patel to lead the FBI, since Patel has publicly vowed to pursue Trump’s critics and even went so far as to publish an Enemies List.

Weaponizing the FBI against domestic political opponents doesn’t have to end with jail time. The FBI can do immense damage to people’s lives even if they are never accused of a crime; There are plenty of examples of what can happn when the Bureau has mistakenly zeroed in on the wrong suspects in high-profile cases. In the Atlanta Olympics bombing, the spotlight ruined the life of the security guard Richard Jewell; there is also the post-9/11 anthrax investigation that turned biodefense researcher Dr. Steven Hatfill’s life upside down before the bureau realized it had the wrong man.

Being the target of an FBI investigation, even if it leads nowhere, can cost the target hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal bills, upend families, end careers and lead to federal charges, like lying to a federal agent, that are all but unrelated to the original investigation.

As to who might be on the pardon list, Patel’s Enemies List is a good place to start.

Patel laid out his plans in a 2023 book titled Government Gangsters: The Deep State, the Truth, and the Battle for our Democracy. In this work, he breathlessly described the Deep State as a “coordinated, ideologically rigid force independent from the people that manipulates the levers of politics and justice for its own gain and self-preservation.” It is run “by a significant number of high-level cultural leaders and officials who, acting through networks of networks, disregard objectivity, weaponize the law, spread disinformation, spurn fairness, or even violate their oaths of office for political and personal gain, all at the expense of equal justice and American national security.” He added, “They are thugs in suits, nothing more than government gangsters.” And he inveighed that this is “a cabal of unelected tyrants.”

In his book, Patel called for mounting “investigations” to “take on the Deep State.” In an appendix, Patel presented a list of 60 supposed members of the Deep State. He noted this roster did not include “other corrupt actors,” such as California Democrats Reps. Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell, “the entire fake news mafia press corps,” and former GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan - when Patel worked for the GOP-controlled House intelligence committee, he had run-ins with Ryan over Patel leaking information to a Fox News reporter; this must mean that Ryan was a Deep State operative.

Patel’s list names what would be for a MAGA activist the obvious purported cabalists: President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, national security adviser Jake Sullivan, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former CIA chief John Brennan, former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, and former or current FBI directors Chris Wray, Robert Mueller, and James Comey. This also includes Bill Barr, John Bolton, Pat Cipollone, Mark Esper, Sarah Isgur Flores (head of communications for Tttorney general, Jeff Sessions), Alyssa Farah Griffin, and Stephanie Grisham. Oher Republicans include: Robert Hur, the US attorney who investigated Biden’s handling of classified documents; Cassidy Hutchinson, who worked for Mark Meadows, the final White House chief of staff during the first Trump presidency; Charles Kupperman, Ryan McCarthy,Pat Philbin, Rod Rosenstein, (deputy attorney general for Trump who set up the Mueller invetigatio, and Miles Taylor, a Department of Homeland Security official who first announcedthein-house “resistance” to Trump.

White House officials are carefully weighing the extraordinary step of handing out blanket pardons to those who’ve committed no crimes, both because it could suggest impropriety, only fueling Trump’s criticisms, and because those offered preemptive pardons may reject them.

Those under consideration include Jan. 6 Committee members Sen.-elect Adam Schiff and former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney. Also mentioned is Dr. Anthony Fauci.

That the conversations are taking place at all reflects growing anxieties among high-level Democrats about just how far Trump’s reprisals could go once he returns to power. At issue is whether to take Trump seriously and literally when it comes to his prospective revenge tour.

End-of-administration pardons are always politically fraught. But President George H.W. Bush’s intervention to spare former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and Bill Clinton’s pardon of financier and donor Marc Rich seem quaint compared with what Biden officials are grappling with as Trump returns to the presidency with lieutenants plotting tribunals against adversaries.

The White House is facing contradictory pressures from Capitol Hill. Some longtime Democratic lawmakers have talked favorably about the precedent of former President Gerald Ford’s preemptive pardon of Richard Nixon, issued before any charges were filed against him.

“If it’s clear by January 19 that [revenge] is his intention, then I would recommend to President Biden that he provide those preemptive pardons to people, because that’s really what our country is going to need next year,” Sen. Ed Markey said on WGBH last week.

Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Penn.), a close Biden ally who hosted the president in his district shortly before the election, issued a plea Wednesday for Biden to offer blanket pardons. “This is no hypothetical threat. The time for cautious restraint is over. We must act with urgency to push back against these threats and prevent Trump from abusing his power.”

Other lawmakers, I’m told, have been just as emphatic in private with Biden’s aides in calling for preemptive pardons.

However, some congressional Democrats, including those who may be in Trump’s political crosshairs, are uneasy about the idea of being granted a pardon they’re not seeking.

“I would urge the president not to do that,” Schiff said. “I think it would seem defensive and unnecessary.”

Cheney and Fauci did not respond to requests for comment.

Some senior Democrats I spoke with, however, wonder how many of those facing retribution are adopting a version of the vote-no-hope-yes mantra that often surrounds difficult legislative votes. Which is to say: Some may publicly oppose preemptive pardons, for reasons of innocence or precedence, while privately hoping the president offers legal protection.

What has some Biden aides particularly concerned is that even the threat of retaliation could prove costly to individuals because they’d be forced to hire high-priced lawyers to defend themselves in any potential investigation.

Especially for those officials without significant means, the specter of six-figure legal bills in the coming years is unnerving. Some Biden appointees, I’m told by people facing scrutiny, are already considering taking the best-paying jobs next year in part to ensure they have the resources to defend themselves against any investigations.

Adding to Biden’s challenge in the final weeks of his presidency is the pressure he’s also feeling from Democrats who want him to offer the same generous clemency to those less privileged that he handed his son.

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) invoked Hunter Biden’s pardon this week in calling on the president to, on a case-by-case basis, spare “the working-class Americans in the federal prison system whose lives have been ruined by unjustly aggressive prosecutions for nonviolent offenses.”

John Dean posted yesterday at BlueSky: “Biden should keep going with his pardons: Trump, Jack Smith & team, Mueller & team, and a blanket pardon for all on Trump’s enemies list for any and all political statements before December 25, 2024! Merry Christmas:-). Take the wind out of retribution/revenge!”

PARDON THEM ALL!!! Because Fuck You, Trump and the rest of your TrumpScum.

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