Pardon Me

While driving around yesterday, I had the news on the radio and heard reports of several recent and egregious pardons that Trump has made recently:
 
The reality TV Chrisleys, convicted of fraud and tax evasion – Trump pardon.
 
The Virginia sheriff caught on take taking bribes, and convicted of taking over $70,000 in bribes, about to be sent to prison the next day – Trump pardon.
 
Trump getting $1 million dollar donation at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser from the mother of a nursing home executive who plead guilty of stealing more than $10 million from employee paychecks to buy a yacht and other luxury items – Trump pardon.  And now no longer has to pay $4.4 million in restitution to the victims.
 
The founder of electric vehicle company Nikola, convicted for fraud and required to pay $680 million in restitution – Trump pardon, nullifying the payment of any restitution.
 
And what occurred to me as I drove was – oh, okay, I get it.  Trump supporters, especially wealthy ones, know that they can commit pretty much whatever crimes they want, aware that if their support of Trump is important enough to Trump (whether financially or politically), they’ll get pardoned.
 
And this isn’t hyperbole.  After all, add to the list Trump pardoning 1,500 convicts in prison for trying to overthrow the government during the Jan. 6 Insurrection.
 
Oddly enough, I wasn’t going to write about this today, since I had a different issue that had caught my eye.  But as it happened, that “other issue” was related to pardons and others in the Trump administration committing crimes with likely no ramifications. 
 
The first was reading about how when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired senior advisor Dan Caldwell a few weeks back -- it turns out that the information his investigator got came from an illegal wiretap!!!  And I commented online, “Pretty much nothing from the unqualified Hegseth's office or from Trump is even remotely surprising. Especially crimes.
 
But far worse to me what the other story.  This time, it was that the Department of Justice (and what an oxymoron that is in the Trump administration…) is actually, literally, really, honestly considering a pardon for the two men convicted of plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.   Yes, really.  Actually.  Literally.  Honestly.
 
About which I commented online, “Nothing is surprising in the Trump administration.”
 
But the story is even worse – which one couldn’t think possible.  It’s that the DOJ attorney in charge of pardons has caused these convicted felons, who planned to kidnap a governor, the real “victims."  Yes, actually, literally, really, honestly.  Apparently, the extreme-right conspiracy theory is that they were manipulated to plan the kidnapping by government agents.  Mind you, when tried in court, the evidence convinced the jury that they were both guilty, guilty, guilty.
 
But the story is even more – and yes, it’s possible.
 
That’s because the person who is in charge of all these pardons in the DOJ is none other than disgraced would-be U.S. Attorney nominee Ed Martin.  The man who didn’t see a Trump conspiracy he didn’t like.  The man who was forced to drop out from his nomination to be a U.S. Attorney when his close ties were revealed to a convicted Jan. 6 Capitol well-known for his racist and antisemitic speeches and even dressing up to look like Hitler. 
 
Yes, that Ed Martin.  The person Trump put in charge of pardons for the “Department of Justice”. (sic)
 
But then, in the end – pretty much nothing is surprising in the Trump administration.  Where crime not only pays, it’s required.