President Biden and US politics catchall

[Lobby]

I see Trump’s credulous supporters are asking him to pardon them for storming the Capitol on the basis that they were only doing what he told them to, and they are scared now they are facing jail time.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... mp-pardons

Not sure that will help him with the impeachment charges.

[fishfoodie]

A longish read, that illustrates the range of scumbags, & morons that populate the "Base".

This one is an attention whore, desperately seeking fame, or infamy; but with no obvious belief in the underlying dogma. He's alt-right yeeb.

Federal agents say Gionet’s prolifically incriminating 27-minute livestream as well as his online fame led to his identification and arrest.

“The defendant is a known social media personality and is thus recognizable,” FBI Special Agent Nicole Miller wrote in a criminal statement of facts included with Gionet’s charges.

Federal authorities aren’t just interested in Gionet, the man behind the camera: One of posters released by the FBI cataloging persons of interest is made up entirely of faces captured on Gionet’s livestream.
...

After graduating in 2006, Gionet went off to Azusa Pacific University in California, an evangelical school close to Los Angeles. After college, Gionet took on the persona Baked Alaska, wearing oversized gold chains, an ironic bleached blonde mullet and a mustache. He became a purveyor of novelty rap songs that traded on his roots in Alaska
....

In 2014, Gionet was hired at BuzzFeed, thanks to his robust following on the now-defunct short video sharing platform Vine. His co-workers just called him “Alaska.” Even his bosses thought his name was Timothy Treadstone.

He was so protective about his real identity that he once bailed on a team-building group trip to the taping of a game show because it would have required him to disclose his legal name, a former colleague told the Daily News.

BuzzFeed was a liberal environment, and Gionet wasn’t received well by colleagues who found some of his jokes and comments to be racist. His former co-worker remembers him being “called out” multiple times for things he said or did.
...

At the time, he was known as a Bernie Sanders supporter and kept a big portrait of Sanders on his desk. But after it became clear that Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic candidate for the 2016 presidential election, he started to wear MAGA hats to work. In short order, he quit his job to manage a tour by right-wing internet villain Milo Yiannopoulos. His co-worker remembers his departure being abrupt — he still had the Bernie Sanders portrait on his desk.

He enmeshed himself in radical right-wing circles, at one point interviewing white nationalist and “father of the alt-right” Richard Spencer from his parents’ basement on the Anchorage Hillside. Gionet filmed himself attending the notorious “Unite the Right” white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he was billed as a featured speaker.
...
All the while, he relentlessly sought attention — views, clicks, likes, haters — and found plenty. Eventually, Gionet’s posts got him kicked off major social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The internet seemed to love to hate him: There are entire “Baked Alaska cringe” compilations of Gionet approaching strangers in an In-N-Out burger parking lot to complain about being kicked off Twitter, crying for milk after he was pepper sprayed in Charlottesville and getting into altercations with various store clerks.

For a moment, he tried to backpedal. In 2019, he said he had “recently left the alt-right.” He regretted “ever contributing anything to that culture.”

“I was just a normal guy who liked memes and I got radicalized,” he said.

I'm sure he'll be very popular in the big house; especially as his continuous recording of himself provided all the evidence the Feds will need to send dozens more to prison too

[Random1]

A longish read, that illustrates the range of scumbags, & morons that populate the "Base".

This one is an attention whore, desperately seeking fame, or infamy; but with no obvious belief in the underlying dogma. He's alt-right yeeb.

Federal agents say Gionet’s prolifically incriminating 27-minute livestream as well as his online fame led to his identification and arrest.

“The defendant is a known social media personality and is thus recognizable,” FBI Special Agent Nicole Miller wrote in a criminal statement of facts included with Gionet’s charges.

Federal authorities aren’t just interested in Gionet, the man behind the camera: One of posters released by the FBI cataloging persons of interest is made up entirely of faces captured on Gionet’s livestream.
...

After graduating in 2006, Gionet went off to Azusa Pacific University in California, an evangelical school close to Los Angeles. After college, Gionet took on the persona Baked Alaska, wearing oversized gold chains, an ironic bleached blonde mullet and a mustache. He became a purveyor of novelty rap songs that traded on his roots in Alaska
....

In 2014, Gionet was hired at BuzzFeed, thanks to his robust following on the now-defunct short video sharing platform Vine. His co-workers just called him “Alaska.” Even his bosses thought his name was Timothy Treadstone.

He was so protective about his real identity that he once bailed on a team-building group trip to the taping of a game show because it would have required him to disclose his legal name, a former colleague told the Daily News.

BuzzFeed was a liberal environment, and Gionet wasn’t received well by colleagues who found some of his jokes and comments to be racist. His former co-worker remembers him being “called out” multiple times for things he said or did.
...

At the time, he was known as a Bernie Sanders supporter and kept a big portrait of Sanders on his desk. But after it became clear that Hillary Clinton would be the Democratic candidate for the 2016 presidential election, he started to wear MAGA hats to work. In short order, he quit his job to manage a tour by right-wing internet villain Milo Yiannopoulos. His co-worker remembers his departure being abrupt — he still had the Bernie Sanders portrait on his desk.

He enmeshed himself in radical right-wing circles, at one point interviewing white nationalist and “father of the alt-right” Richard Spencer from his parents’ basement on the Anchorage Hillside. Gionet filmed himself attending the notorious “Unite the Right” white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he was billed as a featured speaker.
...
All the while, he relentlessly sought attention — views, clicks, likes, haters — and found plenty. Eventually, Gionet’s posts got him kicked off major social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The internet seemed to love to hate him: There are entire “Baked Alaska cringe” compilations of Gionet approaching strangers in an In-N-Out burger parking lot to complain about being kicked off Twitter, crying for milk after he was pepper sprayed in Charlottesville and getting into altercations with various store clerks.

For a moment, he tried to backpedal. In 2019, he said he had “recently left the alt-right.” He regretted “ever contributing anything to that culture.”

“I was just a normal guy who liked memes and I got radicalized,” he said.

I'm sure he'll be very popular in the big house; especially as his continuous recording of himself provided all the evidence the Feds will need to send dozens more to prison too

Enmeshed. What a great word!

[Hal Jordan]

I see Trump’s credulous supporters are asking him to pardon them for storming the Capitol on the basis that they were only doing what he told them to, and they are scared now they are facing jail time.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... mp-pardons

Not sure that will help him with the impeachment charges.

I wonder which walking sacks of shit he'll pardon on 20th January to gain maximum coverage and detract from the inauguration? Some exemplars of humanity, I have no doubt.

[fishfoodie]

I see Trump’s credulous supporters are asking him to pardon them for storming the Capitol on the basis that they were only doing what he told them to, and they are scared now they are facing jail time.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... mp-pardons

Not sure that will help him with the impeachment charges.

I wonder which walking sacks of shit he'll pardon on 20th January to gain maximum coverage and detract from the inauguration? Some exemplars of humanity, I have no doubt.

I imagine there will be a number of very rich individuals in there too ....

[Hal Jordan]

I see Trump’s credulous supporters are asking him to pardon them for storming the Capitol on the basis that they were only doing what he told them to, and they are scared now they are facing jail time.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... mp-pardons

Not sure that will help him with the impeachment charges.

I wonder which walking sacks of shit he'll pardon on 20th January to gain maximum coverage and detract from the inauguration? Some exemplars of humanity, I have no doubt.

I imagine there will be a number of very rich individuals in there too ....

Far too often "very rich" and "walking sack of shit" are one and the same.

[fishfoodie]

I wonder which walking sacks of shit he'll pardon on 20th January to gain maximum coverage and detract from the inauguration? Some exemplars of humanity, I have no doubt.

I imagine there will be a number of very rich individuals in there too ....

Far too often "very rich" and "walking sack of shit" are one and the same.

This was more what I had in mind.

An associate of Rudy Giuliani told a former CIA officer a presidential pardon was “going to cost $2m”, the New York Times reported on Sunday in the latest bombshell to break across the last, chaotic days of Donald Trump’s presidency.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

I imagine there will be a number of very rich individuals in there too ....

Far too often "very rich" and "walking sack of shit" are one and the same.

This was more what I had in mind.

An associate of Rudy Giuliani told a former CIA officer a presidential pardon was “going to cost $2m”, the New York Times reported on Sunday in the latest bombshell to break across the last, chaotic days of Donald Trump’s presidency.

There's no requirement for him to say who he's pardoned is there? There could already be a big number of pay for pardons already having been handed out, and a number to come, that we'll never actually hear about. And I suppose that could well have been the case before too

[Saint]

Far too often "very rich" and "walking sack of shit" are one and the same.

This was more what I had in mind.

An associate of Rudy Giuliani told a former CIA officer a presidential pardon was “going to cost $2m”, the New York Times reported on Sunday in the latest bombshell to break across the last, chaotic days of Donald Trump’s presidency.

There's no requirement for him to say who he's pardoned is there? There could already be a big number of pay for pardons already having been handed out, and a number to come, that we'll never actually hear about. And I suppose that could well have been the case before too

DoJ have to publish who's been pardoned

[Openside]

This was more what I had in mind.

There's no requirement for him to say who he's pardoned is there? There could already be a big number of pay for pardons already having been handed out, and a number to come, that we'll never actually hear about. And I suppose that could well have been the case before too

DoJ have to publish who's been pardoned

I think the whole presidential pardon thing is very odd, if they have committed a crime and been convicted they should serve the time. Its fraught with potential for corruption.

[Saint]

There's no requirement for him to say who he's pardoned is there? There could already be a big number of pay for pardons already having been handed out, and a number to come, that we'll never actually hear about. And I suppose that could well have been the case before too

DoJ have to publish who's been pardoned

I think the whole presidential pardon thing is very odd, if they have committed a crime and been convicted they should serve the time. Its fraught with potential for corruption.

It's a power that was directly replicated from the UK. There are supposed to be checks in place to prevent pardons for cash

[Hal Jordan]

If Trump has succeeded on one thing, it showing that the checks and balances rely on everyone playing the game to the rules, and he has used the rulebook as toilet paper in his quest to grift and take revenge.

[Saint]

If Trump has succeeded on one thing, it showing that the checks and balances rely on everyone playing the game to the rules, and he has used the rulebook as toilet paper in his quest to grift and take revenge.

Everything about the US system relies on all parties being honest actors, with single goal - the success of the Union.

Trump, and to a lesser extent, McConnell, are the opposite. As Mitch said, he doesn't care about the policy, it's all about the politics. It's about ensuring you win, not about what you're winning. If Dems were against universal healthcare you can be 100% certain that Mitch would be for it.

Extrapolate out then you can reasonably predict how things go from there

[Rhubarb & Custard]

This was more what I had in mind.

There's no requirement for him to say who he's pardoned is there? There could already be a big number of pay for pardons already having been handed out, and a number to come, that we'll never actually hear about. And I suppose that could well have been the case before too

DoJ have to publish who's been pardoned

Why? There's nothing in the constitution about it, has it been clarified elsewhere? I don't think Trump even has to tell the person he's pardoned, he could just walk out of the WH with a pocket stuffed full of pardons. Hopefully there's something to stop him walking out with a bunch of blank pardons other than trusting him not to back date after the event

[Biffer]

It’s kind of difficult not to publicise a pardon. How do you let someone out of jail without telling people they’ve been pardoned? And for a pardon to be official the recipient has to accept it.

[Enzedder]

Local reporting has it that he has 100 pardons to approve.

There was talk (on TV news) about a price tag of $2m a pardon - surely not!!

[Chilli]

Local reporting has it that he has 100 pardons to approve.

There was talk (on TV news) about a price tag of $2m a pardon - surely not!!

I wouldn't put it past him.
What would the tax on that be? Oh wait. He doesn't pay tax.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

It’s kind of difficult not to publicise a pardon. How do you let someone out of jail without telling people they’ve been pardoned? And for a pardon to be official the recipient has to accept it.

That's only for people who would be looking to be let out. What of those who as yet haven't even faced charges? As I understand the FBI could show up on their doorstep with an arrest warrant only to be presented with the fact said individual already has a pocket pardon.

And yes the individual has to accept it, but I do wonder how many might want to accept one in 2023 and might still be able to get a backdated pardon if they were willing to cover Trump's expenses if, as seems the case, nobody needs to be informed in advance. I'd suggest even if not made public to the DoJ somewhere there should have to be a list of who has been pardoned between now and the end of Trump's term in office

[Hal Jordan]

Local reporting has it that he has 100 pardons to approve.

There was talk (on TV news) about a price tag of $2m a pardon - surely not!!

I wouldn't put it past him.
What would the tax on that be? Oh wait. He doesn't pay tax.

Probably a gift, not sure about the US but over here a gift will not be income in the hands of the recipient.

[JM2K6]

There's no requirement for him to say who he's pardoned is there? There could already be a big number of pay for pardons already having been handed out, and a number to come, that we'll never actually hear about. And I suppose that could well have been the case before too

DoJ have to publish who's been pardoned

Why? There's nothing in the constitution about it, has it been clarified elsewhere? I don't think Trump even has to tell the person he's pardoned, he could just walk out of the WH with a pocket stuffed full of pardons. Hopefully there's something to stop him walking out with a bunch of blank pardons other than trusting him not to back date after the event

And yes the individual has to accept it, but I do wonder how many might want to accept one in 2023 and might still be able to get a backdated pardon if they were willing to cover Trump's expenses if, as seems the case, nobody needs to be informed in advance. I'd suggest even if not made public to the DoJ somewhere there should have to be a list of who has been pardoned between now and the end of Trump's term in office

I err, don't think they're like stickers he can hand out, dude. It's a process that has to be followed, not a cheque that can be backdated. Read more about it here: https://www.justice.gov/pardon

You know there IS a list, right? https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardons- ... nald-trump

There is no chance that Trump is going to be able to pardon people once he's left office. It doesn't work that way.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

DoJ have to publish who's been pardoned

Why? There's nothing in the constitution about it, has it been clarified elsewhere? I don't think Trump even has to tell the person he's pardoned, he could just walk out of the WH with a pocket stuffed full of pardons. Hopefully there's something to stop him walking out with a bunch of blank pardons other than trusting him not to back date after the event

And yes the individual has to accept it, but I do wonder how many might want to accept one in 2023 and might still be able to get a backdated pardon if they were willing to cover Trump's expenses if, as seems the case, nobody needs to be informed in advance. I'd suggest even if not made public to the DoJ somewhere there should have to be a list of who has been pardoned between now and the end of Trump's term in office

I err, don't think they're like stickers he can hand out, dude. It's a process that has to be followed, not a cheque that can be backdated. Read more about it here: https://www.justice.gov/pardon

You know there IS a list, right? https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardons- ... nald-trump

There is no chance that Trump is going to be able to pardon people once he's left office. It doesn't work that way.

He wouldn't be able to state he's pardoning people after he leaves office, but if he were willing to backdate for cash....

And yes there's a list, but there's nothing in the constitution about their needing to be a list or for people to be informed. Which is why I wondered if there's anything to actually stop him, and I suspect a convention that people tend to behave differently isn't the standard I was looking for

[JM2K6]

Why? There's nothing in the constitution about it, has it been clarified elsewhere? I don't think Trump even has to tell the person he's pardoned, he could just walk out of the WH with a pocket stuffed full of pardons. Hopefully there's something to stop him walking out with a bunch of blank pardons other than trusting him not to back date after the event

And yes the individual has to accept it, but I do wonder how many might want to accept one in 2023 and might still be able to get a backdated pardon if they were willing to cover Trump's expenses if, as seems the case, nobody needs to be informed in advance. I'd suggest even if not made public to the DoJ somewhere there should have to be a list of who has been pardoned between now and the end of Trump's term in office

I err, don't think they're like stickers he can hand out, dude. It's a process that has to be followed, not a cheque that can be backdated. Read more about it here: https://www.justice.gov/pardon

You know there IS a list, right? https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardons- ... nald-trump

There is no chance that Trump is going to be able to pardon people once he's left office. It doesn't work that way.

He wouldn't be able to state he's pardoning people after he leaves office, but if he were willing to backdate for cash....

And yes there's a list, but there's nothing in the constitution about their needing to be a list or for people to be informed. Which is why I wondered if there's anything to actually stop him, and I suspect a convention that people tend to behave differently isn't the standard I was looking for

He has no authority once he leaves office, dude. There's nothing to backdate. He can't go to the Justice Dept and tell them "oh I forgot about this one".

[Rhubarb & Custard]

I err, don't think they're like stickers he can hand out, dude. It's a process that has to be followed, not a cheque that can be backdated. Read more about it here: https://www.justice.gov/pardon

You know there IS a list, right? https://www.justice.gov/pardon/pardons- ... nald-trump

There is no chance that Trump is going to be able to pardon people once he's left office. It doesn't work that way.

He wouldn't be able to state he's pardoning people after he leaves office, but if he were willing to backdate for cash....

And yes there's a list, but there's nothing in the constitution about their needing to be a list or for people to be informed. Which is why I wondered if there's anything to actually stop him, and I suspect a convention that people tend to behave differently isn't the standard I was looking for

He has no authority once he leaves office, dude. There's nothing to backdate. He can't go to the Justice Dept and tell them "oh I forgot about this one".

Why doe he need to go to the DoJ? I'm not saying he doesn't I'm merely starting from the point the line that gives him pardon power really goes no further than giving him pardon power, and if that's the case why can't he hand over 500 pardons the DoJ know nothing about?

[Biffer]

It’s kind of difficult not to publicise a pardon. How do you let someone out of jail without telling people they’ve been pardoned? And for a pardon to be official the recipient has to accept it.

That's only for people who would be looking to be let out. What of those who as yet haven't even faced charges? As I understand the FBI could show up on their doorstep with an arrest warrant only to be presented with the fact said individual already has a pocket pardon.

And yes the individual has to accept it, but I do wonder how many might want to accept one in 2023 and might still be able to get a backdated pardon if they were willing to cover Trump's expenses if, as seems the case, nobody needs to be informed in advance. I'd suggest even if not made public to the DoJ somewhere there should have to be a list of who has been pardoned between now and the end of Trump's term in office

As in other answers, he can't backdate so if it isn't on the list how can the FBI know its genuine?

Not everything in the US justice system is written down in the constitution.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

It’s kind of difficult not to publicise a pardon. How do you let someone out of jail without telling people they’ve been pardoned? And for a pardon to be official the recipient has to accept it.

That's only for people who would be looking to be let out. What of those who as yet haven't even faced charges? As I understand the FBI could show up on their doorstep with an arrest warrant only to be presented with the fact said individual already has a pocket pardon.

And yes the individual has to accept it, but I do wonder how many might want to accept one in 2023 and might still be able to get a backdated pardon if they were willing to cover Trump's expenses if, as seems the case, nobody needs to be informed in advance. I'd suggest even if not made public to the DoJ somewhere there should have to be a list of who has been pardoned between now and the end of Trump's term in office

As in other answers, he can't backdate so if it isn't on the list how can the FBI know its genuine?

Not everything in the US justice system is written down in the constitution.

Even if he can't backdate, and I'm not sure on what's stopping him other than his honest disposition, that still leaves signing pardons and keeping them wholly undisclosed even to the recipient or issuing to the recipient but not establishing any public list or even list known to the DoJ, and they could then be used to block/frustrate future legal actions. And there are reasons you wouldn't a paper trail around who's got a pardon.

If Congress have acted to stop any shenanigans being possible, and they might have done, it'd have to be a fairly recent thing and I'm thus assuming given everything that's going on somebody would have mentioned it in coverage. If Congress have acted my question is not so much when and how did I miss it, but more what limits have they actually placed on the President?

[JM2K6]

He wouldn't be able to state he's pardoning people after he leaves office, but if he were willing to backdate for cash....

And yes there's a list, but there's nothing in the constitution about their needing to be a list or for people to be informed. Which is why I wondered if there's anything to actually stop him, and I suspect a convention that people tend to behave differently isn't the standard I was looking for

He has no authority once he leaves office, dude. There's nothing to backdate. He can't go to the Justice Dept and tell them "oh I forgot about this one".

Why doe he need to go to the DoJ? I'm not saying he doesn't I'm merely starting from the point the line that gives him pardon power really goes no further than giving him pardon power, and if that's the case why can't he hand over 500 pardons the DoJ know nothing about?

What is it you think is being handed over?

What does a pardon actually do? What is the worth of a pardon that the DoJ doesn't know about? For a pardon to mean *anything*, the people who would otherwise prosecute that person need to know about it!

You're being quite obtuse here.

[Biffer]

That's only for people who would be looking to be let out. What of those who as yet haven't even faced charges? As I understand the FBI could show up on their doorstep with an arrest warrant only to be presented with the fact said individual already has a pocket pardon.

And yes the individual has to accept it, but I do wonder how many might want to accept one in 2023 and might still be able to get a backdated pardon if they were willing to cover Trump's expenses if, as seems the case, nobody needs to be informed in advance. I'd suggest even if not made public to the DoJ somewhere there should have to be a list of who has been pardoned between now and the end of Trump's term in office

As in other answers, he can't backdate so if it isn't on the list how can the FBI know its genuine?

Not everything in the US justice system is written down in the constitution.

Even if he can't backdate, and I'm not sure on what's stopping him other than his honest disposition, that still leaves signing pardons and keeping them wholly undisclosed even to the recipient or issuing to the recipient but not establishing any public list or even list known to the DoJ, and they could then be used to block/frustrate future legal actions. And there are reasons you wouldn't a paper trail around who's got a pardon.

If Congress have acted to stop any shenanigans being possible, and they might have done, it'd have to be a fairly recent thing and I'm thus assuming given everything that's going on somebody would have mentioned it in coverage. If Congress have acted my question is not so much when and how did I miss it, but more what limits have they actually placed on the President?

Do you actually think that a pardon is just a bit of paper saying 'You're pardoned, signed Donald'?

[Rhubarb & Custard]

He has no authority once he leaves office, dude. There's nothing to backdate. He can't go to the Justice Dept and tell them "oh I forgot about this one".

Why doe he need to go to the DoJ? I'm not saying he doesn't I'm merely starting from the point the line that gives him pardon power really goes no further than giving him pardon power, and if that's the case why can't he hand over 500 pardons the DoJ know nothing about?

What is it you think is being handed over?

What does a pardon actually do? What is the worth of a pardon that the DoJ doesn't know about? For a pardon to mean *anything*, the people who would otherwise prosecute that person need to know about it!

You're being quite obtuse here.

There's quite a lot of worth to the DoJ not being sure who has a pardon. It leaves less of a paper trail of where to go looking for any crimes, it leaves the DoJ knowing any investigation spend they sign off on might in the end be futile because they wouldn't in the end be able to bring a prosecution. It leaves Trump with power over those to whom a pardon might yet go if only he'd hand it over.

And I'm not sure how I'm being obtuse, all he has to do is issue a pardon, my question is what point in law stops him doing that? As I read the constitution he could sign a napkin and that would suffice. Now maybe it needs to have the presidential seal, but maybe that's a convention, and one way or the other might mean he's got a pile of blanks ready to go or has a pile signed off on and all kept in his safe ready to hand over if he wants to or handed over and simply not known to the DoJ.

Just because I don't know what's stopping him doing that doesn't mean he can, but it's what's actually stopping him doing that I'm asking, not whether there's an office for pardons that handles the thousands of requests for clemency the WH get every year, I doubt Trump gives even one shit about those.

[Rhubarb & Custard]

As in other answers, he can't backdate so if it isn't on the list how can the FBI know its genuine?

Not everything in the US justice system is written down in the constitution.

Even if he can't backdate, and I'm not sure on what's stopping him other than his honest disposition, that still leaves signing pardons and keeping them wholly undisclosed even to the recipient or issuing to the recipient but not establishing any public list or even list known to the DoJ, and they could then be used to block/frustrate future legal actions. And there are reasons you wouldn't a paper trail around who's got a pardon.

If Congress have acted to stop any shenanigans being possible, and they might have done, it'd have to be a fairly recent thing and I'm thus assuming given everything that's going on somebody would have mentioned it in coverage. If Congress have acted my question is not so much when and how did I miss it, but more what limits have they actually placed on the President?

Do you actually think that a pardon is just a bit of paper saying 'You're pardoned, signed Donald'?

I certainly think it could be, why couldn't it? What would a court do if a person had just such a piece of paper? Essentially legally why wouldn't that work?

[JM2K6]

Why doe he need to go to the DoJ? I'm not saying he doesn't I'm merely starting from the point the line that gives him pardon power really goes no further than giving him pardon power, and if that's the case why can't he hand over 500 pardons the DoJ know nothing about?

What is it you think is being handed over?

What does a pardon actually do? What is the worth of a pardon that the DoJ doesn't know about? For a pardon to mean *anything*, the people who would otherwise prosecute that person need to know about it!

You're being quite obtuse here.

There's quite a lot of worth to the DoJ not being sure who has a pardon. It leaves less of a paper trail of where to go looking for any crimes, it leaves the DoJ knowing any investigation spend they sign off on might in the end be futile because they wouldn't in the end be able to bring a prosecution. It leaves Trump with power over those to whom a pardon might yet go if only he'd hand it over.

And I'm not sure how I'm being obtuse, all he has to do is issue a pardon, my question is what point in law stops him doing that? As I read the constitution he could sign a napkin and that would suffice. Now maybe it needs to have the presidential seal, but maybe that's a convention, and one way or the other might mean he's got a pile of blanks ready to go or has a pile signed off on and all kept in his safe ready to hand over if he wants to or handed over and simply not known to the DoJ.

Just because I don't know what's stopping him doing that doesn't mean he can, but it's what's actually stopping him doing that I'm asking, not whether there's an office for pardons that handles the thousands of requests for clemency the WH get every year, I doubt Trump gives even one shit about those.

A pardon literally does not exist in any meaningful sense if the DoJ doesn't know about it. Please do the faintest bit of research on this.

Fuck it, from Wikipedia:

A pardon can be rejected by the intended recipient and must be affirmatively accepted to be officially recognized by the courts.

You're really getting hung up on what it says in the constitution and spending literally no time thinking about how the constituion is interpreted in law. Whether Trump gives a shit or not, once he's ex-President his power to pardon people dies and there's nothing for the intended recipient to accept.

[Biffer]

Even if he can't backdate, and I'm not sure on what's stopping him other than his honest disposition, that still leaves signing pardons and keeping them wholly undisclosed even to the recipient or issuing to the recipient but not establishing any public list or even list known to the DoJ, and they could then be used to block/frustrate future legal actions. And there are reasons you wouldn't a paper trail around who's got a pardon.

If Congress have acted to stop any shenanigans being possible, and they might have done, it'd have to be a fairly recent thing and I'm thus assuming given everything that's going on somebody would have mentioned it in coverage. If Congress have acted my question is not so much when and how did I miss it, but more what limits have they actually placed on the President?

Do you actually think that a pardon is just a bit of paper saying 'You're pardoned, signed Donald'?

I certainly think it could be, why couldn't it? What would a court do if a person had just such a piece of paper? Essentially legally why wouldn't that work?

The courts wouldn't consider it valid, as per the post from JMK above.

I mean, genuinely, what do you think a court or investigating police would do if you turned up and said 'I've got a bit of paper that nobody else knows about that says I'm ok'?

[Saint]

That's only for people who would be looking to be let out. What of those who as yet haven't even faced charges? As I understand the FBI could show up on their doorstep with an arrest warrant only to be presented with the fact said individual already has a pocket pardon.

And yes the individual has to accept it, but I do wonder how many might want to accept one in 2023 and might still be able to get a backdated pardon if they were willing to cover Trump's expenses if, as seems the case, nobody needs to be informed in advance. I'd suggest even if not made public to the DoJ somewhere there should have to be a list of who has been pardoned between now and the end of Trump's term in office

As in other answers, he can't backdate so if it isn't on the list how can the FBI know its genuine?

Not everything in the US justice system is written down in the constitution.

Even if he can't backdate, and I'm not sure on what's stopping him other than his honest disposition, that still leaves signing pardons and keeping them wholly undisclosed even to the recipient or issuing to the recipient but not establishing any public list or even list known to the DoJ, and they could then be used to block/frustrate future legal actions. And there are reasons you wouldn't a paper trail around who's got a pardon.

If Congress have acted to stop any shenanigans being possible, and they might have done, it'd have to be a fairly recent thing and I'm thus assuming given everything that's going on somebody would have mentioned it in coverage. If Congress have acted my question is not so much when and how did I miss it, but more what limits have they actually placed on the President?

Pardons have to be registered by the DoJ, even if the' aren't published - as it needs to be established that they were issued at a point in time where the issuer (ie Trump) actually had the power to pardon someone. They also HAVE to be accepted by the recipient, as the recipient has the right to refuse the pardon; it is effectively an admission of guilt that has other legal implications (not least losing the 5th amendment) - this was established by SCOTUS

Beyond that, there aren;t many limitations to what Trump can or cannot do, and Congress has little power to limit any President in this area. Cash for pardons would probably fall foul of Bribery laws, but that's never been tested; and there's nothing stopping an unscrupulous lawyer taking money from a client in return for his direct influence on the President to seek a pardon

[Slick]

Seeing pictures of the very small demonstrations around the US at the weekend I still can't helped but be shocked at folk wandering around with assault rifles perfectly legally. Absolute madness.

[Sandstorm]

Seeing pictures of the very small demonstrations around the US at the weekend I still can't helped but be shocked at folk wandering around with assault rifles perfectly legally. Absolute madness.

It's a very, very weird country. Like watching something out of a sci-fi film.

[Sandstorm]

Do you actually think that a pardon is just a bit of paper saying 'You're pardoned, signed Donald'?

It's written on the receipt for the $2mil

[Rinkals]

Can we get back to DC Comics?

[Grandpa]

A good read....

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dona ... -x7sp2lr6d

Donald Trump was inept — but his instincts weren’t wrong
The president was right to argue America’s democracy has become corrupted, writes Christopher Caldwell. Clearly he lacked the ability and appetite to fix it

Spoiler

Show

Donald Trump was inept — but his instincts weren’t wrong
The president was right to argue America’s democracy has become corrupted, writes Christopher Caldwell. Clearly he lacked the ability and appetite to fix it
Donald Trump at his inauguration: ‘You will never be ignored,’ he told his supporters
Donald Trump at his inauguration: ‘You will never be ignored,’ he told his supporters
JIM BOURG
Christopher Caldwell
Sunday January 17 2021, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
In early November, on the eve of the American elections, editorial pages and Democratic politicians backing Joe Biden sought to rally the country against Donald Trump, whom they called the “worst president ever”. At the time, it wasn’t even true. Trump was arguably not even the worst American president of the 21st century. Remember George W Bush, who started two wars, lost both and presided over the near-ruin of the global economy?

But Trump has managed to alter his historic legacy considerably since election day. On January 2 he made an hour-long phone call to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, in which he intimated it might be “dangerous” and “a big risk” for Georgia officials to deny that Democrats had committed crimes in the election, and asked Raffensperger to tip the election to him by helping him “find 11,780 votes”.

That may be the most serious documented constitutional violation in the history of presidential elections — but the president was only getting warmed up. On January 6 he urged a mob he had summoned to the National Mall to march on the US Capitol. He didn’t tell them to sack it, but sack it they did, with the help of some poor police work, and sent the senators cowering into a secure room when they were supposed to be tallying the electoral votes that would show Trump the loser.

Trump didn’t tell the mob to sack the Capitol on January 6, but sack it they did
Trump didn’t tell the mob to sack the Capitol on January 6, but sack it they did
LEAH MILLIS
This may not have been the “insurrection” alleged in the impeachment charge quickly filed by Democrats, but the rioters were a threat to the safety of the senators at the moment when they were performing one of their most solemn duties.

One cannot really speak of Trump’s record as marred or besmirched by recent events because the people who will write his record are the very academics, journalists and high-tech “influencers” who oppose him most vehemently. For them, there’s no room for his reputation to get worse. It is the many Americans without any particular antipathy to Trump who have reassessed his character and drawn a stern lesson from it.


The lesson of Trump is that Americans have lately cared too much about ideology and too little about character. The Chicago Tribune opines that the storming of the Capitol was “only surprising if you weren’t paying attention”, as if the new year’s events vindicate the earlier attempts to remove Trump from office. That is only partly true. The early “Russiagate” inquiries, attempting to link Trump to both Julian Assange’s 2016 Democratic national committee email leaks and to Russian intelligence, had their origins in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, just as Trump claimed.

The Democrats’ first impeachment trial in 2019, over Trump’s attempts to gather dirt on Hunter Biden in Ukraine, was secretive and staged, and probably harmed the Democrats more than the Republicans. Nonetheless there really is a vindication for Trump’s foes in the events of recent weeks. If they were wrong on some of the details, they have been proved right in essence. Trump is more the man detractors warned against in 2016 and 2020 than the man his supporters hoped he would be.

Play Video
Security tightened around Capitol
Much more often than we are comfortable admitting, democracy places voters before calculated risks, including risks to democracy. Lincoln, Obama, Trump ... Americans often vote for people conspicuously short of the usual political experience for president, laying a bet that they will grow into statesmanship. Usually it works. Americans also vote for people who show signs of not caring about democratic niceties. Franklin Roosevelt concluded his first inaugural address saying he might ask Congress for “broad executive power” to make economic policy without it. Again, usually it works.

The public had to steel itself for Trump and his crew. The classicist Victor Davis Hanson likened him to a Sophoclean tragic hero, or a cowboy who blows into town to clean up the bad guys. Hanson rightly predicted — although he was a Trump supporter — that Trump’s presidency would end in his repudiation by a lot of the people who had thought it most necessary to rally to him. Trump’s enemies were often under the impression his supporters had been hoodwinked or inattentive, but no. The whole country saw the same Trump. They just differed in their risk assessments.

SPONSORED


Trump was elected for a reason. He spoke to a downwardly mobile, mostly white working class that had been forgotten by the elites raking in money from the global economy. By re-engaging these outcasts with the political system, he was able to win certain states that had suffered industrial decline: Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania. That turned politics upside down. The question was whether he was in any position to do anything for these people.

It turned out he was. Trump had shifted the economic playing field in non-elites’ favour. Policy-makers in both parties became more sceptical about free trade and more hostile to China. Incomes rose modestly for the lowest-paid workers, although this may have been due to minimum-wage laws passed in several states. These gains went unnoticed in print because the people who write about politics tend not to know many people who hang plasterboard and install air-conditioning systems.

Trump had laid an economic foundation for re-election that was much stronger than non–working-class people understood. Covid-19 washed these efforts away and delivered the economy back to the coastal investment bankers and internet moguls, exacerbating the inequality that Trump had come to office promising to fix. He was just unlucky.

There is another way to look at Trump’s election in 2016. Voters, not all of them poor, perceived American democracy as having been corrupted. Their perception was correct. Increasingly, regulators and judges were being empowered to overrule the things the public voted for, often making use of civil-rights laws.

The president spoke to a downwardly mobile, mostly white working class forgotten by the elites
The president spoke to a downwardly mobile, mostly white working class forgotten by the elites
MICHAEL REYNOLDS
Through a process that no one fully understood, second-rate professors now had veto power over what people could and could not say. Litigious “anti-racist” foundations had acquired the power to instruct businessmen on whom to hire, and women felt threatened by men, no matter what men did. Their ideas of efficiency and fairness were abstract and elitist. They spurned the culture of those white voters in the declining states. Hillary Clinton was a personification of these elites’ attitudes, their power, their competence.

The dynamic was similar to Brexit, another battle against a labyrinthine power structure that could be made to disappear and reappear and that sometimes worked through invisible pressures on non-governmental actors. Unseating America’s guardians of political correctness would have required either a capacity for sustained work or an aide with the brilliance of Dominic Cummings. Trump had neither. He didn’t know where the power was that was stymieing his every plan and he had no one to tell him.

Trump’s personnel policy was chaotic. When his lawyer Michael Cohen testified against him in the summer of 2018, the most alarming revelation concerned not Trump’s ethics but his judgment in entrusting his most treasured projects and secrets to such a low-life. His hiring of his son-in-law Jared Kushner as an all-purpose consigliere was the most brazen act of White House nepotism in memory. Trump had a way of exiling people of independent judgment, such as his early backer Steve Bannon.

For all the talk of “extremism” that accompanied Trump through four years, his largest problem was never so much extremism as incompetence. No national candidate had ever calumniated political correctness with such contempt, and yet no president had ever permitted political correctness to tighten its hold so much on the lives of citizens.

The intimidation and censorship of common people as sexists and racists grew under Trump. After the #MeToo movement, mandatory anti-sexism workshops proliferated. After last summer’s riots over the death of George Floyd, anti-racism slogans were painted over football fields. Scarcely had Americans figured out what “transphobic” meant before they discovered it was something they could be sued for being, after the 2020 decision in Bostock v Clayton County, Georgia (written by a Trump nominee to the Supreme Court). By the end of Trump’s term his tweets were being censored, and so were the Facebook accounts of supporters who even mentioned the slogan “Stop the steal”.

For all the recent talk of incitement, Trump got his enemies considerably more riled up than his friends. In this his presidency resembled the high point of the American comedy Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Held at bay by an armed robber, Blart succeeds in using the only weapon he has — a bottle of hot sauce, which he squirts into the assailant’s eyes. The man collapses into a chair, blinded, and over the 15 or so excruciating seconds that it takes him to recover his vision, Blart, urged on by his daughter, his girlfriend and other hostages, does ... nothing. The robber recovers and trains his gun back on everybody. “Probably should have capitalised on that,” Blart mutters.

The Capitol rioters threatened senators as they performed one of their most solemn duties
The Capitol rioters threatened senators as they performed one of their most solemn duties
DREW ANGERER
Trump didn’t have the skill to dismantle the power structures that were ruining his voters’ lives, but he did leave them feeling they’d never walk alone. (“Hear these words,” he said at the end of his inauguration address. “You will never be ignored again.”) The question is whether that will be enough to allow him to dominate the party in the future. Should he be convicted in an impeachment trial, he would probably be barred from politics for life, but such a conviction is unlikely.

Most analysts think it will be easy for him to keep his grip on the party. They are probably wrong. Trump will be seeking to avoid prosecutions by state justice departments that are well organised and in some cases vindictive. He will also be dealing with the chaotic state of his investments and properties, as activist investors have divested and clients have cancelled contracts. Among Republicans, Trump’s influence rests on the value of his endorsement and likelihood that he will be president again one day. Both are shrinking.

Trump may have given American populism its characteristic expression, but he didn’t unleash it and it won’t end with him. Many of the grievances that brought him into the political arena have, as we say, worsened. His Democratic tormentors have learnt little from their early debacles. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York congresswoman, complains about “white supremacist” colleagues in Congress; Zoe Lofgren, the California congresswoman, describes the Capitol marchers as “right-wing terrorists”. That leaves Republicans worried that, once Democrats are done with Trump, they will come for his rank and file. This diminishes the likelihood that Democrats will be able to win a conviction of Trump in the Senate in the coming weeks.

The global populist movement, as opposed to Trump’s American fans, may indeed suffer a setback in the coming months. A good relationship with the US remains an asset for any European head of state, and Trump’s departure makes it less likely that, say, Marine Le Pen or Marion Maréchal will have a friend in the White House in 2022. The same goes for Matteo Salvini, Viktor Orbán and others. In America, all the grievances that created populism remain. Trump was effective in rallying populists together but wholly incompetent in carrying out their programme. Even to his followers, his departure might be a liberation.

Christopher Caldwell is a contributing editor at the Claremont Review of Books and the author, most recently, of The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties (Simon & Schuster)

[Rhubarb & Custard]

As in other answers, he can't backdate so if it isn't on the list how can the FBI know its genuine?

Not everything in the US justice system is written down in the constitution.

Even if he can't backdate, and I'm not sure on what's stopping him other than his honest disposition, that still leaves signing pardons and keeping them wholly undisclosed even to the recipient or issuing to the recipient but not establishing any public list or even list known to the DoJ, and they could then be used to block/frustrate future legal actions. And there are reasons you wouldn't a paper trail around who's got a pardon.

If Congress have acted to stop any shenanigans being possible, and they might have done, it'd have to be a fairly recent thing and I'm thus assuming given everything that's going on somebody would have mentioned it in coverage. If Congress have acted my question is not so much when and how did I miss it, but more what limits have they actually placed on the President?

Pardons have to be registered by the DoJ, even if the' aren't published - as it needs to be established that they were issued at a point in time where the issuer (ie Trump) actually had the power to pardon someone. They also HAVE to be accepted by the recipient, as the recipient has the right to refuse the pardon; it is effectively an admission of guilt that has other legal implications (not least losing the 5th amendment) - this was established by SCOTUS

Beyond that, there aren;t many limitations to what Trump can or cannot do, and Congress has little power to limit any President in this area. Cash for pardons would probably fall foul of Bribery laws, but that's never been tested; and there's nothing stopping an unscrupulous lawyer taking money from a client in return for his direct influence on the President to seek a pardon

I can't find where they have to be registered. Which doesn't mean that's incorrect, just I can't find it beyond there's a general convention. Though I also can't find anything (based on a quick search) saying other than he can pardon secretly in theory, based on his broad powers. Perhaps because this is simply untested law.

About the only restrictions I can see on Trump are the crime must have been committed, though there's nothing about it having been prosecuted or even charged, it only pertains to federal crimes, and it cannot be for case of impeachment

[Biffer]

Even if he can't backdate, and I'm not sure on what's stopping him other than his honest disposition, that still leaves signing pardons and keeping them wholly undisclosed even to the recipient or issuing to the recipient but not establishing any public list or even list known to the DoJ, and they could then be used to block/frustrate future legal actions. And there are reasons you wouldn't a paper trail around who's got a pardon.

If Congress have acted to stop any shenanigans being possible, and they might have done, it'd have to be a fairly recent thing and I'm thus assuming given everything that's going on somebody would have mentioned it in coverage. If Congress have acted my question is not so much when and how did I miss it, but more what limits have they actually placed on the President?

Pardons have to be registered by the DoJ, even if the' aren't published - as it needs to be established that they were issued at a point in time where the issuer (ie Trump) actually had the power to pardon someone. They also HAVE to be accepted by the recipient, as the recipient has the right to refuse the pardon; it is effectively an admission of guilt that has other legal implications (not least losing the 5th amendment) - this was established by SCOTUS

Beyond that, there aren;t many limitations to what Trump can or cannot do, and Congress has little power to limit any President in this area. Cash for pardons would probably fall foul of Bribery laws, but that's never been tested; and there's nothing stopping an unscrupulous lawyer taking money from a client in return for his direct influence on the President to seek a pardon

I can't find where they have to be registered. Which doesn't mean that's incorrect, just I can't find it beyond there's a general convention. Though I also can't find anything (based on a quick search) saying other than he can pardon secretly in theory, based on his broad powers. Perhaps because this is simply untested law.

About the only restrictions I can see on Trump are the crime must have been committed, though there's nothing about it having been prosecuted or even charged, it only pertains to federal crimes, and it cannot be for case of impeachment

Think about this logically FFS.

How does any court of police officer know that your pardon is real and when it was granted?

[Rhubarb & Custard]

A good read....

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dona ... -x7sp2lr6d

Donald Trump was inept — but his instincts weren’t wrong
The president was right to argue America’s democracy has become corrupted, writes Christopher Caldwell. Clearly he lacked the ability and appetite to fix it

Spoiler

Show

Donald Trump was inept — but his instincts weren’t wrong
The president was right to argue America’s democracy has become corrupted, writes Christopher Caldwell. Clearly he lacked the ability and appetite to fix it
Donald Trump at his inauguration: ‘You will never be ignored,’ he told his supporters
Donald Trump at his inauguration: ‘You will never be ignored,’ he told his supporters
JIM BOURG
Christopher Caldwell
Sunday January 17 2021, 12.01am, The Sunday Times
In early November, on the eve of the American elections, editorial pages and Democratic politicians backing Joe Biden sought to rally the country against Donald Trump, whom they called the “worst president ever”. At the time, it wasn’t even true. Trump was arguably not even the worst American president of the 21st century. Remember George W Bush, who started two wars, lost both and presided over the near-ruin of the global economy?

But Trump has managed to alter his historic legacy considerably since election day. On January 2 he made an hour-long phone call to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, in which he intimated it might be “dangerous” and “a big risk” for Georgia officials to deny that Democrats had committed crimes in the election, and asked Raffensperger to tip the election to him by helping him “find 11,780 votes”.

That may be the most serious documented constitutional violation in the history of presidential elections — but the president was only getting warmed up. On January 6 he urged a mob he had summoned to the National Mall to march on the US Capitol. He didn’t tell them to sack it, but sack it they did, with the help of some poor police work, and sent the senators cowering into a secure room when they were supposed to be tallying the electoral votes that would show Trump the loser.

Trump didn’t tell the mob to sack the Capitol on January 6, but sack it they did
Trump didn’t tell the mob to sack the Capitol on January 6, but sack it they did
LEAH MILLIS
This may not have been the “insurrection” alleged in the impeachment charge quickly filed by Democrats, but the rioters were a threat to the safety of the senators at the moment when they were performing one of their most solemn duties.

One cannot really speak of Trump’s record as marred or besmirched by recent events because the people who will write his record are the very academics, journalists and high-tech “influencers” who oppose him most vehemently. For them, there’s no room for his reputation to get worse. It is the many Americans without any particular antipathy to Trump who have reassessed his character and drawn a stern lesson from it.


The lesson of Trump is that Americans have lately cared too much about ideology and too little about character. The Chicago Tribune opines that the storming of the Capitol was “only surprising if you weren’t paying attention”, as if the new year’s events vindicate the earlier attempts to remove Trump from office. That is only partly true. The early “Russiagate” inquiries, attempting to link Trump to both Julian Assange’s 2016 Democratic national committee email leaks and to Russian intelligence, had their origins in Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, just as Trump claimed.

The Democrats’ first impeachment trial in 2019, over Trump’s attempts to gather dirt on Hunter Biden in Ukraine, was secretive and staged, and probably harmed the Democrats more than the Republicans. Nonetheless there really is a vindication for Trump’s foes in the events of recent weeks. If they were wrong on some of the details, they have been proved right in essence. Trump is more the man detractors warned against in 2016 and 2020 than the man his supporters hoped he would be.

Play Video
Security tightened around Capitol
Much more often than we are comfortable admitting, democracy places voters before calculated risks, including risks to democracy. Lincoln, Obama, Trump ... Americans often vote for people conspicuously short of the usual political experience for president, laying a bet that they will grow into statesmanship. Usually it works. Americans also vote for people who show signs of not caring about democratic niceties. Franklin Roosevelt concluded his first inaugural address saying he might ask Congress for “broad executive power” to make economic policy without it. Again, usually it works.

The public had to steel itself for Trump and his crew. The classicist Victor Davis Hanson likened him to a Sophoclean tragic hero, or a cowboy who blows into town to clean up the bad guys. Hanson rightly predicted — although he was a Trump supporter — that Trump’s presidency would end in his repudiation by a lot of the people who had thought it most necessary to rally to him. Trump’s enemies were often under the impression his supporters had been hoodwinked or inattentive, but no. The whole country saw the same Trump. They just differed in their risk assessments.

SPONSORED


Trump was elected for a reason. He spoke to a downwardly mobile, mostly white working class that had been forgotten by the elites raking in money from the global economy. By re-engaging these outcasts with the political system, he was able to win certain states that had suffered industrial decline: Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania. That turned politics upside down. The question was whether he was in any position to do anything for these people.

It turned out he was. Trump had shifted the economic playing field in non-elites’ favour. Policy-makers in both parties became more sceptical about free trade and more hostile to China. Incomes rose modestly for the lowest-paid workers, although this may have been due to minimum-wage laws passed in several states. These gains went unnoticed in print because the people who write about politics tend not to know many people who hang plasterboard and install air-conditioning systems.

Trump had laid an economic foundation for re-election that was much stronger than non–working-class people understood. Covid-19 washed these efforts away and delivered the economy back to the coastal investment bankers and internet moguls, exacerbating the inequality that Trump had come to office promising to fix. He was just unlucky.

There is another way to look at Trump’s election in 2016. Voters, not all of them poor, perceived American democracy as having been corrupted. Their perception was correct. Increasingly, regulators and judges were being empowered to overrule the things the public voted for, often making use of civil-rights laws.

The president spoke to a downwardly mobile, mostly white working class forgotten by the elites
The president spoke to a downwardly mobile, mostly white working class forgotten by the elites
MICHAEL REYNOLDS
Through a process that no one fully understood, second-rate professors now had veto power over what people could and could not say. Litigious “anti-racist” foundations had acquired the power to instruct businessmen on whom to hire, and women felt threatened by men, no matter what men did. Their ideas of efficiency and fairness were abstract and elitist. They spurned the culture of those white voters in the declining states. Hillary Clinton was a personification of these elites’ attitudes, their power, their competence.

The dynamic was similar to Brexit, another battle against a labyrinthine power structure that could be made to disappear and reappear and that sometimes worked through invisible pressures on non-governmental actors. Unseating America’s guardians of political correctness would have required either a capacity for sustained work or an aide with the brilliance of Dominic Cummings. Trump had neither. He didn’t know where the power was that was stymieing his every plan and he had no one to tell him.

Trump’s personnel policy was chaotic. When his lawyer Michael Cohen testified against him in the summer of 2018, the most alarming revelation concerned not Trump’s ethics but his judgment in entrusting his most treasured projects and secrets to such a low-life. His hiring of his son-in-law Jared Kushner as an all-purpose consigliere was the most brazen act of White House nepotism in memory. Trump had a way of exiling people of independent judgment, such as his early backer Steve Bannon.

For all the talk of “extremism” that accompanied Trump through four years, his largest problem was never so much extremism as incompetence. No national candidate had ever calumniated political correctness with such contempt, and yet no president had ever permitted political correctness to tighten its hold so much on the lives of citizens.

The intimidation and censorship of common people as sexists and racists grew under Trump. After the #MeToo movement, mandatory anti-sexism workshops proliferated. After last summer’s riots over the death of George Floyd, anti-racism slogans were painted over football fields. Scarcely had Americans figured out what “transphobic” meant before they discovered it was something they could be sued for being, after the 2020 decision in Bostock v Clayton County, Georgia (written by a Trump nominee to the Supreme Court). By the end of Trump’s term his tweets were being censored, and so were the Facebook accounts of supporters who even mentioned the slogan “Stop the steal”.

For all the recent talk of incitement, Trump got his enemies considerably more riled up than his friends. In this his presidency resembled the high point of the American comedy Paul Blart: Mall Cop. Held at bay by an armed robber, Blart succeeds in using the only weapon he has — a bottle of hot sauce, which he squirts into the assailant’s eyes. The man collapses into a chair, blinded, and over the 15 or so excruciating seconds that it takes him to recover his vision, Blart, urged on by his daughter, his girlfriend and other hostages, does ... nothing. The robber recovers and trains his gun back on everybody. “Probably should have capitalised on that,” Blart mutters.

The Capitol rioters threatened senators as they performed one of their most solemn duties
The Capitol rioters threatened senators as they performed one of their most solemn duties
DREW ANGERER
Trump didn’t have the skill to dismantle the power structures that were ruining his voters’ lives, but he did leave them feeling they’d never walk alone. (“Hear these words,” he said at the end of his inauguration address. “You will never be ignored again.”) The question is whether that will be enough to allow him to dominate the party in the future. Should he be convicted in an impeachment trial, he would probably be barred from politics for life, but such a conviction is unlikely.

Most analysts think it will be easy for him to keep his grip on the party. They are probably wrong. Trump will be seeking to avoid prosecutions by state justice departments that are well organised and in some cases vindictive. He will also be dealing with the chaotic state of his investments and properties, as activist investors have divested and clients have cancelled contracts. Among Republicans, Trump’s influence rests on the value of his endorsement and likelihood that he will be president again one day. Both are shrinking.

Trump may have given American populism its characteristic expression, but he didn’t unleash it and it won’t end with him. Many of the grievances that brought him into the political arena have, as we say, worsened. His Democratic tormentors have learnt little from their early debacles. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York congresswoman, complains about “white supremacist” colleagues in Congress; Zoe Lofgren, the California congresswoman, describes the Capitol marchers as “right-wing terrorists”. That leaves Republicans worried that, once Democrats are done with Trump, they will come for his rank and file. This diminishes the likelihood that Democrats will be able to win a conviction of Trump in the Senate in the coming weeks.

The global populist movement, as opposed to Trump’s American fans, may indeed suffer a setback in the coming months. A good relationship with the US remains an asset for any European head of state, and Trump’s departure makes it less likely that, say, Marine Le Pen or Marion Maréchal will have a friend in the White House in 2022. The same goes for Matteo Salvini, Viktor Orbán and others. In America, all the grievances that created populism remain. Trump was effective in rallying populists together but wholly incompetent in carrying out their programme. Even to his followers, his departure might be a liberation.

Christopher Caldwell is a contributing editor at the Claremont Review of Books and the author, most recently, of The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties (Simon & Schuster)

I heard about that yesterday, my mother was apoplectic on reading it and called to vent about some chap called Chris. I'd assumed Christie.