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Democrats are reacting very strongly to Trump’s pardon of Michael Flynn, the president’s first national security adviser, who admitted he lied to the FBI about his contacts with the then-Russian ambassador to Washington DC during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Another stain on Trump’s legacy, says Democrat Jerry Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. Corruption, says party colleague Adam Schiff, chairman of the House of Representatives intelligence committee. Completely embarrassing, the liberal Washington Post thunders in its editorial. “Shocking, though not in the least surprising,” writes Susan Glasser, a New York Washington Washington correspondent.
Michael Flynn is the first forgiven after Trump’s defeat in this fall’s presidential election. There are links to the choice. Flynn is represented by attorney Sidney Powell, who until this week was on the list of Trump campaign attorneys attempting to overturn the election results. At a press conference last week, Powell argued that Joe Biden had been crowned the winner by an international communist conspiracy, which includes China, Venezuela and businessmen like George Soros.
Powell’s conspiracy theory was possibly too much for the Republican Party, which provided its premises for the press conference. (On Sunday night, Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who leads the group, distanced himself from Sidney Powell in any case.) But Trump’s pardon of Michael Flynn is a patch on the wounds, for Powell and certainly for many of the president’s supporters who imagine Biden cheated. to victory.
Among Trump’s ranks, General Flynn is something of a cult figure, a martyr who fell victim to Trump’s notion of “a state within a state,” an alleged conspiracy of democratic interests at the Justice Department, the FBI and security services.
Michael Flynn got stuck in the spy apparatus of the security services when he discussed sanctions with then-Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak before Trump took office in January 2016. The FBI could easily prove that Flynn lied when he denied interrogation conversations with him. Russian researcher Robert Mueller and his staff, but also in previous conversations with Vice President Mike Pence. Flynn was the first legal victim of the Russia Investigation.
Trump never recovered from the Russia investigation, which marked almost every day of his first two years as president. His refusal to admit defeat in the fall elections can be interpreted as an attempt at revenge against the Russia investigation, a revenge that the Republican Party has supported in part.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has defended Trump’s actions since the election, welcomes the Democrats’ lectures on the importance of respecting the results of this year’s election. This is because, in McConnell’s view, the opposition party just spent four years questioning the validity of the 2016 results. A reference to the Russia Investigation.
Trump’s attacks on the fall elections appear to have reached a dead end. This week, Biden’s transitional government gained access to public funds. The change of government is soon a fact. But Trump is likely to continue his attempts to undermine the investigation into Russia and other issues from his presidency retroactively. Perhaps through new pardons of people prosecuted as a result of the Robert Mueller review.
George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy campaign adviser who spent 12 days in jail for lying to the FBI, may be eligible for a pardon. Like Rick Gates and Paul Manafort, who were charged and convicted of violating campaign laws and financial fraud.
