I don’t see any way around it. That’s going to be a toxic mess. They’ve made their bones, and afa loyalty goes, they’re prescreened. Marty really fucked up this timeline.
“Has to”? He’s not that consistent or predictable.
And don’t forget, his idea of loyalty isn’t reciprocal. Their loyalty to him imposes no obligation on him to be loyal, or even favorably-disposed, in return. As far as we know, he would regard them as losers who got caught.
He could be as loyal to them as he would be to used toilet paper.
The more relevant question is “what does he get out of it?”
A militia.
You’d think that the prospect of a president pardoning a bunch of domestic terrorists and traitors would cause him to lose support, but here we are.
I think he will 100% pardon all the J6 traitors of all federal charges.
While this was one of his constant campaign promises, that doesn’t mean anything. Unless he personally gets something from doing it I don’t know why he would even bother. And not all of the sitting republican representatives were happy about how it went down. He needs every vote he can get to push through his massive agenda.
He thinks he has a militia, called the Department of Defense.
Don’t forget, if you think he’s patterning himself after Hitler, Hitler executed the Brownshirts just as soon as he secured legitimate command of the armed forces.
I don’t think the DoJ is going to gladly deal in the kind of extrajudicial punishment and harassment the J6ers would have absolutely no qualms about.
If he does think that now, he has 4 years to decide he does need his proud boys.
Agree q @gnoitall.
The J6 folks themselves are pitiful losers as a fighting force.
Good bet the various Proud Boyz -like groups nationwide would jump at the chance to be the run-amok bullies they desperately hope trump wants.
Numerically, the J6ers in jail are a negligible percentage of the wannabe run-amok bullies. So they’re unnecessary.
So what does trump really want? He doesn’t know yet, so how could we?
IMO he would be likely to free those for whom someone bothers to put up a formal petition and provides with it a properly drafted legally correct pardon/amnesty document language for him to sign(*). So it’s a matter of whether someone is already working on that in the official or extraofficial teams, and whether the President and his people feel that has to be done all at once or by parts or at specific times.
(* OR, OR, or he can believe he can just Toot “I tell DOJ all J6 Patriots must be free tomorrow” at 3 am and it just will happen. Which would cause a s***show and not get anyone freed until it gets resolved.)
Personally I think he does do it because it’s a great way to give the finger to his enemies and signal their opposition to his antics will be useless. He doesn’t give a molecule of shit about the J6 people themselves but he’ll enjoy throwing them in the face of those who would stand against him.
I expect Trump to free the J6ers. Not because he wants to keep his word and not even because he wants to stick it to his enemies though that’s certainly a bonus. I think he’s going to pardon them because it’s an easy way for him to receive accolades from his followers. i.e. It’ll appease his ego.
(e.t.a. as Cervaise said) I think he will, only because the tea republican party’s MO is about ruining the federal government, and freeing the 1/6 people will give the finger to the DoJ and all the institutions, the “swamp” people, “Democrat enemies of the US”, etc.
Nah. He’s going to issue a blanket pardon on day one. No petition necessary. He thinks it will make him look good to the people who voted for him.
People are talking in terms of “freeing” people. I’m having a hard time finding numbers but I know quite a few have completed their sentences. It will be more about clearing their record.
I think this is my expectation. It is a simple statement/action he can make, allowing him to say he fulfilled one of his promises quickly. Moreover, it supports his desired image of himself as someone who did no wrong, and that these were beautiful persecuted patriots. I think that we are going to see a lot of that kind of bold strokes aimed at coloring his desired image, rather than getting into the time consuming nitty gritty details of pardoning some but not others.
OTOH, tho, he does have a consistent track record of forgetting folk he no longer needs…
Like with so much over the next 4 years, we’ll just have to wait and see. I don’t plan on putting too much effort into trying to anticipate what he will or won’t do. I’m thinking about a mindset I long held about the federal agency I work for. I figure there is no way to predict what will be done - either on the office, regional, or national level in terms of staffing, policy, promotions… The only thing you can guarantee is that if there is ONE CLEAR OPTION which all of the hardest working and most capable line employees agree is THE ONLY OPTION THAT MAKES SENSE, you can pretty safely bet that that option WILL NOT BE CHOSEN. I bet that held true at least 90-95% of the time over my 38 years of experience.
My thoughts exactly. Also, it’s not a hard thing for him to do, right? Just make a pronouncement, sign a few declarations, and he’s done.
Now if it involved hard work, I could see him reneging on his promise.
Nobody can stop him from pardoning them so he will. If he’s worried about expending political capital on this right away he’ll do it later as a distraction from some other disastrous mistake he’s made.
The best thing about a blanket pardon is, if it’s worded the right way, it will include himself.
That would require deep thought. That’s just not possible.
I’m hoping for a more nuanced approach. Pardon for anyone for things like trespassing. No pardons for those who engaged in violence. But again that requires deep thought and isnt going to happen.
Decent bet that he’ll want to do some big splashy thing on Inauguration Day or the day after. Something to shout from the rooftops “There’s a new Sheriff in town!”
The something doesn’t have to have huge effect. It just needs to have huge newsworthiness, at least on the RW side of the “news”. But what it most has to do is give an example of presidential omnipotence and the inability of anyone anywhere to stop this particular action. Setting the tone for his soon-to-follow attempts to arrogate far more authority to the President than he’s entitled to.
As an example of presidential omnipotence, pardons are hard to beat.
With that thought, I retract some of my earlier objections. He won’t pardon J6ers for anything to do with them personally, nor even to rewrite history turning J6 into a tragically failed but truly heroic effort by True Patriots.
He might do it just to loudly thumb his nose at conventionality. And to assert his omnipotence in all things, starting with this thing.