More than once over the past week-plus, I’ve mused about what it must be like to be VP Pence these days. Not that I’m sympathetic to him or anything, just wondering what he is doing day-to-day, moment-by-moment. Is he in his office in the WH? Is Trump yelling at him? Who is he seeing? What is he doing?
Whatever it is - I hope it is exceedingly unpleasant!
Yeah - then think what the response would’ve been had the rioters been black.
I heard somewhere that an order went out for the cops to not use deadly force. But you would think that would change as the engagement changed.
Having read that Trump may have been convinced of the futility of a self-pardon, I hope he reverts to form when it comes to giving stuff to his enablers and collaborators, which is… If I can’t have one, no one can!
Although my deeper concern is that the seditious delusion runs so deep we will see a lot of jury nullification and will fail to get convictions even with clear and convincing evidence of guilt. But, even if they beat the rap, we can still make them take the ride.
Mini-rant - screw auto fill, can’t they teach it grammar? When I got to collab, why did you offer up collaboration , collaborative and collaborate instead of the one variation that fit grammatically ?
Wack-nut conspiracy scenario possibility (somewhat similar to what JohnT posted a while ago):
Attempted popular coup fails
Suspects pursued, arrested, awaiting prosecution
Trump is now facing impeachment
Missed a chance to use 25th and missed another chance at immediate impeachment & removal.
Trump seethes with rage and wants to retaliate against Democrats and Republicans who dared to challenge him. Blood boils with rage for days.
Trump then catches everyone off guard by pardoning anyone who had anything to do with the riot of all federal crimes
Trump then hints that his supporters need to finish the job and that he can pardon them again
GOP congressmen are both outraged and paralyzed with shock and fear, not knowing how to respond. Senate is still in recess until the 19th and won’t take up business until the 21st at the earliest.
This time, riots at the state capitols, which were already well planned, take place all over the country. This time, they act out with a sense of urgency. They shock and overrun state police and create mass chaos.
Trump then declares martial law and invokes control of the national military.
He then orders his “guardians” of the republic and his national troops to take control of congress, to take hostages.
Chaos ensues - when it ends is anyone’s guess. Meanwhile, Trump immediately issues another wave of pardons for each act of insurrection.
A little more info on how close it was for mike pence.
The video of a single officer keeping ahead of the insurgents, the one where he looked left, then got the mob to follow him to the right. That was officer Goodwin. Pence was 100 feet away in a room off the hall officer Goodwin glanced toward. As the video progresses you can see that Goodwin was joined by a few more officers, finally getting a bit of back up.
That was how close it was. One officer luring insurgents.
If Donald Trump can’t himself figure out, I am sure that someone close to him (Ivanka, Jared, Don Jr, Eric, Stephen Miller - someone) will figure out that the best way to a) torment his enemies and b) maintain the grip on his base of radicals is to pardon them all. Someone will put it in his head that he can terrorize his enemies if he just goes full-throttle authoritarian. Not because it’s the smart move, but because it’s the most venomous.
I don’t think he will be pardoning the rioters. They embarrassed him by forgetting to wear their formal seditionwear and looked low class, which embarrassed Trump.
Besides, they lost. Trump doesn’t like insurrectionists that get captured. That’s why Trump’s mad. He’s not mad that they tried to attack Congress and kill everyone that didn’t want to Make America Great Again, he pissed that they didn’t succeed. They deserve to spend the rest of their lives in prison for failing their Orange Jesus.
Nothing would surprise me. I have learned that underestimating Trump can backfire and nothing is too crazy.
But, I think that’s a long story arc for 5 days, two of them weekend days. If we had another month, pre-inauguration, I’d be more concerned.
If Trump tries to offer blanket pardons for uncharged crimes, such as pardoning everyone in his Administration for any crimes they may have committed while he was in office, I think that decision needs to be challenged all the way up to the Supremes.
I understand that it is widely held that the Presidential pardon power is absolute, but I hope the court would see that it should not be effectively used to place the entire Executive branch above the law in perpetuity.
As sad as it sounds, my only reason for thinking the Supremes might see this as a problem is that their will be a Democrat in office, but there will be.
Do we know Pence is refusing to invoke the 25th Amendment? He needs a majority of the Cabinet to do it, and they weren’t at the Capitol having their lives threatened by Trump’s mob.
I think (b) is more likely than (a). He is probably afraid of what harm they’ll do to him, but I doubt he hangs out in those circles, and even he has to know his political ambitions are slim—he can’t please the Trumpers, who want Trump or Trump-like people, and he can’t please the anti-Trumpers for going along with him for so long.
As for (c), I think it’s less likely because I don’t believe there could be a conspiracy that wouldn’t have been blabbed about, either by Trump or the incompetents he surrounds himself with. Plus it can’t be very big, as the bigger the conspiracy, the less likely it can exist without people blabbing. That’s precisely what’s wrong with conspiracy theorists.
That’s not to say there’s not something hinky going on, but I don’t think it’s some large conspiracy. You don’t need one for anything that has happened. You can have one single person who has dirt on Pence or something. Or just the other concerns.
That said, I do think there’s a possible fourth reason: he’s using the threat of impeachment in a sort of blackmail, and is believes (foolishly IMHO) that will be sufficient, and thus avoiding issues (b) and (a).
The Constitution is pretty clear: like it or not, pardon is an absolute power for federal offenses. Draft dodgers were pardoned in such a manner.
I agree that my scenario wouldn’t seem plausible – I don’t want to believe it. But I started thinking about it more, and it occurred to me that Trump wants to strike back. He’s running out of time to do it, and this is a way he could. More than that, if this was coordinated by dark money benefactors, and if federal law enforcement and counter-intelligence is working their way through it, then it would seem to me that they might still view this as an unfinished coup.
Maybe this is a wave 1, wave 2, wave 3 operation – we just don’t know.
This seems like the likeliest explanation. Pence probably knows he can’t get most of what’s left of cabinet to agree, so he’d be taking all the risk with no possibility of payoff.
Does Pence get ongoing Secret Service protection too, or is that only for Presidents? Because if he’s about to lose his security detail I imagine he’d be reluctant to piss off the terrorists any further.
Pence may have decided that strategically his best option is to hold off on invoking the 25th, to try to avoid antagonizing the MAGA hordes further - both to try to preserve what’s left of his political career and avoid making himself more of a target. But I think it’s very likely that he’s using the threat of it to control Trump between now and the 20th. The best outcome for Pence now is that Trump stays quiet and goes away on the 20th, and he controls the weapon than can disable Trump instantly.
I think it’s also true that if Pence resigns or is assassinated, a replacement VP must be approved by Congress, and the speaker is next in line in automatic succession - does that mean Pelosi would become VP? If that’s the case, maybe the status quo actually physically protects Pence this week, if assassination of Pence would put Pelosi in as VP and mean instant 25th for Trump?
I Pelosi would automatically replace him as VP, I wonder if Pence has actually considered resigning?
I think Pence was probably right about not invoking the 25th. Even if the cabinet were onboard, the point of the 25th is to clarify what happens when the president is incapacitated, not criminal - the remedy for criminal behavior is impeachment.
Besides which, if Pence and the cabinet send a letter to the Senate saying, “The president is incapable of fulfilling his duties,” then Trump sends a letter saying, “Nuh uh, I can totally do presidenting!” and he’s back in office, unless two thirds of the Senate agree with Pence and the cabinet. Which is exactly where we are now with impeachment, but with the added bonus of having violated yet another political norm, in a time when we really need to reinforce the importance of political norms.
