I Beg Your Pardon

The President has gone too far with his pardons

We at The Ops Desk were very critical of the Biden pardons. Knowing that his family was involved in fraud and corruption, we decried the free pass that he gave to most adult members of his family. We suspected crimes were committed by members of his administration and sure enough, Biden gave unprecedented pardons to those individuals. No crime – no need for a pardon, by our logic.

But we have to also speak out against some of Trump’s pardons. Many of the January 6^th defendants were clearly railroaded. That investigation was the largest federal prosecution of all time. Bigger than La Cosa Nostra cases, bigger than the several terrorist attacks we have seen including the World Trade Center bombing. I have seen the federal justice system up-close-and-personal while with the NYPD. Their MO is to threaten defendants with massive prison sentences for sometimes minor crimes and force a plea deal.

That is what happened to most of the non-violent January 6 defendants. Most, but not all. Some of those people were legitimate criminals with significant rap sheets. Some assaulted cops. Others seem committed to an overthrow of the American government. You could call some, like Stuart Rhodes, potential domestic terrorists. Trump pardoned or commuted them all and it was not the right thing to do. If someone got caught up in a legitimate political rally and went too far, go ahead with the pardon. If you showed up to invade the Capitol with zip ties and bear spray – I can’t get behind that.

Trump also pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the Silk Road dark web marketplace. Ulbricht facilitated the sale of drugs, stolen identities, and computer hacking tools. Multiple people died or had their lives ruined through the “services” that Ulbricht helped provide. The FBI and DOJ spent years building a case against, and de-anonymizing, Ulbricht. This ultimately led to a successful prosecution. This individual is of the mindset that he did nothing wrong and should not have been pardoned. He’s wrong. The sales he facilitated killed dozens if not hundreds of Americans. And Trump himself has called for the death penalty for drug dealers.

Last week Trump pardoned Rod Blagojevich. Blagojevich had already received a commutation during the Trump first term, so the pardon seems unnecessary. If you recall, Blagojevich was caught on a wiretap discussing selling a United States Senate seat to the highest bidder. There is no need for Blagojevich to receive a full pardon. He did his time, I get it, but public corruption is a serious problem in this country and this guy got his day in court and was convicted. To us, that makes him a perp.

And now Trump has let Eric Adams off the hook for his own public corruption problems. Yes, technically it is not a pardon, as Adams’ case was simply dropped. But ordering the DOJ to stand down is a mistake. Even Trump’s own appointed US Attorney for SDNY, Danielle Sassoon, couldn’t stomach this move and promptly resigned.

We have discussed the case against Eric Adams several times here at The Ops Desk. We agree that it is not the strongest case in the world, and it is likely to be at least partially politically motivated. But forget about the hotel discounts and flight upgrades; Eric Adams was accused of fraudulently obtaining matching taxpayer funds for his political campaigns. NYC matches 8-to-1 (a crime in itself) for small donations. That is stealing from taxpayers if Adams had knowledge of that scheme. Unacceptable.

The DOJ had also been teasing a superseding indictment. We, as voters, should know what that was about. Was it a scare tactic by the DOJ or is there meat on that bone? If it was a scare tactic, heads at DOJ should be rolling.

Let Adams have his day in court. He said he could beat that case – let him do so.

Public corruption is a serious problem in this country, and just the appearance of this move by Trump flies in the face of many of the allegations being made by the DOGE team. Trump is going after government corruption and waste on one hand and letting corrupt politicians off the hook with the other. A bad look.

And yet… we can sympathize with Trump. Anyone with any objectivity can see that he was railroaded by the criminal justice system. He looks at others under the gun at DOJ as sympathetic figures. We get it.

But that is not necessarily the case. A person can be targeted by DOJ and also guilty of malfeasance. Trump should have looked closely at these pardons to ensure he was not damaging faith in the government he is working so hard to fix. These moves hurt his noble venture.

Thanks for reading The Ops Desk. Stay Safe!