MSNBC Discovers Post-Presidency Pardons, Ignores Founding Pardons
MSNBC, ever vigilant in its curated outrage, highlights Trump's alleged use of pardons to normalize 'fake elector' schemes. And indeed, the concept of a president wielding pardon power for political allies is, shall we say, less than ideal. Yet, the framing conveniently omits the foundational precedent in which a president also wielded vast pardon power to consolidate political power: John Adams'
pardons of Federalists convicted under the Sedition Act of 1798. That act, a blatant attempt to silence political dissent against the Adams administration, saw numerous opponents jailed for criticizing the government. Adams, before leaving office, pardoned many of his supporters, ensuring they—and his party—remained viable. So, while the outrage over Trump's pardons is understandable, portraying
it as some unprecedented innovation in legal manipulation (from a US network, no less) is ahistorical. It's more of a recurring pattern, a feature, not a bug, of how executive power can be bent to partisan will. MSNBC cries foul about Trump doing it now, but where was this same historical outrage for founders who literally used powers to silence political speech and then pardoned their cronies?
One might wonder if the concern is less about the principle, and more about the principal.