President Biden should have pardoned Donald Trump?

    In my Apple newsfeed today, my interjected thoughts in bold.

The Guardian 

Biden should have pardoned Trump on federal charges, Mitt Romney says

Republican senator tells MSNBC that ‘frankly, the country doesn’t want to have to go through prosecuting a former president’
Martin Pengelly in Washington
Wed 15 May 2024 16.56 EDT

Joe Biden should have pardoned Donald Trump on all federal criminal charges the moment they were announced, the Utah senator and former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said.

“Had I been President Biden,” Romney said, “when the justice department brought out indictments, I would have immediately pardoned him. I’d have pardoned President Trump.”

“Why? Well, because it makes me, President Biden, the big guy and the person I pardoned the little guy. And, number two, it’s not going to get resolved before the election. It’s not going to have an impact before the election. And, frankly, the country doesn’t want to have to go through prosecuting a former president.”

Romney is a Mormon, and since that religion calls itself “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”, I wonder if Romney drew from Jesus saying in the Gospels, to resist not one who does evil, and to pray for and do good to your enemies? I wonder if Romney considers that in the Big Scheme, we all are on trial in God’s Courtroom, and in that sense, the federal and state prosecutions of Trump put every American on trial in God’s Courtroom, regarding how they viewed and responded to those prosecutions? 

I wonder if Romney remembers that once Mormon men took multiple wives, like Old Testament men did,  and if the Mormon religion of old had prevailed in America, Romney, Joe Biden and Donald Trump would have several wives, and prostitutes, porn stars and Playboy bunnies might not be so much in demand. 

I wonder if Romney knows that when people vote for a candidate, they vouch to God for the candidate, and they become joined at the hip with the candidate in the karma realm, and if the candidate is elected, they remain joined at the hip, unless they repent and renounce their allegiance, and how that goes for them in God’s Courtroom is out of their control and knowing.

That aside, I say as a former practicing attorney, who clerked for a United States District Judge who presided over every federal criminal prosecution in north Alabama while I clerked for him, that if President Biden had pardoned Trump on the federal charges, that would have sealed Trump was guilty of the crimes charged against him in federal court and in God’s Courtrom, unless Trump had declined the pardon and claimed he had not committed the crimes for which he was pardoned :-). Whether or not Trump accepted or declined the pardon, he would be on trial in God’s Courtroom, along with everyone who voted for him, who had not repented and renounced him.

Romney was speaking to MSNBC, in an interview to be broadcast on The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle on Wednesday night.

Trump is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee despite facing 88 criminal charges. Forty-four are federal: four regarding election subversion and 40 retention of classified information. Neither case has reached trial.

The president could not pardon Trump on his other 44 charges, at the state level. Thirty-four arise from hush-money payments to an adult film star around the 2016 election, an election subversion case now at trial in New York, and 10 concern election subversion in Georgia.

Trump has also been hit with multibillion-dollar fines in civil suits concerning his business practices and a defamation claim arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”.

When Trump was president, Romney was the only Republican to vote to convict in both Trump’s Senate impeachment trials, for seeking political dirt on opponents in Ukraine and for inciting the deadly January 6 attack on Congress.

Romney told MSNBC: “I think the American people have recognised that President Trump did have an inappropriate affair with someone who was a porn star. I think they realise that.

“I think they realise he took classified documents he shouldn’t have and didn’t handle them properly. I think they understand that as well.

“I think they realise he’s been lying about the election [and supposed voter fraud] in 2020. They know those things. [But] these things are not changing the public attitude.”

More accurate, the federal and state criminal and civil prosecutions of Trump have cemented his original base, and have drawn more people to support him, and it looks to me it might take a miracle for Joe Biden to win a second term. 

Far more pressing, the jury in the New York state court “hush money” criminal prosecution is acutely concerned about what will happen generally, and against them and their families, the prosecutors and their families, the prosecution’s witnesses and their families and the trial judge and his family, if they the jury acquit Trump.  

I think the jurors know, if they convict Trump, it will not change the minds of his loyal supporters, and it may gain him more votes and put him back in the White House. 

I can imagine the jury thinks the lesser of evils is to acquit Trump and hope he loses the election this year. 

Even if I misread the jury, I can imagine there is a Trumper on the jury, who didn’t get sniffed out by the prosecution during juror selection, and the Trumper will not vote for conviction and will hang the jury and Trump will skate, and maybe Trump’s base won’t retaliate against all of the aforementioned?

In America’s pre-Trump past, Romney lost the 2012 election to Barack Obama. In 2016, as Trump stormed to the White House, Romney wrote in the name of his wife, Ann, rather than support Hillary Clinton. Romney then flirted with accepting a post in Trump’s cabinet, as secretary of state, but found humiliation instead.

According to the author Gabriel Debenedetti, Romney urged Biden to run against Trump in 2020. Romney has said he did not vote for Trump that year, reportedly writing in Ann again.

Romney told MSNBC he liked Biden, who he found “capable” despite widespread claims that at 81 Biden is too old for his job, claims less prevalent regarding Trump, who is 77.

But when asked who he would vote for, Romney did not say Biden.

“I’m not announcing that here and now,” he said. “I’m not going to be voting for President Trump. I made that clear. I know, for some people, the character is not the number one issue. It is for me. When someone has been, well, determined by a jury to have committed sexual assault, that’s not someone who I want my kids and grandkids to see as president of the United States.”

Criticising Biden on the economy and border security – though acknowledging Trump’s role in stopping a bipartisan border measure passing Congress – Romney told MSNBC: “I don’t know if that’s [Trump’s] ambition to bring people together. I’m not sure exactly what it is he hopes to do if he gets a second term.”

Asked about continued surprisingly strong Republican primary performances by Nikki Haley, who dropped out more than two months ago, Romney rejected the idea that a moderate wing of his party could yet seek to retake control.

“My wing of the party, it’s like a chicken wing, all right?” the senator said. “It’s a little tiny thing that doesn’t take the bird off the ground.”

 Romney’s candor is refreshing, however I am aware of perhaps only one person being elected president of the United States of America, because he was honest- Abraham Lincoln.

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sloanbashinsky@yahoo.com