Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

It's clear to any sentient human that Donnie Head Case's recent pardon spree is a blatant attempt to officially normalize criminal activity by the upper class, its henchmen, or anyone who happens to have committed a crime that he finds inspiring. Trump sees himself as judge and jury now. The purpose of the pardon spree is, of course, designed so he can hone in on pardoning his crew of wise guys such as Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, all the rest of the criminal element who serve him. The Trump pardon spree is an effort to provide a framework of normalcy for future pardons of criminals that could more directly affect the Trump Crime Family in a harsher manner. It sends a message that "You are protected if you keep quiet." Trump is also working on essentially codifying complete permissiveness. Talk about your permissive society, Trump has always attempted to lead a life in which all is permissible. Now he is rubbing it in our faces while the fetid likes of goons like Moscow Mitch, Tiki Torch Tucker, and Sleazebag Barr applaud and urge him on.

As Trump's mind becomes more and more untethered from sane reality, seemingly more so every day, I can certainly see a scenario where he decides to turn giving pardons into a game show: "Live from the oval office! It's 'Who Craves A Pardon!'" Trump will pardon his foul cesspool of friends and family and he will give Medals Of Freedom to his favorite scum of the land. Perhaps he will even copy Oprah and have such gifts under the seats of audience members in a theater, at one of his rallies, or at a joint session of Congress; "You get a pardon! You get a pardon! You get a pardon! You get a Medal Of Freedom! You get a Medal Of Freedom! Hey, James Fields, come on down!" For Fields it won't just pardon, it's also going to be "You get a new car!" and "James is a very fine person and I've always felt bad that his car was damaged in Charlottesville. Terrible, That I can tell you."

Trump already overrode the military justice system and pardoned three soldiers either convicted or charged with war crimes and even promoted one of them. Given that bad precedent, Gen. Michael Flynn will be next. See how easy it is now? It's all about altering the context and playing with the public mind. Trump isn't as dumb as we sometimes think, but he is more conniving, cunning, and evil, much more.

Trump has reportedly offered a pardon to Julian Assange if he will publicly say that Trump and Putin weren't in cahoots in the leaking of Democratic emails though Wikileaks ("Russia if you're listening..."). That quid pro quo offer sounds exactly the same as his infamous "perfect phone call" with Ukraine President Selensky which the Republicans in the U.S. $enate let him get away with. There will be many, many more.

What's next? One thing we do know is that Trump will just continue to push it further and further, egged on by his sleazebag lawyers like Alan Derschowitz and Russo-Republican $enators who have said nothing he does or can do is wrong. So, how long before Madman Trump decides that Ted Bundy was just a "pussy grabber" and gives him a posthumous pardon? How long before he proudly announces similar pardons for James Earl Ray and Edgar Ray Killen? You know he's already had that republican wet dream. Can't you see Tiki Torch Tucker orgasming on TV over that one? Once that's done, Trump will decree that no street, avenue, boulevard or building in the United States can be named after MLK, and he will do it to the applause and cheers of his supporters and voters.

The list in tonight's meme meant to be a joke but it's also the joke we are living in. It's just a start. It won't matter what the people he pardons were convicted of. It will only matter that he relates to them and/or their crime in some way. They are his people. He will see it as being empowered to right what his sick brain sees as old legal wrongs. Just wait 'til he appoints Martin Shkreli to be his new head of the Food & Drug Administration or, maybe, the Treasury.

I'll leave you with this one for today: Every rich white collar criminal who Trump has now pardoned of will pardon will be free to donate as much as they want to the campaigns of not just Trump but his entire Republican Party and you can bet that is part of the standard Trump pardon quid pro quo. No check-No Pardon. Pardons Promised-Checks Delivered.

Republican Oligarch Bloomberg Explains Why He Would Never Win A Presidential Race

Yesterday, in his often excoriating music business newsletter, Bob Lefsetz set his sites on... oligarchs in politics. "You’ve got to be rich," he wrote. "And it always comes down to who you know." That could've easily been the opening lines about a music business post. But not when he turned to the powerful dons who run the Nevada Culinary Union who "bargained for a blue chip health care plan" and have basically said SCREW YOU to anyone who doesn't have a plan as good. (NOTE: Medicare-for-All is better than any union-negotiated healthcare plan and for that matter, better than any healthcare plan offered to corporate presidents in any U.S. company.) Anyway, Lefsetz was quickly on to two detestable targets: Trump and Bloomberg, two beneficiaries of skillful marketing. "Trump," he wrote "won by being a renegade. By talking about how the government does not work and the game is rigged. The government has issues, but one thing’s for sure, the game is rigged. Let’s see, all the people Trump pardoned/commuted today… It’s not like they had public defenders, it’s not like they didn’t have the right to appeal, they were convicted, fair and square, there’s a system, based on laws, and if you sacrifice the law…you’ve got chaos. Which is what we’ve got today... [O]ne thing is for certain, if you’re not rich, you don’t count, you have no voice. Because they don’t want to let you have one. Oh, they’ll let you call in to talk shows, they’ll get you fighting about secondary issues, but they won’t let you challenge the system, which is imperfect but works just fine for them. Which brings me to last night’s John Oliver show, wherein he makes the case for Medicare for all:

Oliver goes through all the negative talking points, blows them away, and if you’re not for Medicare for all after you watch this, you’re greedy or, like members of the Culinary Union, have a blue chip policy.

But there can be no change.

But change happens. The last twenty years have been all about change. Digital disruption. It’s always outsiders with a creaky new way that is cheap and pooh-poohed that ultimately triumphs and kills what came before. Why can’t this happen in politics?

BECAUSE THOSE IN POWER DON’T WANT IT TO!

I’ll vote for any Democrat against Trump. But I must say, the DNC and the media are bending over backward to hand it to Michael Bloomberg. Today the polls came out and the stories were all about Bloomberg’s surge, when Sanders surged way ahead of the field.

Selective reporting.

It used to be different. There was the Fairness Doctrine, making sure the limited news outlets presented both sides.

And if you owned a megaphone, a newspaper, TV or radio station, you were powerful.

You’re less powerful today.

Those in power, the elite, hate technology, even though they selectively use it. I listened to NPR tonight wherein they sang the virtues of the independent bookstore, saying the digital book was neutered. But the sycophantic host even admitted he showroomed the Ron Chernow book on Ulysses S. Grant and bought the digital copy, because the physical book was just too heavy.

This is the establishment, they like it how it was, even though it’s no longer this way.

I get it if you’re a member of the Republican elite. The money and perks have always flowed upward. But the Democratic elite? They have contempt for those below them, believe they know better, spread their own disinformation in pursuit of their goals. There can be change, just as long as they don’t lose out.

And you wonder why the rank and file voted for Trump.

So it all comes down to hope. If Bloomberg is elected, we’ll get rid of the orange menace. But will the fundamental problems of this country be addressed? Of course not, because Bloomberg doesn’t even know how the hoi polloi live.

So Blagojevich broke the law. We don’t want our elected officials selling Senate seats. But we live in a country where our President can lean on Ukraine to neuter the campaign of Joe Biden, which he successfully did!

Mitt Romney did the right thing, and he was excoriated by the right, but…they still love him in Utah, because their society is built on the family and helping one another, morality.

Bernard Kerik was caught red-handed, as was Eddie DeBartolo, Jr. Commit a blue collar crime and you’re screwed, there’s a camera everywhere, you’re going up the river. But white collar crime is seen as less bad, these are good people, we don’t want to ruin their lives, like the judge said in the Stanford rape case. SO WHY DID THEY DO THIS?

That’s what you’ve got to ask. These people thought they were invulnerable, they’d been getting away with bending the rules for years, it’s just that this time they got caught. Whereas you’re lucky if you can get probation on the first offense.

So there’s a different legal system for the rich and poor. And unlike in the old days, the rich no longer worry about the optics. Trump doesn’t care how it looks, Kerik working with the Donald’s henchman Giuliani, Blagojevich appearing on The Apprentice, he just does what he feels like, with a vengeance, vindictively.

Susan Collins told us Trump learned a lesson…yeah, that he can do whatever he wants!

As for those who support him, it’s less about him than the tribe on the other side. They hate Democrats so much, they’ll endorse the behavior of any Republican, just ask the evangelicals.

So if you live online, you see contrary opinions.

But big media has told us it’s all cranks and their opinions don’t count. Meanwhile, Breitbart and the Daily Caller got Trump elected. Who cares about veracity, that demonstrates power.

And although the right decries authoritarianism in China, it refuses to publicize any story it doesn’t agree with, that doesn’t reinforce its position.

So, you can be an outsider, you can have the illusion of power, because you vote.

But for the first time in my life I’m starting to wonder if it matters. If we organize and come up with a contrary candidate, our own opinion, they shut us right down. Bernie Sanders is a socialist who loves Russia and will ruin the economy, after eliminating Democratic coattails.

Meanwhile, Trump is a guy who really loves Putin, and endorses/enables socialism for the rich, with low taxes, the carried interest rule, government handouts, but somehow that’s different.

It isn’t about Bernie Sanders the man, it’s about what he’s saying, telling the truth in a world where that is abhorred. The everyday person got screwed, and the playing field must be leveled, while everybody is taken care of while they get back on their feet.

But those on both the right and left say this can’t be so. Change must be gradual, and you know there can’t be change because the government is gridlocked, and you’re asking the impossible anyway.

Meanwhile, let’s hand the nomination to a billionaire who just recently was a Republican, who changed the law so he could serve a third term as mayor, who made the elites feel safe while his police force threw those less privileged up against the wall.

But that’s overlooked. Even the sexism. Because this is the guy the elites want, because he’ll just be the anti-Trump, who cares if he gets anything done.

And their plan is working. I was with three twentysomethings just now, all were Bernie fans, now they’re behind Bloomberg, the media has convinced them, they’re defeated. Even though it’s their future at risk.

So what we’ve found is despite our numbers, we ain’t got much power. Even if Bernie Sanders wins a primary, he loses. The owners of this country want it this way.

As for Michael Milken… Wasn’t he the first guy to make so much money on Wall Street? Isn’t he evidence of the basic problem? By pardoning him aren’t we endorsing this kind of behavior, especially if you employ your riches that remain for good causes?

It’s depressing. And everybody is telling us we know nothing and should do what they say. And however it plays out, they’re not gonna lose, but we are.

Meanwhile, we’re fighting each other for scraps and most have no idea how the game is really played anyway. Everybody believes they’re gonna be a successful entrepreneur, become a billionaire. Someone else did it, so why can’t they?

Because that other person had wealthy parents who gave them the best education at institutions where you can make relationships that pay dividends down the road. You never had a chance. And today, both parties are doing their best to snuff whatever light, whatever hope remains, out.

And you wonder why there’s a rash of suicides.

"I'm not a dictionary, but I know what words mean. And I'm not a clock, but I know what time it is." That was from Richard Eskow in his post for Common Dreams earlier this month, Of Course Bloomberg's an Oligarch-- and He's Coming For Your Social Security. "By any common definition," he wrote, "Bloomberg’s an oligarch. He wants to buy your vote. Based on his record, he’s also coming for your Social Security.

An “oligarch,” according to the Cambridge American Dictionary, is “one of a small group of powerful people who control a country or an industry.”

Is Michael Bloomberg such a person? Maybe he’s just really rich and doesn’t control that much. But let's have some background.

With an estimated net worth of more than $60 billion, Bloomberg is the twelfth-richest person on the planet and the ninth-richest person in the United States. That’s a pretty small group of people. But do they control the country? Ferguson et al. found that campaign cash drives election outcomes. That means campaign donors largely control the process.

Gilens and Page found that wealthy people and interests usually get what they want. The rest of us usually don’t, unless what we want is also what they want. The fact that progressives like some of Bloomberg’s positions doesn’t undermine these findings. In fact, it reinforces them.

Bloomberg hasn’t just given money to a number of campaigns. He also controls a media empire. In true oligarchical fashion, he decreed years ago that his news outlets would not cover his political career. He said recently that it would not cover his rivals’ campaigns, either-- a move that drew criticism from journalists and an ethics professor. Less than a month later, however, Bloomberg News violated that edict by running a hit piece against Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

That’s oligarchical behavior.

Bloomberg’s own political history is an exercise in the use of oligarchical wealth to change electoral outcomes. He was unpopular when he first ran for mayor of New York-- a situation he rectified by dramatically outspending his rivals. Even so, Bloomberg only eked out a two-point victory against Democrat Mark Green in his first mayoral race, after outspending him five to one.

The argument between Turner and Johnson involved another compelling example of Bloomberg-as-oligarch. The DNC’s rules said each candidate had to have a minimum number of donors to quality for the debate stage. That rule wasn’t overruled for Cory Booker or Julian Castro, despite calls for greater diversity in the race. But it was overturned for Bloomberg, who had donated more than $1 million to the DNC and a related organization a few short weeks before.

Will Michael Bloomberg Cut Your Social Security?

If you thought there were problems with Joe Biden’s Social Security record, wait until you see Bloomberg’s. His record of espousing austerity economics has including a special enthusiasm for cutting Medicare and Social Security.

As he told Face the Nation in 2013:

No program to reduce the deficit makes any sense whatsoever unless you address the issue of entitlements, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, interest payment on the debt, which you can't touch, and defense spending. Everything else is tiny compared to that.

Bloomberg has called for raising the retirement age, a move that would cut Social Security benefits for all retirees and create physical hardship for many older workers.

These are bad ideas. They make for even worse politics. Voters love Social Security. A Pew study released in March 2019 found that “74 percent of Americans say Social Security benefits should not be reduced in any way.”

And voters don’t like entitlement cuts, or the Bloomberg-endorsed thinking behind them. That can be seen in a GBAO/Center for American Progress survey conducted in October 2019. Less than half of Republicans, one-third of Democrats, and roughly one-third of independents agreed with the Bloomberg-like statement that “our national debt is way too high, and we need to cut government spending on the biggest programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.”

Trump has given Democrats an opening on Social Security. His administration is currently engaged in a de factor program to cut Social Security disability benefits, by forcing millions of disabled people to endure the punishing process of eligibility screening as often as every six months. Newsweek reports that the Social Security Administration concluded that this would lead to $2.6 billion in benefit cuts and an additional 2.6 million case reviews between 2020 and 2029. It’s a brutal assault on the health and security of a vulnerable population.

Trump also said he intends to pursue additional cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid after the upcoming election, when he no longer has to worry about public opinion. Worse, he did so at the annual gathering of billionaires in Davos. That reinforces the perception that he’s imposing hardship on the majority to help a privileged few.

Most leading Democrats understand that there is wide support for protecting and expanding Social Security. Most leading candidates-- including Joe Biden-- have offered some form of Social Security expansion. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has embraced the idea in principle. There’s an opportunity here-- if Bloomberg doesn’t stop them from taking it.

...Given his virtually unlimited resources, Bloomberg could theoretically win both the nomination and the presidency. By my calculation, Bloomberg could pay the same “unit price” he paid to make himself mayor of New York-- $88 per voter-- and make himself president for $12 billion. He’d even have $50 billion set aside for a rainy day.

The nomination would presumably cost less than the presidency, so he has a better shot at that. But it would be a bad look for the Democrats to become the first party in modern history whose candidate openly bought the nomination. But then, Bloomberg’s used to getting the rules changed just for him. When he wanted to run for a third term as mayor, Bloomberg used all the tools at his disposal (one of which led to an ethics complaint) to change the city’s rules. Once he got what he wanted, Bloomberg then pushed to change the rules back. It seems that some privileges should be labeled, “for oligarchs only.”

Am I saying that all the members of Congress who have endorsed Bloomberg are corrupt and should be defeated in primaries? Pretty much. YES! Right now there are a dozen of them, 10 Blue Dogs and New Dems and one-- Bobby Rush-- an outright criminal who takes bribes from everyone, not just Bloomberg. All these members should have the guts to withdraw their endorsements of Bloomberg today after his disqualifying performance last night. Instead, this morning, 3 other money-hungry Democrats endorsed him-- Blue Dog walking cesspool Josh Gottheimer (NJ), Pete Aguilar (New Dem-CA) and Nita Lowey, who is retiring from Congress and knows she'll never have to face the voters again.

• Harley Rouda (New Dem-CA)- F
• Juan Vargas (New Dem)- D
• Scott Peters (New Dem-CA)- F
• Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)- F
• Ted Deutch (FL)- C
• Lucy McBath (New Dem-GA)- F
• Bobby Rush (IL)- B
• Haley Stevens (New Dem-MI)- F
• Mikie Sherrill (Blue Dog-NJ)- F
• Gregory Meeks (New Dem-NY)- F
• Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY)- F
• Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT)- F

How Long Will It Take For Señor Trumpanzee To Pardon Roger Stone?

In preparation for pardoning some of his cronies-- particularly Roger Stone who has a lot of serious dirt on Trump-- Trump continued pardoning random corrupt people this week, yesterday San Francisco 49ers owner Edward DeBartolo Jr., a real estate developer who was convicted in a huge gambling fraud scandal that sounds very much like something that could have been Trump. He also commuted Rod Blojojevich's sentence yesterday, four years early and pardoned Bernard Kerik and Michael Milken. Last week Caleb Ecarma, writing for Vanity Fair noted that "The standing pardon request line at Fox News, the pipeline through which Donald Trump has granted clemency to everyone from war criminals to racist cops, may be poised for another W. Since the outset of Roger Stone’s legal troubles, which started with the Mueller probe and culminated in conviction on charges of obstruction, making false statements, and witness tampering, Fox’s Tucker Carlson has frequently aired segments vouching for Stone’s innocence and claiming that he’s the target of shadowy, Trump-hating federal law enforcement officials."

Over the past year, a revolving cast of Stone allies has appeared on the network, including his daughter Adria Stone, who used her time on Carlson’s show in November to directly address the president: “Donald Trump-- if you can hear me, please save our family. He does not deserve this. Nobody deserves this.” Carlson also appeared to cite his sway with Trump: “I honestly do think that after watching a series of people, some of whom are not deserving at all, get pardons from this White House, in effect or literally, you know I think people are going to be watching really carefully to see if your dad is pardoned. I’m going to be, that’s for sure.”

By all accounts, the ploy worked. After Trump tweeted on Tuesday that the Justice Department’s recommended sentence for Stone-- seven to nine years-- was horrifically unfair, the DOJ rescinded it, causing all four prosecutors on Stone’s case to withdraw. Sources close to Trump told the Daily Beast that Carlson seemed to have a direct influence on this chain of events: after watching Carlson’s pro-Stone segments, the president reportedly approached aides and confidants to ask, “What do you think?”—a phrase that a source noted is actually Trump “code for ‘I’m interested or looking into doing’ this.”

But Carlson isn’t content with a reduced sentence. On Tuesday night, he aired a segment condemning “so many on the left, howling for Roger Stone to die in prison. A 67-year-old man with no criminal record caught up in the Russia hoax, farce, caught up in an investigation that proved to be fruitless... this man needs a pardon.” For Stone, there may still be hope. Mere minutes later, the president posted a tweet ripping U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, who Stone once seemingly threatened by posting a photo of her face under crosshairs, and who will ultimately decide his fate. “Is this the Judge that put Paul Manafort in SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, something that not even mobster Al Capone had to endure?” Trump wrote. “How did she treat Crooked Hillary Clinton? Just asking!” The following day, Trump praised Attorney General William Barr “for taking charge of a case that was totally out of control and perhaps should not have even been brought” and took a shot at the four “rogue prosecutors” in a separate post tagging “@TuckerCarlson.”

Carlson’s influence over the president has already been proven; both his show and his personal conversations with Trump reportedly played a role in the White House not seeking further military action against Iran earlier this year. The Fox host also reportedly criticized former national security adviser John Bolton, whose interventionist bent is opposite Carlson’s, while speaking with Trump in the weeks prior to Bolton’s departure from the administration. But when it comes to lobbying Trump for judicial mercy, the appeals have become more and more blatant. Former Trump adviser Michael Caputo, who has appeared on the primetime show to defend Stone, told the Daily Beast on Tuesday that he intended for the president to hear him out. “Tucker has longer segments where he makes convincing arguments about issues the president’s base cares about,” he said. “Nobody knows that better than the president.” Caputo’s most shameless plug came in a Carlson segment that aired in March, in which he said, “Pardon General [Michael] Flynn. Pardon George Papadopoulos. And pardon Roger Stone right now, Mr. President… Do it right now. Do it right now on Twitter.”

Judge Amy Berman Jackson announced yesterday that she'll be sentencing Stone tomorrow, though, she said, "execution of the sentence will be deferred" while she decides whether Stone deserves a new trial. "I’m willing to make sure that there are no consequences that flow from the announcement of what the sentencing will be."

Despite all Trump's carrying on and lunatic assertions that the jury forewoman has "significant bias," yesterday DOJ prosectors filed a sealed motion-- with Barr's approval-- opposing Stone’s-- and Trump's-- request for a new trial that.

When Will Pardons Come For Trump's Convicted Cronies? When It Serves Trump's Own Interests... And Not A Day Sooner (Or Later)

FORE! by Nancy Ohanian

I think it's inevitable that Trump will pardon all his convicted criminal cronies who are in-- or soon ti be in-- prison. If the question is just when, count on hearing "demands" for a blanket pardon all over Fox News for a week or so "forcing Trump's hand." The White House will give Fox the signal when to begin the operation. Politico reporters Darren Samuelsohn and Meredith McGraw signaled the beginning of the build up on Monday morning, although no one thinks he will really get going until after Giuliani's trial-- or at least not until after the 2020 elections. "Roger Stone’s supporters are making a pardon pitch everywhere President Donald Trump looks: Fox News, InfoWars, Twitter, even the White House driveway. Michael Flynn abruptly hired a bombastic lawyer who spouts Trump-friendly theories about FBI duplicity that are widely seen as a pardon play. Paul Manafort has kept himself on Trump’s radar from behind bars in a federal penitentiary by feeding the president’s personal attorney a conspiracy theory that Ukraine, and not Russia, interfered in the 2016 campaign."

In any other administration, and in any other time, it’d be shocking to consider that three men with such deep personal ties to the president might get their legal troubles expunged in an election year-- not to mention from a president facing impeachment proceedings.

But this is not any other administration.

The clemency calculations come because Stone, Flynn and Manafort-- all former Trump campaign aides-- know the president has repeatedly proven willing to trample over his own advisers despite warnings of political consequences. Most recently, Trump cleared the records of three armed services members accused or convicted of war crimes over the objections of several of his top military brass.

“Like everything else with this president, you can’t look to history for precedent,” said a person who previously worked for President Trump. “If he felt Manafort and Flynn and others were deserving of pardons, he’d just do it.”

Best People by Chip Proser

Trump got involved in the military cases after being lobbied not only by lawmakers but Fox News personalities who spotlighted their stories. It’s a tactic employed repeatedly by people seeking pardons or prison-sentence commutations. Earlier in the Trump administration, Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza and George W. Bush White House aide Scooter Libby saw their prospects for presidential mercy take off thanks to well-connected allies and conservative cable TV segments highlighting complaints about how they’d been mistreated inside the federal justice system.

In Trump’s White House, few of his top aides see pardons for the likes of Stone, Flynn or Manafort as a good idea, at least not until after Election Day 2020. There are still scars from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which concluded with a 448-page report that featured an obstruction of justice section detailing several conversations and public statements about pardons for former Trump aides involving the president and his personal lawyers.

While Trump himself has been coy in recent months about any post-Mueller pardon plans, he’s been anything but shy when registering his disdain for the Russia probe and how it landed him, members of his family and so many other current and former staffers in considerable legal jeopardy.

Back in August 2018, the president wrote on Twitter that he felt “very badly” for Manafort on the morning after a Virginia jury convicted the former Trump campaign chairman on a series of financial fraud charges. This June, Trump praised Flynn when the former national security adviser who had already pleaded guilty and cooperated with Mueller’s investigators made a U-turn and hired Sidney Powell, an outspoken Mueller critic, as his new lawyer. “Best Wishes and Good Luck to them both!” the president tweeted. And Trump complained, just minutes after Stone’s conviction last month on charges of lying to Congress and witness tampering, because several of his own longtime adversaries-- he named Hillary Clinton, James Comey and Adam Schiff, among others-- weren’t facing the same kinds of criminal prosecutions.

Despite the presidential airing of grievances, people who regularly speak with Trump say the looming impeachment proceedings have dominated conversations-- not pardons. “I think the president is probably focused on other things at the moment,” said Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican and outspoken Trump defender.

But Trump’s pardon calculations could very well change as a rapid-fire series of events unfold.

Stone is scheduled for sentencing Feb. 6 before U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson, where he faces up to 50 years in prison. As a first-time offender, Stone’s punishment is expected to be significantly lighter. Still, prison is prison, and attempts to get the president’s attention have been coming from all directions to keep Stone-- a longtime political adviser dating back to the early 1980s-- a free man.

InfoWars host Alex Jones said he was relaying a direct message from Stone to Trump on his show the day before the jury reached its guilty verdicts. “He said to me, ‘Alex, barring a miracle, I appeal to God and I appeal to your listeners for prayer, and I appeal to the president to pardon me because to do so would be an action that would show these corrupt courts that they’re not going to get away with persecuting people for their free speech or for the crime of getting the president elected,’” Jones said.

Just hours after Stone’s conviction, reporters filmed an unidentified man just outside the White House’s West Wing entrance blowing a giant horn and urging the president to give Stone “immunity.” That same night, Stone’s daughter Adria pleaded for the president’s intervention during a Fox News interview with Tucker Carlson. “Donald Trump, if you can hear me, please save our family,” she said.

...While it might not be seen as politically savvy in the middle of an election year for Trump to pardon people like Stone, Flynn or Manafort, he has seen an advantage when getting involved in other high-profile cases that have been featured on Fox News and brought to his attention by allies.

Pete Hegseth, a Fox contributor, helped draw Trump’s interest to the latest military case, which culminated last month with full pardons for former Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance and Maj. Mathew Golsteyn, who were convicted of war crimes, and allowed for chief petty officer Edward Gallagher, who was stripped of military honors during his prosecution on murder charges, to have his promotion reinstated.

Bernie Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner and himself a convicted felon, advocated for Gallagher. Tim Parlatore, Gallagher’s attorney, said Fox News and Hegseth should also be credited with presenting the case on Trump’s preferred cable channel. “Whether you believe Fox News or not, the president took the time to hear the other side of the story rather than just believing the Navy,” Parlatore said.

Over the weekend, Trump welcomed two of the pardoned men to the stage at a closed-door fundraiser in Florida.

Several other possible pardons that Trump hasn’t touched still remain on the president’s radar. Parlatore recently submitted Kerik’s name for a pardon that would wipe clean a criminal record from a 2009 guilty plea for tax fraud and false statement charges and a since-completed four-year prison sentence.

Then there’s the so-called “Blackwater Four,” a group of four security contractors who were convicted and jailed for a 2007 shooting in Baghdad in which 17 Iraqis died, as well as the case of a Marine sniper group photographed urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters in 2011.

Trump himself has maintained interest in two convicted cast members from his reality TV show Celebrity Apprentice-- Rod Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor convicted in 2011 for trying to sell the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama, and businesswoman Martha Stewart, who served five months in jail in the mid-2000s for obstructing justice and lying to investigators about a stock sale.

Beyond the Mueller probe, Trump’s pardon powers have drawn scrutiny from Democrats. The House Judiciary Committee sent a subpoena this fall to the Homeland Security Department seeking documents about the president allegedly offering pardons to government officials who break the law while implementing his immigration agenda. Before abandoning his 2020 presidential bid, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke proposed a constitutional amendment banning presidents from pardoning anyone tied to an investigation involving the president, or for family members.

Democrats in the middle of the current impeachment probe said Trump would only make matters worse for himself if he pardoned any of the former aides ensnared in the Mueller probe.

In the end-- as with everything Trump-involved-- he'll make his decision based on what serves his own purposes. It's his crude animal instincts to do it that way... and that can be counted on, absolutely. There is no consideration of right or wrong or anyone "deserving" anything. Just Trumpian self-serving.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

Whoomp there it is! Donald J. Trump is the War Crimes President! Trump has pardoned the 3 now infamous military personnel who went way too far and decided there's no need for a legal system of any kind. Dictators, military personnel, civilians; it doesn't matter to Trump. If someone sees themselves as judge, jury, and executioner. they're Trump's kind of person. It makes sense, in a perverse, republican kind of way because that's exactly what ol' Cadet Bone Spurs aspires to be himself. When you think of it, just imagine what kind of soldier Donnie Draft Dodger would have been. Move over Lt. Calley, you were convicted of murdering a mere 22 unarmed civilians. Trump laughs at your "low energy" and such "low numbers."

Trump has deliberately set out to blow a hole in our military's justice system. It's a blow to the structure of our military itself. Vladimir Putin could not have hoped for better. The Manchurian President is his to deploy.

The opinions of good military people who reported the crimes of the newly pardoned meant nothing to Trump, his accomplices, and those who cheer him. At Trump's rally in Sunrise, Flor-i-duh last week, the redhat=hatred crowd was beside itself with glee as he announced the first three pardons, all from a list provided by a cadre of FOX "News" goons. When Tucker Carlson tells Trump he should posthumously pardoned the Germans hung at Nuremberg, he'll do that too, and republicans everywhere will cheer themselves into a state of delirium, tossing their MAGA hats into the air.

The mass insanity bridge was crossed long ago but the manifestations of Trumpism grow exponentially by the day. Do you want a pardon for the Green River Killer? Charlie Manson? John Wayne Gacy? No problem! Just tell ol' Crazy Donnie that Obama said no! He'll sign a pardon within the hour! More seriously, though, think of these heinous pardons as conditioning. Sure, Trump would love to pardon criminals like Roger Stone and Paul Manafort, and, of course himself, but always remember, Trump is a guy who envies and adores killer heads of state like Rodrigo Duterte, Kim Jong-un, and of course, the love of his life, Vladimir Putin. When Trump pardons killers, he dreams of having pulled the trigger himself.

Midnight Meme Of The Day!

by Noah

This is what we get when war criminals like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney aren't held accountable and thrown in the brig. Once they were allowed to walk free without so much as a trial, it was inevitable that a future president would come along and feel he or she had permission to push the envelope further. If draft-dodger Cadet Bone Spurs is now allowed to get away with pardoning three war criminals, at the behest of his advisers at FOX "News" no less, we can easily imagine what some future president will try. Meanwhile, it's easy to imagine, right now, who might be on Trump's "People To Pardon" list. Since the current administration views it as OK to have our men in uniform assassinate Muslims in foreign lands outside of the rules of engagement and without due process, how long before he pardons cops who murder here, or "very fine people" who deliberately run over protesters with their cars, or white supremacists who shoot black parishioners worshipping in their church? We already know that he's so inclined. Now that Trump has done what he did, there's no telling what he might authorize, tacitly or otherwise.

To bad we can't court-martial a president. After all, a president is the Commander-in-Chief. So, in a logical military justice system, Trump would be tried, found guilty and busted down to military latrine cleaner for the rest of his days. Here's your toothbrush Donnie. Get to it!

What If Trump Loses And Refuses To Leave? Would America Want A Satwant Singh and Beant Singh To Step Up To The Plate?

I've been a Biden watcher since the 1970s and, although my disdain for him has ebbed and flowed, my opinion of him has never gotten as high as "tolerable"-- and most of the time it was far lower. He has never been someone I would have ever considered voting for-- and still isn't. The lesser of two evils is still evil... and Joe Biden is not some minor evil, not by a long shot. I don't need any excuses to sit out a Trump-Biden contest (God forbid) but one would be my absolute certainty-- as a 4 decades Biden follower-- is that he would quickly pardon Trump and his family to, you know, unite the country. Did you hear Eric Holder getting people ready for it yesterday on CNN? He agreed with Ford's decision to pardon Nixon and told David Axelrod that the costs to the nation of putting Trump on trial might be too great. "I think there is a potential cost to the nation by putting on trial a former president, and that ought to at least be a part of the calculus that goes into the determination that has to be made by the next attorney general. I think we all should understand what a trial of a former president would do to the nation."

In a discussion with national security expert Josh Geltzer, Dahlia Lithwick tacked an even more disturbing question: What Happens if Trump Won’t Step Down? Trump is, in all likelihood, going to be defeated a year from now. He'll be squealing like a stuck pig and accusing everyone and everything on cheating him out of his second term. Geltzer, former senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council wrote that Trump "has repeatedly shown a willingness to overstep his constitutional authority" and wouldn't be surprised if he just flat out refuses to step down. Recall Michael Cohen testifying that "given my experience working for Mr. Trump, I fear that if he loses the election in 2020 there will never be a peaceful transition of power?"

Lithwick: When did you actually start thinking about the possibility that Trump might simply reject the 2020 election results?

Geltzer: July 24, 2018. Let me tell you why it’s that exact date. By then, I’d pretty much forgotten Trump’s comment from the October 2016 debate amidst everything else. But his answer snapped back in my mind on July 24, 2018. The midterm elections were approaching, and President Trump tweeted that he was “very concerned that Russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming Election,” adding that the Russians “will be pushing very hard for the Democrats.”

That tweet just didn’t make sense. It was, of course, the assessment of the U.S. intelligence community that Russia had intervened in the 2016 election specifically to help Trump against the Democratic candidate, among other goals. And there had been nothing-- no intelligence community public statements, no scholarly analysis, no media reporting-- suggesting that the Russians were poised to push for the Democrats in the 2018 elections. So what was Trump talking about?

That’s when I began to wonder if he was using the tweet as he seems to use many tweets: to test out new lines and see if he can get away with them. And this notion that there might be foreign election interference in favor of the Democrats seemed to test Trump’s ability to call into question election results he didn’t like. So, if the Dems won big in a way that embarrassed Trump, he might say the results were inflated-- and, at least conceivably, even contest them.

And that’s when I remembered his earlier refusal to commit to honoring the 2016 election results. It made me worry a bit about 2018, but after all, Trump himself wasn’t on the ballot then. The real thing to worry about seemed to be 2020, which would once again be, for Trump, personal. And let me be very clear what the worry is: It’s about Trump not honoring valid election results if he in fact loses. If he wins, he wins! But if he loses, he needs, well, to lose.

...[T]here’s been another development: change in intelligence community leadership. Think about the departure of Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. Coats more or less stood up for the intelligence community-- publicly-- at some key moments, such as when Trump rejected its views in favor of Putin’s at Helsinki. I think it’s important to inspect whoever Trump nominates as DNI (there’s currently an acting) to make sure he or she will tell Congress and the American people whether there’s really been foreign election interference that casts doubt on the accuracy of election results in 2020, or whether Trump’s just claiming as much...

Lithwick: When you wrote about this last winter you suggested that there were four powerful checks on this possibility: the Electoral College, Congress, state governors, and the Defense Department. I wonder if you are more or less sanguine about each of them, seven months later?

Geltzer: I’m an optimistic guy, but I have to be less sanguine-- because, seven months later, I haven’t seen any of these checks taking seriously this concern. In fairness, some need prompting to do so. For example, it’s the political parties that should require their electors for the Electoral College to pledge that they won’t withhold, delay, or alter their votes based on the claims or protestations of any candidate, including Trump himself. But I don’t see the parties requiring that, or even discussing whether to require it. And others-- such as Congress or state governors-- don’t need prompting at all to make the sort of commitments I urged back in February. Yet they don’t seem to be making those commitments. And remember: This is about ensuring that valid election results are respected, whichever way that cuts. That shouldn’t be controversial.

...The four checks I listed are all actors that, either without prompting or with it, could make commitments right now that, to my mind, would at least mitigate the risk we’re discussing. That’s not true of the courts: They wait until cases or controversies are brought to them and only then get involved, though of course their role at that point can sometimes be the most important of all. So I think there are probably other checks, like the courts, that would, I hope, play their own important roles if this nightmare scenario really played out. But my goal in writing the piece in February wasn’t just to flag a possible problem, but specifically to encourage those who might be able to get ahead of that problem to do so. And that’s why I focused on actors suited to that...

Lithwick: What’s your best advice on what we should be doing to at least prepare for the possibility that at minimum, Trump will dispute the election results and that should he do so, many of his followers will similarly reject them?

Geltzer: We need political leaders-- especially Republicans-- to make clear, both publicly and privately, that for Trump to contest the valid results of an election would be a redline, and that he’d have zero support from them-- indeed, impassioned opposition from them-- should he cross it. We need it sooner rather than later, too.

By the way, after Satwant Singh and Beant Singh assassinated Indira Gandhi in 1984, thousands of their co-religionists were slaughtered in retaliation. Satwant and Beant themselves were tried, found guilty and executed in 1989. This movie of their lives-- and deaths-- was never released:

Will It Ever End?

On Tuesday, Trump seemed exasperated. When, he wanted to know, will those damn Puerto Ricans, stop having hurricanes already! He's pissed off and he's not going to take it any more! He doesn't even seem angry at Dorian; he's angry at Puerto Rico and at Puerto Ricans. He stole some of the money allocated by Congress for hurricane relief for the last one to use for his foolish wall. Jonathan Chait, in his column for New York Magazine yesterday, Trump Is Ordering Crimes To Get Wall Built Before Election, noted that "Trump is an instinctive authoritarian who came into office lacking even a rudimentary understanding of government. But he is beginning to grasp the potentialities available to a despotically inclined leader, and the tool that has most excited him is the pardon power." He uses as an example a report from the Washington Post about how Trump "has instructed his subordinates to break any laws they have to in order to complete his wall by Election Day. 'When aides have suggested that some orders are illegal or unworkable, Trump has suggested he would pardon the officials if they would just go ahead... He has waved off worries about contracting procedures and the use of eminent domain, saying take the land, according to officials who attended the meetings.'"

I had dinner with a member of the Judiciary Committee last night, who told me that Trump hasn't built one inch of wall so far, just some improvements on fencing that the Obama administration had legally put up. Chait continued in his essay that "It is important context to understand that the wall project itself is an attack on the separation of powers. The power to allocate funds for a domestic project like a border wall belongs to Congress-- a fact nobody on either side even disputed until recently."

Trump has previously directed border officials to violate the law and promised to pardon them in advance. CNN reported in April that Trump told Customs and Border Protection commissioner Kevin McAleenan to block asylum seekers from entering the country in violation of U.S. law, promising him a pardon.

Trump has already used his pardon power liberally to reward political allies, pardoning right-wing heroes like Joe Arpaio, Conrad Black, and Dinesh D’Souza. Last spring, CNN reported that Rudy Giuliani’s lawyer dangled a pardon in front of Michael Cohen if he would perjure himself to protect Trump. The implicit (or possibly explicit) promise of a pardon has likely encouraged Roger Stone and Paul Manafaort-- the two Trump agents in most direct contact with Russia’s election operation-- to withhold cooperation from the Mueller probe, thereby permitting Trump’s campaign to avoid conspiracy charges.

Yesterday Tropical Storm Dorian was officially named Hurricane Dorian and slammed into the Virgin Islands. Puerto Rico was barely spared, but by the weekend, Florida-- likely the east coast of Florida, from Mar-A-Lago through Stuart and Port St. Lucie to Vero Beach, Cocoa and Palm Bay-- is in for a thrashing. A swing state for the 2020 election, at least Trump will try to appear to be helping them with damage control.

Trump, who has had a repulsive animus towards Puerto Ricans for his whole racist life, inherited from his Nazi father, keeps repeating a false claim that Congress sent $92 billion of aid money to Puerto Rico. Congress has allocated $42.5 billion to disaster relief for Puerto Rico, and only around $14 billion ever actually arrived. The loudmouthed pig and fake president "reignited his ongoing feud with San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz, calling her 'incompetent.' But his specific complaint had to do with what he considers her ingratitude for the help the island received after the devastating Hurricane Maria two years ago... In a later tweet he attacked the entire U.S. territory, saying 'Puerto Rico is one of the most corrupt places on earth. Their political system is broken and their politicians are either Incompetent or Corrupt... 'And by the way, I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to Puerto Rico!' Trump added."

"Will his racism and his vindictive behavior toward the people of Puerto Rico ever end?” Cruz asked CNN host John Berman during an interview on Tuesday evening. “As you have said, this is not how a president behaves. This is not how a human behaves in the face of adversity."

Cruz tweeted: “It is reprehensible that yet again Trump chooses to lie. Will it ever end? Congress has approved $40b and $14b have been disbursed. Would it be too much to ask for you to act Presidential and do your job without a lie or an insult?”

A year after Hurricane Maria struck as a Category 4 storm, Trump said Democrats had inflated the death toll number to nearly 3,000 “to make me look as bad as possible” and repeatedly accused Puerto Rico officials of “trying to use the massive and ridiculously high amounts of hurricane/disaster funding to pay off other obligations.”

Trump, who days earlier touted himself as “an environmentalist” and reportedly floated the idea of trying to deter hurricanes with nuclear bombs, has denied any responsibility for the slow response to Puerto Rico disasters, blaming Puerto Rican leaders and the island's infrastructure. Earlier this month, following a recent scandal involving the governor of Puerto Rico and misuse of federal contracts, the Trump administration moved to restrict billions of dollars in federal disaster aid for Puerto Rico, according to the Washington Post.

“It seems like some people have learned the lessons of the past or are willing to say that they didn’t do right by us the first time and they are trying to do their best,” Cruz said Tuesday evening. “That is not the case with the president of the United States.”

“Three thousand Puerto Ricans did not open their eyes this morning because this racist man did not have it within him to do his job,” she added. “So get out of the way, President Trump, and let the people that can do the job get the job done.”

Commenting on Trump skipping out on the G-7's discussion of the Climate Crisis, AOC noted in an e-mail to her supporters that "Leaders like Trump and Bolsonaro have evolved past the stage of being climate deniers-- they’re officially catastrophe enablers. It’s not just their refusal to take powerful action on climate change that’s the issue, but their insistence on choices that accelerate us towards Armageddon. But Trump and Bolsonaro are too far gone. We’ll never overcome their special interests, oil barons, and flat-out ignorance to wrangle real climate action out of them. That’s why for now, we have to target our next climate enemy: apathy. We need to get voters off the sidelines, into the polling stations, and converted into warriors for powerful action on climate change, millions of new green jobs, and true restorative justice for communities that have been left behind."

Trump Wants To Be Seen As...

"No Political Appetite To Ban..." by Nancy Ohanian

Rebecca Ballhaus, Andrew Restuccia and Natalie Andrews reported for the Wall Street Journal yesterday that "Trump’s public push for gun-control measures is causing consternation among conservatives and some of his advisers, who have privately raised concerns about the political and policy fallout of the approach. At least so far, Mr. Trump doesn’t appear to have been swayed by the concerns, and the president has indicated privately to aides that he wants to be seen taking action in response to back-to-back mass shootings earlier this month. Aides said he remains interested in pushing for legislative action to expand background checks and prevent mentally unstable people from possessing guns." Yes, "wants to be seen." That he doesn't care about actually accomplishing any policy changes means two things:

1- he will run towards whichever side inflicts the most pain-- i.e., the NRA vs the public
2- lots and lots of room for p.r. stunts and gaslighting

Just to begin, we're talking about pretty weak background checks here-- and certainly not banning the sale of military weapons. The White House is dragging sincere gun control advocate Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) into this strictly for show, preferring to work with conservatives Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV), the former desiring 'to be seen" doing a little something (for suburbanites) but not "too much" (for his rural base) and the latter looking to shore up his credentials with the NRA-types by preventing anything remotely effective going into a deal. And remember the 40 38 House Democrats who have still refused to sign onto David Cicilline's legislation to ban the sale of assault weapons.

A White House source told the NY Times that the conversation between Trump and Murphy "was positive, with Trump indicating that he was serious about persuading Republicans to act... [T]he two agreed to set up a staff-level dialogue this week between their offices and those of Toomey and Manchin, who are working feverishly to revive the background check legislation they wrote after the Sandy Hook massacre."

Elected officials don't really give a damn about this and just tend to bend to wherever the most pain is coming from. And that's not just Trump. Two mushy moderates, New Dems Cindy Axne (New Dem-IA) and Joaquin Castro (New Dem-TX) had previously refused to sign on as co-sponsors of Cicilline's legislation to ban the sales of assault weapons. Tuesday-- right in the middle of the summer recess-- they both reacted to pressure and asked that their names be added to the list of nearly 200 co-sponsors. The big problem is how much pressure it's going to take to persuade the biggest roadblock of all.

On Monday, Sean Colarossi reported for Ben Shapiro's right-wing propaganda website that "It appears that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s apparent openness to background check legislation is just a short-term strategy meant to quiet his critics in the aftermath of the dueling massacres in El Paso and Dayton. Washington Post reporter Robert Costa told Chris Matthews on Monday that McConnell is just running out the clock until the gun control debate fades away again. In other words, he doesn’t really intend to take meaningful action on the issue. “McConnell’s play, I’m told, is to just let it peter out,” Costa said. “Talk about being open to background checks and let it play out.” Costa:

The NRA has been weakened by the scandals with Wayne LaPierre. Listen to Rush Limbaugh’s show on Friday. He spent hours saying that if the president moves on background checks-- they know they’re dealing with a president who’s not ideological at the core and that he may be looking for a win, especially as the trade deal stalls with China. And if he starts looking for a background check win, you already have people beyond the NRA trying to boost that gun rights activism. They’re telling the White House behind the scenes, don’t move an inch, we’re not going to give anything, and McConnell’s play, I’m told, is to just let it peter out. Talk about background checks and let it play out.

"The media," continued Colarossi, "pounced on the news last week that McConnell appeared open to joining Democrats and supporting legislation to expand background checks for gun sales. But he never actually committed to supporting such a bill or even bringing it to the Senate floor for a vote... McConnell and other GOP lawmakers don’t deserve a single ounce of credit until they actually do something. The further we get away from the shooting massacres in El Paso and Dayton, the more it looks like Republicans-- led by Mitch McConnell-- are hoping to run out the clock until nobody is talking about this issue anymore. It’s up to the American people to make sure that doesn’t happen. Not this time."

Trump-- in full gaslighting mode-- said on Tuesday that "I am convinced that Mitch wants to do something. I’ve spoken to Mitch McConnell. He’s a good man. He wants to do something. He wants to do it, I think, very strongly. He wants to do background checks, and I do too, and I think a lot of Republicans do. I don’t know, frankly, that the Democrats will get us there." And off to his 228th day as "president" spent golfing.

And speaking of how Trump wants to "be seen," he also wants to be seen as a generous granter of pardons. Slyly thinking ahead when he will be pardoning half his cabinet, his cronies and his family, he is busy building a record as the "Pardoning President." What a humanitarian! Although, CNN reports that he's backed off his decision to commute Blogojevich's sentence. Easy to do since he doesn't really care and can find someone else to pardon instead.

Trump, who had given Blogojevich a $7,000 campaign contribution, fired him in 2010 for screwing up a question about Harry Potter on Celebrity Apprentice

CNN reported that "Trump was on the cusp of commuting former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's sentence late last week... but then Republican members of Illinois' congressional delegation began flooding the White House with calls. Now, Trump appears to have backed off his plans to commute Blagojevich's sentence. Several Republican lawmakers called acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney and White House counsel Pat Cipollone, the sources told CNN, and the Republican members of Illinois congressional delegation issued a joint statement opposing the move. At least two of them, Reps. Darin LaHood and Mike Bost, made their case directly to the President on Thursday night, urging him not to go forward. They laid out the litany of crimes Blagojevich committed while in office and argued it would send the wrong message to voters about corruption by public officials. Trump's response: 'I wish I had the perspective before,' according to Bost, who served on the Illinois House's impeachment committee to remove Blagojevich from office in 2009. 'Those charges were so outrageously bad,' Bost said. That same evening, LaHood-- a former federal and state prosecutor-- called Trump as well and laid out in detail the brazen charges against Blagojevich, including allegations he threatened to cancel millions in state dollars for a children's hospital if its CEO did not write him a $25,000 campaign check. Among the charges was that Blagojevich attempted to sell former President Barack Obama's Senate seat that he resigned in order to become president. And Trump was informed on the call that Blagojevich-- whom Trump knew from his role on Celebrity Apprentice-- didn't offer any remorse for his crimes, sources said... A White House official downplayed the idea anything had changed, insisting there is 'no pumping the brakes' on Blagojevich and that Trump is still looking at a handful of possible pardons and commutations... Jared Kushner had been funneling messages of support for Blagojevich's commutation to the President, two sources said, and the disgraced governor's wife had also taken her appeals for a commutation directly to Trump through appearances on Fox News. Trump adviser and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani also made it clear to Trump that Blagojevich's sentence was too harsh... Multiple sources familiar with the calls said Trump and Mulvaney both did not seem aware of the details of Blagojevich's case, even though the President had decried the former governor as being treated 'unbelievably unfairly.'"