Trump Completes Jan. 6 Autocoup With Mass Preemptive Pardons

INSIDE: Boris Epshteyn ... Mark Meadows ... John Eastman

(Photo by BRYAN R. SMITH/AFP via Getty Images)

A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo.

For My Friends, Everything …

Let the record show that President Donald Trump issued mass preemptive pardons to those involved in his effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election five years to the day since the Four Seasons Landscaping debacle in Philadelphia.

Trump granted “full, complete, and unconditional” pardons for 77 people involved in the fake electors scheme and others aspects of the 2020 subversion effort on Nov. 7, but they were not publicized by the White House. Instead, U.S. pardon attorney Ed Martin revealed the pardons in a post on X late last night.

The pardons, coming the same week Republicans were routed in off-year elections, complete Trump’s promise to vindicate his co-conspirators in the first non-peaceful transfer of executive power in American history. Trump had already issued pardons or commutations for some 1,500 participants in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. Those commutations, on the first day of his second term, included 14 members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, including some convicted of seditious conspiracy for their roles in the attack.

Among the big names in the latest round of pardons:

• Rudy Giuliani

• Kenneth Chesebro

• Jeffrey Clark

• John Eastman

• Jenna Ellis

• Boris Epshteyn

• Mark Meadows

• Sidney Powell

Trump explicitly excluded himself from this round of pardons: “This pardon does not apply to the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump.”

The pardons were preemptive. While some of those involved in the fake electors scheme were charged in various state prosecutions, only Trump was charged federally in connection with subverting the 2020 election. The federal case against Trump, brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, was dropped after he was re-elected a year ago.

Trump’s pardon proclamation stands as a landmark in the revisionist history of the 2020 election and its aftermath. It purports to “end a grave national injustice perpetrated on the American people” and “continue the process of national reconciliation.” The pardons granted are sweeping in their scope and include the fake electors scheme as well as “efforts to expose voting fraud and vulnerabilities.”

The unusual way in which the pardons became public – via Ed Martin on X – reinforces the lawlessness of the Trump II presidency. A GOP political hack with no experience as a prosecutor, Martin is not only U.S. pardon attorney but is also designated a “special attorney” and the chief of the DOJ “Weaponization Working Group,” in which role he is spearheading the retributive investigations and prosecutions of Trump’s perceived foes, including former DOJ personnel.

Martin’s X post on the pardons was embedded in a thread he began in May with a post that simply said: “No MAGA left behind.”

The Retribution: 2016 Election Edition

While Trump put the finishing touches on his rewriting of the 2020 election, his Justice Department is continuing to contest the 2016 election with a highly politicized Miami-based investigation of a broad swath of figures involved in probing Russian interference to benefit Trump’s candidacy.

A NYT report contains extensive new details on the grand jury investigation being run by Miami U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones:

• Reding Quiñones issued more than two dozen subpoenas last week, including to officials who probed the ties between Russia and Mr. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, demanding documents or communications related to the intelligence community assessment from July 1, 2016, through Feb. 28, 2017, with a due date of Nov. 20.

• Among the subpoena recipients: former DNI James R. Clapper Jr. and former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page. (CNN separately reported that prosecutors in Florida “moved to issue” a subpoena to former CIA Director John Brennan.)

• The probe was initiated earlier this year by criminal referrals from Trump intel officials and was assigned to U.S. attorney David Metcalf in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, who “given special authority” to focus on Brennan. The case was transferred this fall by DOJ officials from Metcalf to Reding Quiñones “as part of a decision to greatly expand the scope of the Brennan investigation into other, unspecified activities.”

The NYT has quite a bit more detail but the gist of the report is that the Florida probe seems to be animated by a “grand conspiracy” that imagines a Deep State cabal targeted Trump for years. The scope of such a feverish conspiracy has the advantage of placing a vast number of perceived Trump foes under the specter of investigation and prosecution.

It remains unclear what facts arguably gave rise to the investigation being based in Miami, other than Trump having his primary residence there.

The Retribution: Letitia James Edition

In a new filing, New York Attorney General Letitia James makes a compelling case for why she is a victim of vindictive and selective prosecution by the Trump DOJ. The James filing takes special aim at Ed Martin, who has been agitating for her prosecution.

Shutdown Ends With Senate Dems Caving

A bloc of eight Democratic senators broke ranks to end the government shutdown. A late night vote began the process of funding the government, which could take a few days to fully implement, especially if Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) slowrolls the process for his own reasons. Of the eight senators, two are retiring; none face re-election next year; and half come from two states, New Hampshire and Nevada: Angus King (ME), Tim Kaine (VA), Dick Durbin (IL), John Fetterman (PA), Maggie Hassan (NH), Jeanne Shaheen (NH), Catherine Cortez Masto (NV), Jacky Rosen (NV).

Reaction to the cave, especially in light of Democrats’ straw showing in Tuesday’s election has been fierce:

• Brian Beutler: “Caving as they were winning the fight, and as Trump abuses power to hurt regular people (withholding SNAP benefits, canceling flights) supposedly as ‘punishment’ for the shutdown, sets a nightmare precedent.”

• TPM’s Josh Marshall: “Many people see it as some kind of epic disaster and are making all the standard threats about not voting or not contributing or whatever. That’s just not what I see. It’s a big change in the direction of the fight we need in the years to come that just didn’t go far enough. Yet.”

• HuffPost: Democrats Line Up To Slam Deal To Reopen Government

SNAP Funding Update

On a normal Monday, the legal fight over SNAP funding – which landed at the Supreme Court – would have warranted significant attention. But given there’s a decent chance the deal to end the government shutdown will render the SNAP fight moot, it doesn’t make sense to expend your limited attention on this quite yet.

Quote of the Day

Former Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley, on the Trump-led coup:

[L]et’s look at what’s happening with the boats that they’re blowing up and now in the Pacific, first in the Caribbean, now in the Pacific, they’re just simply assassinating people for no reason whatsoever. It’s completely illegal. In fact, what it now means is that Trump could just kill anyone anywhere just by saying they’re a terrorist. The way it’s going to work is they’re going to say, “Okay, these narco traffickers are terrorists. Oh, the immigrants are terrorists. Anyone protesting ICE now is a terrorist. If you’re against us blowing up boats without any legal justification or evidence, or if you are against ICE brutalizing little kids, you are a terrorist. The Democratic Party are terrorists.” So they’re trying to illegalize the opposition.

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