The Daily Fuckup

On Dec. 23, 2020, Donald Trump once again used the presidential pardon power in a way that made it look less like a constitutional backstop and more like a reward system for people who had stayed useful to him. In a late-year burst of clemency, he pardoned and commuted sentences for a group that included former Republican lawmakers, campaign associates, and other figures with clear ties to his political world. The timing was impossible to miss. It came at the end of a year consumed by the coronavirus pandemic, an economy under severe strain, and Trump’s refusal to accept the reality that he had lost the election. Against that backdrop, the move read less like a sober act of mercy than another example of Trump bending an official power toward his own personal and political orbit. The law allows presidents broad clemency authority, but the expectation is that it should be used to correct injustice, acknowledge rehabilitation, or soften unusually harsh outcomes. Trump’s pattern during his term suggested something different: proximity and loyalty often seemed to matter as much as the underlying merits of the case, if not more. That is what made this pardon wave feel so familiar and so corrosive at the same time.

The most striking thing about the December clemency package was not just who benefited, but how neatly it fit the broader Trump-era pattern of favoritism. Over four years, Trump repeatedly blurred the line between public duty and private allegiance, and the pardon power often seemed to be one more place where that blur became visible. He did not approach clemency as a neutral review of unusual cases in need of correction. Instead, he often appeared to treat it as a tool of patronage, extending relief to people who had some combination of political, symbolic, or personal value within his circle. That does not mean every recipient was beyond help on the merits, or that every case lacked a plausible argument for mercy. Some cases may well have involved legitimate considerations. But the broader impression was hard to escape. The day’s announcements suggested that staying close to Trump could pay off in ways that went beyond access or influence and into the legal system itself. That creates a dangerous lesson for any administration, because it teaches allies that loyalty can be converted into protection, while everyone else remains exposed to the full force of accountability. Once that kind of logic takes hold, clemency stops looking like justice tempered by mercy and starts looking like a political currency.

The names involved in the December batch reinforced that impression. The list included former lawmakers and other figures whose careers or public identities had been tied to Trump’s political movement, his campaign operation, or the broader network of loyal defenders that grew up around him. Some of the people who benefited had already become familiar as surrogates, advocates, or symbols inside his political world. That does not by itself make a pardon improper, but it does make the pattern difficult to ignore. When clemency is extended in ways that appear to track personal allegiance, the presidency begins to look like it is folding back on itself, with public authority being used to service private relationships. That kind of arrangement is damaging even when the underlying legal cases are complicated, because it weakens confidence that the justice system stands apart from presidential preference. It also encourages a transactional view of government, in which people begin to believe that influence is something to accumulate now and cash in later. The practical consequence is a distorted incentive structure. Instead of asking whether a person deserves mercy under neutral standards, observers are left asking whether the person mattered to Trump, whether the person defended him, or whether the person remained useful at the right moment. That is a low standard for presidential judgment, and it leaves a lasting stain on the institution even after the specific clemency grants fade from the headlines.

The reaction to the pardon wave was sharp for a reason. It arrived at a moment when Trump was already under heavy criticism for trying to overturn the election outcome, spreading false claims about voting, and making the eventual transfer of power more chaotic than it needed to be. He was also leaving office amid a public-health emergency and deep economic pain, circumstances that called for restraint, not another self-serving spectacle. Instead of using the final stretch of his term to lower the temperature or show even minimal respect for the institutions he was about to hand over, he chose to distribute favors to people in his orbit and frame the act as justice. That was why the move landed so badly. The problem was not simply that some recipients were controversial. It was that the clemency package seemed to confirm the deeper concern about Trump’s presidency: rules were flexible for insiders and rigid for everyone else, or at least that was the impression he repeatedly fostered. The symbolism mattered because symbolic acts by a president are never just symbolic. They shape expectations. They tell allies and rivals alike what the president values and what kind of conduct might be rewarded later. By handing out clemency to politically connected figures at the end of a turbulent term, Trump once again turned a solemn power into a signal of loyalty and favoritism. It made his version of accountability look less like a legal principle and more like a loyalty program with the presidential seal on it.