That rascal Vladimir Putin. To bolster the rape of Ukraine, he has emptied and armed whole prison blocks.
Reportedly, these cons have menaced more than their enemy. They prey on frantic Russians, too.
Horrible, you’d agree.
Now consider Matthew Beddingfield. The North Carolina man was out awaiting trial for shooting a teen in the head – attempted murder – when he joined in the Jan. 6 siege and attacked Capitol cops with a flagpole.
Consider Kevin Lyons. Having joined the same mob, the Chicago man stole portraits of Nancy Pelosi and John Lewis, calling Capitol police “f—ing Nazi bastards.”
Both are in prison for those actions. Read all about them and others in Ryan J. Reilly’s book about chasing down and prosecuting the goons of Jan. 6: “Sedition Hunters.”
All would serve as good foot soldiers for Donald Trump – people like Proud Boys chieftain Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes – if a returned-to-office Trump kept his pledge to spring Jan. 6 rioters from confinement.
Truly Putin-esque.
Of course, such an outrage doesn’t need to happen to cement what already is the rolling outrage of lawlessness to Trump and his people.
Look at the Republican players he pardoned – felons all: Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Steve Bannon, George Papadopoulis, ex-Arizona Congressman Rick Renzi, crooked jailer-oppressor Joe Arpaio, Charles Kushner (Jared’s daddy) and more. What a handy contact for further employ by Trump.
Then there would be convicts-to-be.
Imagine: a pardoned Rudy Giuliani back in the White House liquor cabinet (not getting paid this time, either, except with bourbon).
Imagine: Mark Meadows back as chief of staff to enable every felonious notion.
Imagine: John Eastman and Sidney Powell providing wacked [whacked] out legal advice again, whether disbarred or not.
It sounds ridiculous — but look who Trump asked to oversee the 2024 GOP national convention: Manafort, Trump’s one-time campaign manager. A pardon spared him seven and a half years in prison for a decade-long multi-million-dollar money-laundering scheme involving the former Soviet Union.
A bipartisan Senate committee called Manafort’s connections to Russians “a grave counterintelligence threat.”
Now we find out, or the Washington Post did, that Manafort got right back to selling his influence overseas, most significantly in China.
Because of the new attention, Manafort reportedly pulled himself out of contention.
That’s just a hiccup. Trust Trump to have a host of law-breakers would back doing his bidding if returned to power, and this time there would be no check on his and their actions. For one, Trump vows to make the Justice Department his political cudgel. Independence be damned.
Before any MAGA mynah bird says, “That’s what Biden did — weaponized Justice,” let us point out again (repetition often needed for the hard of hearing) that the indictments Trump and his minions face are both state and federal. Most importantly, all of them hinged on grand juries that agreed criminal laws likely were broken.
Add the civil judgments Trump now faces – one for business fraud, one for defamation connected to a sexual assault. (The judge said “rape.”)
He can’t do business in New York. He can’t obey a judge’s instructions.
This is a man who, based on his own rap sheet, would not be hired to be a Wal-Mart [Walmart] greeter, a crosswalk guard, a phone-room caller. The only thing he can be is a president of the United States who pardons himself.
“Cry havoc. Release the hounds of war,” remarked Marc Antony in Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.”
Sounds poetic. Should voters repeat 2016’s horrible mistake, Trump will cry, “Release the felons. They shall work for me”
Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. Email: jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.