Trump's 60 Minutes Interview: The Pardons

Photo: The White House / Public domain

The pardon power is supposed to be about mercy. In Donald Trump's hands, it is about loyalty. In his 60 Minutes interview, Trump sat across from Norah O'Donnell and defended the pardons he has handed out like party favors, treating the most solemn power a president holds as if it were a gift to be given to friends. He did not apologize. He did not hedge. He treated it as his right, because to him, that is what it is.

What happened is straightforward. Trump has used the pardon power to reward the people who stood by him, most notably the defendants convicted in connection with January 6, the day his supporters stormed the Capitol to stop the certification of an election he lost. On his first day back in office, he pardoned them, and he has kept pardoning since, handing clemency to allies, donors and loyalists as if the justice system were a loyalty program. In the interview, when O'Donnell pressed him on it, he did not flinch. These were his people, he said, and they deserved it. The law, in his telling, is not something that applies to everyone. It is something that applies to everyone else.

That is the part that should alarm anyone who still believes in the rule of law. A pardon is not supposed to be a favor. It is not a thank you note. It is an act of grace, reserved for the rare case where justice went too far or a sentence was unjust. Trump has turned it into a transaction. Do the crime, stay loyal, and the pardon will come. Cross him, and you are on your own. That is not mercy. That is a protection racket with a presidential seal on it.

Why it matters is not about any one pardon. It is about what the pardon power is for, and what happens when the person holding it sees it as a weapon. When a president pardons the people who broke the law for him, he is telling the next crowd that the law will not touch them either. He is telling the country that loyalty to him matters more than loyalty to the Constitution. That message does not stay in the interview. It goes straight to every person thinking about what they can get away with next time, and it tells them the answer is everything.

There is also the question of what he did not say. He did not talk about the victims of January 6, the police officers who were beaten, the people who were terrorized, the democracy that was attacked. He did not talk about the pardons he refused to give, or the people who are still sitting in prison for crimes far smaller than the ones his friends committed. A pardon is a choice, and every choice has a side that does not get chosen. Trump chose the people who helped him try to steal an election, and he left the rest to rot. That is the record, and it is not complicated.

What happens next is the part that should worry everyone. Trump will keep pardoning, because he has learned that there is no price for it. Congress will complain and do nothing. The courts will not intervene. And the next time someone breaks the law for Donald Trump, they will do it knowing that the pardon is already in the mail. That is not a prediction. It is a promise that he has already kept, more than once.

The 60 Minutes interview was not a confession. It was a declaration. The pardon power belongs to Donald Trump, and he intends to use it the way he uses everything else: for himself, for his friends, and for the people who do what he says. That is the story, and it is not over.

WEAR YOUR VOICE