I think he wanted a 21-gun salute? Not sure if that will happen but there should be a crowd shouting "Loser".

I hope there are lawsuit servers and NY state law enforcement on hand.

I really do think that Trump won't ever get convicted or impacted too severely by the law. He's got tons of resources, probably a lot of disputable "grey areas", and can prolong it for ever.

The way to "hurt" Trump is to get to the kids & friends. That's what I would be doing if I was AG Hillary Clinton.

Bannon getting a pardon.

Perfect.

For those that don't remember Bannon was accused of fraud for stealing money from MAGA folks. The scam was part of a private build the wall by donations scam.

Nobody has less respect for MAGA followers than do MAGA leaders.

I guess he had another quarter left

I wonder if he's going to make any "piss off the left" pardons or will it just be pay to play.

So most of the pardons are for rich dudes who did a bunch of corrupt shit.

"former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick" now that's a name I've not heard in a long, long time...

lil fucking wayne...

seems like a lot of gun related pardons then...

But are white terrorists on it?

How about those that took over the Oregon state park? (granted i don't think they ever got arrested)

It's sweet that Guiliani (prob) won't get pardoned because of his involvement in the Capitol Hill insurrection. Trump is cautious in further PO Congress with the forthcoming Senate trial.

Unlike Guiliani (who I do not believe has served Trump well), Bannon I can appreciate. It was Bannon + Kelly Anne and a couple others that brought Trump to the forefront and then back to life to win 2016.

It's the one they erected outside the Capitol that had the noose.

This guy didn't get one, either.

Starting a viable political third party takes a ton of work and attention to detail. You have to navigate the election laws and procedures of 50 states and the federal government (many of which have been designed by the two parties to make things hard on third parties) as well as build out 50 state party infrastructures, etc.

Hard work and attention to detail are like Kryptonite for Trump.

And what kind of help would he get? He'd be trying to do that with leaders like Bannon who would be stealing from his voters and with foot soldiers who think that Bill Gates is putting microchips into vaccines. Not really the type of people who are going to understand or remember or care about Georgia's arcane signature collection deadlines. They are up for rallies and for storming the Capitol, because that stuff is fun for them. Like a tailgate. But work? Actual hard work? This is MAGA we are talking about.

He wants to be the head of his own party? Sure. I want to run a marathon in under 4 hours. Just because I want to do it does not mean that it will ever happen.

Trump got as far as he did only b/c the GOP powerbrokers let him. If he ever tries to formally oppose them, they will crush him. We'll have a lot of Rudy giving a press conference in front of an abandoned Dairy Queen explaining that this next lawsuit against the Board of Elections is sure to succeed if only the judge will listen to them.

My counter to that is many if not most states chairs for the GOP are Trumpist. There are people in many states that are already well connected and know the people needed to get ballot access. How many does he pull? How many money people does he get to join? He will definitely have a huge grass-roots money.

The presidential pardons and commutations are so interesting to me. The POTUS (no matter what party) campaigns and spends their time in office defending and protecting the criminal justice system and being super tough on crime. Then, in their last act in office, they say that the criminal justice system has committed a wrong that he now has to rectify. No, this conviction should not remain on this person's permanent record. No, it makes no sense to keep someone locked up for life for (insert crime here). Yes it is possible for someone to rehabilitate themselves. All arguments that if they made them during the campaign would make them super weak on crime in the eyes of some end up making them look compassionate in the eyes of those same people at the end.

Well knock me over with a feather. Trump just wished the next administration great success at his farewell thingy.

(No one cheered.)

Heh. "We will be back in some form."

I think "if you don't count the jobs we lost, we had the greatest jobs record ever" was my favorite bit.

Yes he did, but he was already setting up that its because of things he did in his administration that caused the success to happen.

I can say this here without risking "family friction" on Facebook: The 4 years of Hell are finally over! Even in his final speech he couldn't talk to the millions who voted against him.

Pardon one Marc Rich and cause a firestorm. Pardon 50 Marc Riches and oh, well.

Trump/Bannon really figured out the process with their flood the zone with shit idea.

So I've not been following the pardons process too closely-do we think there are "secret" pardons we don't know anything about yet and how would they work?

So, going forward. Will there be a library? I guess if there's money he might build himself a shrine, but how many actual records might there be in such a place?

Also, does he get invited to the usual "all former presidents" get-togethers? I guess that might depend on the next week, but to what extent will the other guys tolerate him?

The law says that pardons should be public.

But most scholars think (and I agree) that the President's constitutional pardon power is broader than that, and that secret pardons are allowed. If you think about it, that power existed before there were any government record keeping laws.

The issue with them would be proving that they were issued. Let's say that the Feds indict Rudy for something that he did during the Trump administration. Then Rudy pulls a secret pardon out of his pocket.

There are two issues: (1) Is this real, or is it something that Rudy drew up himself last week? and (2) if it is real, is it valid?

As to number 2, I think that it would be valid if it were real.

As to number 1, that would be an issue of fact. You could get President Trump to testify that he issued it. Maybe there were other witnesses. Maybe a notary public.

There will probably be a highway. A highway to...

Florida Rep. Sabatini hopes to rename highway for President Trump

I didn't realize Brian Urlacher's brother was a convicted bookie. Now pardoned.

Is there no more fitting tribute than a highway for Florida Man that runs through a swamp?

SI

trump, "I'll be back in some form". It sounds like shitty Terminator fan fiction.

Yeah, it is not the most extravagant highway in the state for sure.

I really really hope that the governor of Michigan has a sense of humour and names a highway after Trump that goes to this town

Hell, Michigan - Wikipedia

today is the day that Trump finally becomes (ex) Presidential

Thank goodness. And just how great has it been since he was banned off of social media?!

Thanks for the explanation, that helps me understand the issue a lot

Damn near every day over the last four years the first thing I did in the morning was check the BBC News homepage hoping a certain evil shithead had shuffled off this mortal coil overnight. Alas, it never came but at least his horrible reign is over. Good riddance, fucktard!

It's finally officially over!!!!!

I wonder how this is all part of the QAnon plan

Can we lock this thread and pretend it never happened?

Oh! I saw that episode of Dallas where Bobby Ewing wakes up and it was all dream.

Can we take a moment right now to rejoice that Trump cannot tweet

I did that several days ago already

I just had to take a quick peak at Trump's and Biden's wikipedia pages, and whitehouse.gov, to let it soak in.

Let's close this bitch!

Goodbye and good riddance!!

Verse 2: Chris Gaines!

SI

Where should we post about criminal charges, business failings, morally repugnant activities of the Trump family, etc., here? Or new thread?

Just not in the Biden or the Coronavirus non-political threads please