Doing so by taking care of a staunch supporter, and fiercely anti-Latino and anti-immigrant law enforcement activist, and throwing raw meat to his supporters, and instead poking his thumb into the judicial system’s eye and that of the Latino community.<\/p>\n
Oh, and he gives a great signal to other law enforcement officials that, hey, if you break the law or a court order in a way Trump likes … well, hey, he has your back.<\/p>\n
Also, doing this on a night when everyone’s paying attention to a massive hurricane hitting the Gulf coast? Yeah, that’s true<\/i> Presidential leadership.<\/p>\n
It is certainly in Trump’s Constitutional purview to issue Presidential Pardons. There is no recourse from that. But while former Presidents have at times issued pardons that were sometimes a bit dodgy or cronyesque, they’ve usually come about during the end of a presidential term, and quietly — not as a public statement that was vetted by an early leak, and then discussed aloud at a political rally, and then done on a Friday night in the middle of a major national disaster.<\/p>\n
Trump’s attitude about all of this come through with appalling clarity at the Phoenix rally — strutting about with a\u00a0Mussoliniesque thrust-out jaw and smirkful pandering to his swooning followers at the event.<\/p>\n