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    There's a secret message buried in Trump's pardons everyone seems to have missed

    David Cay Johnston, DCReport @ RawStory
    December 28, 2020

    Thanks for your support!

    This article was paid for by reader donations to Raw Story Investigates.

    President Donald Trump waves as he steps off Air Force One at John Wayne Airport. (Ringo Chiu / Shutterstock.com)

    This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

    David Cay Johnston, DCReport @ RawStory
    The 24 pardons that Donald Trump granted last week drew a lot of attention, but no one seemed to notice the message Trump sent by not issuing pardons. Trump's choices made it clear that he is a white-collar crime boss.

    Trump pardoned four mercenaries who murdered Iraqi civilians, but not Jeremy Ridgeway the soldier-for-hire who plead guilty to manslaughter, testified against the others, and was sentenced to a year and a day in federal prison

    Trump pardoned Roger Stone, his dirty trickster confidant; General Michael Flynn his national security adviser who was on the Kremlin payroll; and his 2016 campaign manager Paul Manafort, but not Manafort deputy Rick Gates, who turned state's evidence and confessed to his crimes.

    He also pardoned Rod Blagojevich, the former Illinois governor convicted of trying to sell a Senate seat. But there was no pardon for Michael Cohen, Trump's lawyer, and longtime fixer who confessed to committing felonies at the direction of unindicted coconspirator “Individual 1," identified in federal court as Trump.

    A future president could use the pardon power to protect elaborate criminal schemes, to subvert the Bill of Rights, to frame political opponents, and even direct political murders.

    The pardons of the mercenaries, who worked for Trump ally Erik Prince who supplies hired armies, of campaign aides Stone and Manafort, of Flynn and of Blagojevich carried a clear message. You can bet that lawyers for others considering ratting out Trump or who are already working with authorities to rein in the Trump crime family got the message.

    The message: the boss takes care of friends and allies if they lie for the boss or keep silent, but does nothing for those who cooperate with law enforcement. Give Trump's many attacks on the FBI and other law enforcement, this should surprise no one, especially journalists -- and yet it eluded them.

    Missing The Story

    How is it that none of our major news organizations figured this out? Hint: they rely too much on the official version of events, official announcements and access instead of thinking and exercising reportorial authority, afraid they will be seen as tendentious. If Trump declared that the Sun rises in the West many news organizations would flee from reporting that was false, crazy, or nonsense, and some would focus on how the Sun only appears to rise, never mind that it appears to rise in the East.

    The pardons issued so far and more that are no doubt coming in the next three weeks, raise grave questions about the future of our democracy that have received less comment than outrage over the brazen abuse of the pardon power, especially as part of a scheme to obstruct justice.

    Think about what will happen the next time someone as lawless as Trump becomes president. Imagine a president with much more skill, smarts, and vigor than Trump, and one with better lawyers. A future president could use the pardon power to protect elaborate criminal schemes, to subvert the Bill of Rights, to frame political opponents, and even direct political murders so long as they were committed in federal jurisdictions so no state-level charges could be brought. The presidential pardon, remember, applies only to federal crimes.

    Trump behaved last week exactly as any crime boss would act if he could exercise the powers of the American presidency: show mercy to criminals, especially criminals who have aided your crimes or whose supporters may be useful to you in the future but do nothing for those who did the right thing once they were caught and helped bring others to justice.

    Trump Helps Cocaine Trafficker Buddy

    This is exactly what Trump, as a private citizen, did in a series of extraordinary favors for a major international cocaine and marijuana trafficker with whom he had extensive and close business ties.

    In that case, Trump sought mercy three-time felon Joseph Weichselbaum. The trafficker personally managed and piloted Trump's helicopter in the 1980s, supplied Trump with a fleet of helicopters to ferry high rollers to Atlantic City, and rented a luxury Manhattan apartment from Trump under an unusual lease that obscured how much rent was actually paid.

    In a 1986 letter to the sentencing judge, Trump called Weichselbaum “a credit to the community." Trump wrote that Weichselbaum should serve no prison time for a long-running scheme in which the mules – people who drove cars and vans loaded with drugs from Miami to Cincinnati – got 20 years.

    Read carefully, Trump's letter was really directed not at the judge, but at Weichselbaum.

    Trump's clear message to his buddy: don't rat me out and I'll take care of you.

    Trump took excellent care of his cocaine trafficker buddy. Weichselbaum spent just 18 months in a Manhattan prison, paid only a token sum on his $30,000 federal fine because he said he was broke and yet he moved into a $2.4 million double apartment at Trump Tower upon his release. Weichselbaum said the Trump Organization also gave him a new job -- as Trump's helicopter consultant.

    Now is the time to demand that Congress act to protect us from a future lawless president so he or she cannot use the pardon power balm to criminal pals and an ax to eviscerate our liberties and our control of our government.

    This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

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    … then let us make a small request. The COVID crisis has slashed advertising rates, and we need your help. Like you, we here at Raw Story believe in the power of progressive journalism. Raw Story readers power David Cay Johnston’s DCReport, which we've expanded to keep watch in Washington. We’ve exposed billionaire tax evasion and uncovered White House efforts to poison our water. We’ve revealed financial scams that prey on veterans, and legal efforts to harm workers exploited by abusive bosses. And unlike other news outlets, we’ve decided to make our original content free. But we need your support to do what we do.

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    Raw Story is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Invest with us in the future. Make a one-time contribution to Raw Story Investigates, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you.


    Report typos and corrections to: corrections@rawstory.com.
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    Feds indict three Oath Keepers on 'conspiracy to obstruct Congress': report

    Matthew Chapman
    January 27, 2021

    On Wednesday, the Justice Department announced the indictment of three militia figures affiliated with the far-right Oath Keepers group, on charges of conspiracy to obstruct Congress.

    The three defendants are Jessica Marie Watkins and Donovan Ray Crowl of Champaign County, Ohio, and Thomas Caldwell of Clarke County, Virginia. They face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

    "According to the indictment, the three defendants initiated their communications and coordination in November 2020 and continued through on or about Jan. 19, 2021, when Caldwell was arrested," said the DOJ announcement. "The exchanges vary in topics from a call to action to logistics, including lodging options, coordinating calls to discuss the plan, and joining forces with other Oath Keeper chapters. On Dec. 31, 2020, Caldwell posted, 'THIS IS OUR CALL TO ACTION, FREINDS! SEE YOU ON THE 6TH IN WASHINGTON, D.C. ALONG WITH 2 MILLION OTHER LIKE-MINDED PATRIOTS.' In a subsequent post on Jan. 2, 2021, Caldwell stated, 'It begins for real Jan 5 and 6 on Washington D.C. when we mobilize in the streets. Let them try to certify some crud on capitol hill with a million or more patriots in the streets. This kettle is set to boil…'"

    Allegations about Crowl released by federal officials last week following his arrest suggested he was preparing for "literal war."

    The Oath Keepers are a nationwide paramilitary organization, including many retired and active military and law enforcement, which has broadly been implicated in the assault on the Capitol that left five dead.

    Voters are leaving the divided Republican Party in droves after the Capitol insurrection

    Ray Hartmann
    January 27, 2021

    Republican senators may continue to cower in fear of Donald Trump, but there's a mass exodus of voters from the registration rolls of their party in key swing states.

    "More than 30,000 voters who had been registered members of the Republican Party have changed their voter registration in the weeks after a mob of pro-Trump supporters attacked the Capitol," reports TheHill.com.

    That statistic doesn't begin to describe the depth of the party's problem, says the Hill:

    "The massive wave of defections is a virtually unprecedented exodus that could spell trouble for a party that is trying to find its way after losing the presidential race and the Senate majority.

    "It could also represent the tip of a much larger iceberg: The 30,000 who have left the Republican Party reside in just a few states that report voter registration data, and information about voters switching between parties, on a weekly basis.

    "Voters switching parties is not unheard of, but the data show that in the first weeks of the year, far more Republicans have changed their voter registrations than Democrats. Many voters are changing their affiliation in key swing states that were at the heart of the battle for the White House and control of Congress."

    Among the key states reporting voter's scattering from the GOP since the first of the year are Pennsylvania (10,000), North Carolina (6,000) and Arizona (5,000). There is some corresponding reduction in Democratic Party rolls but that number "is a fraction of Republican defectors," reports the website.

    It's possible that something about sedition and insurrection isn't sitting so well with at least a slice of GOP voters. Here's what Michael McDonald, a voting and elections expert at the University of Florida, told The Hill about the unusual amount of recent activity in voter registration moves:

    "McDonald said those who would take the proactive step to change their registration are likely to be well-informed voters who both follow the news and are aware of the process by which they would change their actual registration.

    "These people who are doing this activity, they are likely very sophisticated voters. They're highly participatory, most likely," he said. "If you're sophisticated enough to change your party registration, you're somebody who's likely to vote."

    The exodus comes at a time the Republican Party is plagued with a widening civil war over Trump. Politico reports:

    "The spate of threatened primary challenges ripping the party apart are uniformly about loyalty to Trump. The state-level intra-party spats that have made headlines in Arizona, Kentucky and Oregon are not about raising up the best political strategists to steer the local parties forward; they are about condemning Republicans who have criticized Trump. The GOP's potential 2024 aspirants are frozen in place, still being asked to respond to every scrap of Trump news and stuck in an endless cycle of political calculation about whether it's safe to unyoke themselves from him."

    Here's the latest polling from Politico that illustrates the divide:

    "Over half of Republican voters (56%) believe that Trump should either probably or definitely run for president again in 2024. Just over a third of Republican voters (36%) think he probably or definitely should not.

    "Republicans and Republican-leaning independent voters are closely split between the Republican Party and the notional Patriot Party that Trump recently floated. A third (33%) said they are more interested in being a member of the Republican Party, and 30% said they would be more interested in being a member of the Patriot Party. A small share (11%) expressed interest in neither party."

    You can more here from the Hill and from Politico.


    Prepare for the next pandemic like a 'war,' says Bill Gates

    Agence France-Presse
    January 27, 2021

    Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates has warned that the world must prepare for the next pandemic as it would for war, including the investment of tens of billions of dollars each year, in a letter released Wednesday.

    "We can't afford to be caught flat-footed again," wrote the Microsoft co-founder and his wife Melinda in an annual missive.

    "The threat of the next pandemic will always be hanging over our heads -- unless the world takes steps to prevent it."

    To avoid future destruction on the scale of that caused by Covid-19, "pandemic preparedness must be taken as seriously as we take the threat of war," Gates said.

    "Stopping the next pandemic will require spending tens of billions of dollars per year -- a big investment, but remember that the COVID-19 pandemic is estimated to cost the world $28 trillion," he added.

    "The world needs to spend billions to save trillions (and prevent millions of deaths)."

    The American, ranked the third-wealthiest person in the world by Forbes, urged rich countries to provide the bulk of the investment, pointing out that their governments stand to benefit most.

    Investments in future diagnostic and vaccination technologies should be supplemented by "a global alert system, which we don't have at large scale today," allowing epidemics to be detected and responded to early, the letter said.

    Gates famously sounded the alarm about the risk of global pandemics at a 2015 TED conference.

    He now advocates the creation of a team of around 3,000 fully trained, professional pandemic "firefighters" available on permanent alert.

    The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has already invested $1.75 billion to fight the coronavirus pandemic, as well as promoting and funding inoculation projects in developing countries.

    © 2021 AFP

     
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