Even Rudy Giuliani thought her plan to seek blanket immunity, before breaching Georgia voting machines, was “over the top,” according to a new book by reporters Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman.
Even Rudy Giuliani thought her plan to seek blanket immunity, before breaching Georgia voting machines, was “over the top,” according to a new book by reporters Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman.
As allies of Donald Trump schemed to seize voting machines in swing states after the 2020 election, Sidney Powell proposed issuing preemptive pardons—which the team described as “hunting licenses”—to shield them from legal liability, according to a new book by investigative reporters Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman.
“I need six to eight pardons,” the former Trump attorney said in a Virginia planning meeting, according to Find Me the Votes, excerpts of which were reviewed by Vanity Fair ahead of its January 30 publication date. “What we need is a ‘hunting license’ that provides top cover for ops,” a member of Powell’s team wrote to Lin Wood, another Trump lawyer involved in the effort to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, according to Isikoff and Klaidman.
According to Isikoff and Klaidman, the team asked Michael Trimarco, an associate of Rudy Giuliani’s, to get the former New York City mayor to approve the pardon proposal. But Giuliani “dismissed the idea as over the top,” according to the book. Trimarco apparently agreed, recalling that he thought, “What the fuck?” as the group mulled the idea.
I think why they do not care is because they don't "believe" it. The more important question (IMO) is: "How can they deny this blatant reality?"
The answer is because they shield themselves from reality with Olympics level mental gymnastics, rationalizing away cognitive dissonance and living in their own deluded reality.
The fact that reality has been indistinguishable from The Onion since 2016 is the best argument for reality being a simulation. The admins decided to ramp up the satire levels. Then in 2020, they decided to leave satire turned up, but to also crank up suffering.
Just to be clear, I am only being sarcastic. I think..
There actually isn't a requirement that pardons be announced until they get someone out of the consequences. Trump could have pardoned himself for any federal crime, and just left the document in a drawer somewhere to be used later.
The question of constitutionality has never been tested, so maybe it works and maybe it doesn't. As others have noted, it wouldn't work at all for state crimes. But as a concept, "secret" pardons are conceivably possible and potentially valid. We just never had a criminal so brazen in the White House that anyone thought of it before.