← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
Sam Stein
Hey, guys. Sam Stein here again managing editable work. I'm joined by Bill Kristol, author of Morning Shots and also the sort of spiritual guide for everything that we do. Our Buddha.
- [00:10]
Bill Kristol
I think I wanted to call you. I think I better, I want to disavow that now. You know, there's a lot that goes on, on the board that I'm not fully. Not only. You are totally. I'm not even responsible. I'm not a guide for, I'm not even responsible for. But anyway, it's great to be with you.
- [00:22]
Sam Stein
All right, great. Thanks for having me. We're going to be talking about Trump's pardon, which was the subject of today's Morning Shots. And then after that came out, an even arguably more grotesque pardon story was published by the New York Times. We're going to be talking about that, too. All right, Bill, just walk through this morning's Morning shots and why you decided to focus on the story, the sort of larger picture element of it, you know.
- [00:42]
Bill Kristol
So I saw this news yesterday that Trump had pardoned a sheriff, former sheriff in culpeper, Virginia, about 40, 50 miles, maybe south of here. Basically, he had sold these auxiliary sheriff jobs, which are not real jobs, for 15,000 bucks each so people could get nice sheriff medallions. I guess they're useful also for, you know, if you have speeding tickets and maybe some other things. He had gotten $75,000 in cash. There's video of him with a, it's, it was a shut and it was a open and shut case. The Federal Barter of Justice Public Integrity Division prosecuted it. He was convicted by a jury of his peers in Culpepper in December, sentenced to 10 years jail in March. Turns out he was also a big MAGA sheriff, you know, very anti immigration, super pro gun rights, pro Trump, very outspoken. Been on Fox News a bunch of times. And so yesterday, Trump pardoned him at the recommendation of his new pardoned attorney in the Department of Justice, our friend Ed Martin, who we covered quite a lot when he didn't make it as D.C. u.S. U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. But he, he is now at a senior position in the Justice Department. And they used to proudly tweeted that or X'd or whatever that this was his, he had recommended this pardon and the president had accepted the recommendation. And so that's, he doesn't deserve a pardon. You know, he overruled.
- [02:02]
Sam Stein
Clearly not. Yeah, Ed said no MAGA left behind when he did it. And I think that was the sort of crux of the newsletter which is, you know, we're sort of used to pardon power being abused. Everyone, every president recently has abuse it to a certain degree.
- [02:16]
Bill Kristol
Right.
- [02:16]
Sam Stein
But we've never really seen it politicized like this. And it's not just the sheriff, Scott Jenkins, it's obviously the January 6th case is, you know, Devon Archer, the pardon attorney who preceded Ed Martin, who we talked to, had to resign because they wanted to give Mel Gibson his guns back. I mean, there's just a whole litany of cases. I'll get to the one in the New York Times story. But the point of the morning shots was, you know, what's the actual end result here? If you take it to the degree that they're taking it?
- [02:42]
Bill Kristol
Yeah. So, I mean. Right. I think the further going forward point, so the going, looking at it point is amazing. Degree of politicization and also potential corruption, obviously. And we saw some of that in the first term with the pardons of Roger Stone and Michael Flynn and others. But now it's on steroids and it's right at the beginning. It literally began at the first day of the second term with January 20th, the January 6th insurrectionists. And it's now chugging right along the other. The point I made, which is sort of obvious, but still we're thinking about there's not much you can do about the pardon power. The courts have decided, probably mostly correctly, that it's almost an illimitable presidential power. And he can just pardon people for the next three and a half years on whatever grounds he wants. He can pardon people who are engaging, who are MAGA types, who are just stealing money or taking money. That's one thing. He can also pardon MAGA types who are engaged more like the January 6th insurrectionists, in political activities designed to help Trump and engagement intimidate opponents of Trump. And when you think that through, you've got a pretty unlimited presidential power to give all of his friends a pass, a get out of jail free card, and also to then, as Trump does in the tweet, harass his opponents. So he names the federal judge who he asserts with no evidence, didn't conduct a fair trial. Presumably one can find out who the jurors were and of course, the acting U.S. attorney down there and the people who worked with him in, in securing this conviction. So the degree of it's not just politicization, but actual intimidation, vigilantism you might call it, that's being encouraged here, both by Trump friendly law enforcement officers, but also by outsiders who might work with or whether or not with law enforcement officers and do things that Trump could then pardon. It's a very dangerous path we're on. And, and the sad news is there's no, you can't sort of go to court and get some federal district judge to stop it. Right.
- [04:35]
Sam Stein
Well, okay, so, yes, there's three things I want to talk about here. One is the limiting principle here, which I think you touched on, which is it's essentially political pressure. Like it's literally it. Right. If he does something so humiliating or embarrassing or corrupt that people turn against him, maybe that is like how you limit the part in power, but there's nothing else there. So we can dispense that. That's one, two is. And you raise this. It's not just sort of retrospective here, because what it essentially does is it invites people to do corrupt acts or, or even dangerous acts, frankly, in the name of maga, knowing full well that a pardon could be on the other side. Now, I'm not saying this is like, you know, gonna happen necessarily, but it's not hard to envision a situation which someone does something thinking that they're doing it at Trump's behest or Ed Martin's behest and that they'll get rewarded for it, or at least pardoned literally for it.
- [05:29]
Bill Kristol
Yeah, I think that's really not, not only not hard to imagine, I mean, it is more the January 6th insurrectionist precedent, but one can imagine in a million different cases, some of them, you know, kind of well meaning, you don't want to say, or inadvertent, a bunch of Trumpies getting a brawl with some non Trump people at some adjacent to an election place where they're, you know, there's a dispute about ballots. But, but they can also be much more sinister, of course, in terms of mobilizing vigilantes basically on Trump's behalf and against and against political opponents. And again, he's got the whole Justice Department on board. One point I didn't make, I had it in the earlier little draft, but I, Sam Trice always cuts my things down to make them more readable, you know, so I knew you would take this out. In previous Justice Departments, at times, the President's overruled the pardon attorneys, like the person you spoke with a little while ago, Biden clearly did to pardon his son at the end and so forth. But, but on the whole, there were these internal checks, since there really aren't external checks of the pardon power. There was a sense that you can't just kind of run roughshod over it. And there were people in the White House counsel's office, people in the Justice Department, obviously, with Pam Bondi and Martin, that's all just totally gone.
- [06:39]
Sam Stein
Yeah, well, the person I talked to, Liz Oyer, and people can read her substack lawyer Oyer, very clever. I mean, her point was that the pardon attorneys there sort of as a check, she sort of recognizes that, you know, if a president wants it, it's more likely than not to happen. But they can be like, no, that doesn't make sense, or at least work through the trappings. But really what the pardon attorney is there to do is to make sure that legitimate cases get hurt as well and to ensure that it's not just a grift. And that's the third thing I want to talk to you about, which is this New York Times story, because essentially what's happened here is that the power of pardon has turned into yet another tool for Trump to essentially get money put into either pockets of his political action committees or anything related to what he wants to do politically. I guess you could make the case, maybe there's a future for Bitcoin and meme coin investors to do it too. But in this case, the guy, Paul Walczak, who. And this, this story is crazy, so bear with me for a little bit. But this guy pleaded guilty to incredible amounts of corruption and fraud. He was guilty of tax crimes. Basically, he was withholding employer taxes on his employees and he was doing so that he could fund a sort of lavish lifestyle. This is what the Times that he withheld more than $10 million from paychecks of the nurses, doctors and others who worked at his facilities under the pretext of using it for their Social Security, Medicare and federal income taxes. Instead, he used some of the money to buy a two million dollar yacht to pay for travel and purchases at high end retailers including Berg, Off Goodman and in Cartier. Again, he pleaded guilty. What ended up happening is that his mother, who is sort of a well to do muckity muck in Florida Republican politics, spent a lot of money on Trump, did a lot of fundraisers, and then was invited to attend a $1 million per person fundraiser last month at Mar A Lago. And she, according Times, did attend. We don't know if she gave how much she gave, but three weeks later, her son gets a pardon. And this is what the Trump pardon power has become. Not just a license for people to commit bad acts or to give them reprieve for committing back acts, but to shake people down or at least take some bribes.
- [08:49]
Bill Kristol
It's an amazing story and, as you say, came out after warning shots, but I feel like it vindicates the theme. And this is more just for money, not a little less. For political power, though there's a political power, too, right? Because now if you're a wealthy person who has a relative, a friend, someone you care about in legal trouble, you go to. You. You. You need to be nice to Trump, but also literally give money to one of Trump's organizations, and so it does increase his political power. The. The degree, you know, the. It's not just a grift, I guess, is the way I put it. Yeah, terrible. I mean, really. Well, terrible. And one last thing. Tim Miller and I talked about this yesterday on the. On his podcast. I mean, the degree to which people just are going along with this. I mean, okay, fine, maybe the Republicans in Congress can't do anything about it. Could someone say something about it? What about people in the White House assume that Martin and Bondi know what they're doing? They're not literally writing these pardons personally. They're not literally making sure the paperwork gets done. Other people are working on it. And so all down the ranks of White House counsel, somewhat down the ranks of doj, there are probably some decent people there who are swallowing hard and doing it because they think if I stay, I can stop even worse things. But I don't know. I do feel like an awful lot of people at this point in the various things Trump is doing that really challenge, to say the least. The rule of law. There are an awful lot of people who are complicit in it and who are just getting away. What Tim and I talked about was, I'll tell you one quick story, which is kind of funny. It shows the reach of the bulwark. So one thing Tim and I said, you know that guy who's in all the Oval Office photos, he's giving Trump the executive orders to sign. It's always the same guy. I have no idea. So I said to Tim, I have no idea who this guy is, but, like, does he feel a little embarrassed that he's giving Trump all these really terrible and illegal or demagogic or, you know, things that are persecuting immigrants and stuff to sign. Tim said, actually, people have reported on who he is, since obviously he's in all these photos and he is. Whoever he is, and I don't know. But then I. So this morning I got an email. Someone got hold of my address, which is fine. From someone who does know who that person is. Actually knows that person. And I won't reveal this is a little bit, you know, it's private but I mean it sort of knows some family connections and so forth of how this guy probably got his job. And it was just kind of funny to hear that. Yes. Everyone knows, you know, the person who wrote me is a Bulwark reader and.
- [10:59]
Sam Stein
He'S not the guy that, yeah, he's not happy.
- [11:01]
Bill Kristol
He's not happy that everyone is just decided. But this, I don't know anything about this young man but I'm just going to say he's someone who on his way up get a good White House job. Great. I'm the, I could yeah. Probably be in the photos giving president.
- [11:12]
Sam Stein
That's the story of this White House. Really. It's and same I know people who had who are gone. I'm not going to name names but I know people who have attended law school with Trump lawyers, including pretty high up lawyers in, in, in the current Trump administration who insist back in the day in school these were normal people. I mean they did. There's nothing remarkable about them. I mean, maybe they had some sort of, you know, more aggressive politics or conservative than my friends were, but it wasn't like, you know, a huge, they didn't scream MAGA Republican, but they hitched themselves along for the ride and then some along the way became actual believers. And I think that's sort of the disconnect here is that some people think of it as pure opportunism and maybe some of it is. But, but in fact, I think a lot of the people do become converts to the cause.
- [12:01]
Bill Kristol
I think that's easier psychologically. It's hard to. I found this with friends over the years since 2015, 2016, people who started off as Look, I think, I think I can help. I'm going to stick in the game here. And you know, I don't agree with all this. I don't believe in this. I even dislike a lot of it. A year or two later there was a lot of, you know, he's much better than the alternative bill, the Democrats, I mean, unbelievable. The woke stuff, it's destroying America. And then two years later it was and Trump's accomplishing great things and maybe, you know, the foreign policy, he knows what he's doing, makes the Europeans pay up. And so people, it's hard psychologically to maintain that in between you're in it.
- [12:36]
Sam Stein
And you're, yeah, you're stewing in it. You're in it, you're surrounded by it and you Have a bunch of people who are telling you, in fact, it's great, and then you become part of the enterprise.
- [12:43]
Bill Kristol
Then you win. Then you win the presidency for a second time after January 6th. I mean, that is we. People like me. I won't say, Austin, maybe you, you, you were very good on this very early, I think after, after January, after November 5th, after election day. The degree to which that victory has just. I mean, it's such an obvious point, so I was stupid to make it, but that electoral victory has supercharged everything. You know, for people like me, it was, okay, won by a point and a half. That happens. You lose by a point and a half. You win by a point and a half. You know, there's very little movement of seats. I mean, it was a victory, but it was bad. But the degree to which, it just gives you that kind of unbelievable rush of power and influence, both personally, but also institutionally and organizationally. And obviously that everyone capitulating after the election, big tech, big business, then the law firms. I think people like me who are critical of all that, probably just underestimate the, just the kind of, I don't know, the momentum of it, so to speak. And it's died down a little because they've been obstacles. Of course they've made mistakes, but it's still there.
- [13:41]
Sam Stein
I don't know if it's died down that much. I mean, just this morning, taking $100 million from Harvard, we have news story that they're going to start screening and vetting the social media feeds of every single foreign student visa applicant. I mean, these are not small matters. Let me just circle back to the pardon issue, because you raised the point that I talked about with Liz lawyer on, on this because she spoke up. I mean, you said, well, I don't want. She spoke up. She said, I'm not going to give Mel Gibson back his guns. There's no pretext for this. This doesn't make any sense. Of course she was fired in the most unceremonious fashion you could possibly be fired. She said two things. One is it's very lonely and scary to speak up in the way she's doing now, and she's sort of like looking for more people to do what she's doing because there are strengths in numbers. I know that sounds cliche, but it's true. And the second thing is that. Which is on the, on the substance, she's like, we don't really actually know, you know, how bad it actually is. I mean, what we're getting are dribs and drabs in certain cases are coming public. But, you know, he could be pardoning a lot more people than we actually know of, and he's just not publicizing it. And so all the stuff we're talking about now really could just be a small portion of the problem that's actually happening in real time.
- [14:53]
Bill Kristol
Well, and it's literally a small portion in the sense that he's going to be president for four years, and we're one third of the way through one year. I mean, that really is a people. Just let's assume he slows down some. Let's assume there's a bit of a reversion to the mean. There's some more obstacles thrown.
- [15:07]
Sam Stein
We got a lot of time.
- [15:08]
Bill Kristol
Has a lot of time to do a lot more of this. Right. And it could accelerate, you know, I mean, these things.
- [15:13]
Sam Stein
Oh, yeah. So he's operating in a good climate when things are okay and the problems are of his own creation. Imagine if it gets bad.
- [15:21]
Bill Kristol
Right.
- [15:21]
Sam Stein
All right. I'm not happy.
- [15:23]
Bill Kristol
Still typical upbeat, upbeat bull work podcast here.
- [15:29]
Sam Stein
Right off of Memorial Day. We're hitting it hard. Okay, Bill, thank you so much, man. Appreciate it.