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The Semi-Inside Story of Why Trump Refused to Pardon Snowden and Assange
- nkurz 5y agoSummarizing the long and not very grammatical transcript of a video (which I haven't watched): Greenwald, after explaining that he's been working on both of these pardons behind the scenes, thinks that Trump had been convinced to pardon one or possibly both of these, but was blindsided by the attempt to impeach him at the end of his term. The populist side of the Republican party (Rand Paul, Matt Gaetz, Thomas Massey) wanted pardons, but the establishment side (Marco Rubio, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham) considered both to be traitors and vehemently opposed pardons. Greenwald thinks that establishment Republican senators made it very clear to him that if he pardoned Assange or Snowden, they would vote to convict, potentially barring him from holding public office in the future. Realizing that the threat was real, Trump caved. (Fixed error thanks etc-hosts below)
- ameliaquining 5y agoI'm not all that knowledgeable about Washington inside baseball, but it seems weird and suspicious to me that these establishment guys would care so much about Snowden's fate that they'd risk the Trump base's wrath over the issue, when they were conspicuously unwilling to do so on many seemingly more consequential matters.
- etc-hosts 5y ago> they would vote to impeach I think you mean "vote to convict" Had to look it up, to satisfy my own curiosity about if Trump being Impeached blocks him from being President again.
- alecco 5y agoHow is this on page 3? 8 points 1 hour on a Sunday night. @dang would it be possible for you guys to check if it's being crowd-flagged?