Honestly, and I am being this direct because you say you are a professional which means you understand exactly what it means, but also understand the consequenc

Honestly, and I am being this direct because you say you are a professional which means you understand exactly what it means, but also understand the consequences of it being as it appears... your explanation sounds like you are experiencing grief and in the first stage of it, denial, to me. Why did you add "meaningful" as a qualifier, what are on both sides of "meaningful" as a fulcrum of judgement? Why isn't this as bad as it appears? I would argue it was a proof of concept for executive supremacy over the judiciary and that concept was proven making it a full blown constitutional crisis. Even assuming what you said is true, from a historical perspective, the SS were not government officials, but a paramilitary "deputized" by their leader and eventually given state legitimacy. This means the analysis must not be done from a framing of official acts, because in an authoritarian government anything the authoritarian wants is officially sanctioned, and punishment of anything they don't want is also officially sanctioned. Pardoning contempt, under any circumstances, means that the court cannot compel a person to participate in judiciary process, no? NPR was talking about this back then and stating that the apparent ruling is that the only check on executive power right now is a 60% vote in congress, otherwise the president is above the law. That is a constitutional crisis.