What Are We Going to Do Next, Declare January 6 a National Holiday?

"The extraordinarily broad pardon, signed Friday but revealed Sunday night, has little substantive effect for its recipients. Trump can pardon only federal crimes, and his administration had already pulled the plug on any lingering investigations stemming from the 2020 election. Some of the clemency recipients are still facing state-level criminal charges in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Wisconsinthough some Trump allies argue the pardons could derail those cases."

"Among those who received clemency: Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, and Sidney Powell, the attorneys who helped Trump devise his legal and political strategy to overturn the election as late as January 6, 2021. All four were labeled unindicted co-conspirators by special counsel Jack Smith, who criminally charged Trump for the election plot in 2023 but dropped the case after Trump won a second term."

"But the language in the pardon also underscores that Trump's clemency is not limited to people named in the document. Rather, it applies to anyone who helped devise or advocate for Trump's strategy to use fraudulent slates of presidential electors as a prong of his strategy to remain in power, as well as others who worked to expose voting fraud and vulnerabilities in the 2020 election."

A presidential pardon broadly covers individuals who participated in efforts to overturn the 2020 election and to upend the transfer of power. The clemency includes Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro, and Sidney Powell, who aided legal and political strategies as late as January 6, 2021. The pardon covers only federal crimes, while some recipients still face state-level charges in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Wisconsin. Special counsel Jack Smith had labeled several of the lawyers unindicted co-conspirators and previously charged the president before the case was dropped. The pardon’s language extends beyond named individuals to others involved in the fraudulent-elector strategy and related claims of voting vulnerabilities.

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