During his opening 2024 pitch to voters on Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis promised to crack down aggressively on crime. But the next day he made it clear that upholding the law might not be so important to him when it comes to accountability for insurrectionists and former President Donald Trump.
On “The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show,” DeSantis was asked whether he would consider pardoning Jan. 6 defendants — including Trump, who is currently under federal investigation over Jan. 6, but hasn’t been charged. DeSantis indicated that he’d open to it.
“On day one, I will have folks that will get together and look at all these cases, who people are victims of weaponization or political targeting, and we will be aggressive in issuing pardons,” DeSantis said.
“I would say any example of disfavored treatment based on politics, or weaponization would be included in that review, no matter how small or how big,” he added.
DeSantis’ posture rests upon the unfounded assumption that federal prosecutors are part of a political conspiracy
DeSantis’ broadside against the idea of rule of law signals that overturning the rulings of the legal system isn’t just a consideration, but an expectation: “We will be aggressive in issuing pardons.” It’s also notable that pardoning Jan. 6 defendants is a “day one” priority for him, suggesting that the convictions of insurrectionists who tried to overturn the 2020 election was a grave injustice. And he refuses to rule out the idea of pardoning Trump, regardless of whether prosecutors are able to indict him with a crime.
DeSantis’ posture rests upon the unfounded assumption that federal prosecutors are part of a political conspiracy rather than agents of the law. And naturally he tossed in his obsession with so-called wokeness into his reasoning. “Some of these cases, some people may have a technical violation of the law. But if there are three other people who did the same thing, but…
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