FILE- This May 2, 2017, file photo, shows the corporate signage on the headquarters building of The New York Times in New York. The New York Times Co. reports earnings Thursday, May 3, 2018. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)
Presidents issue pardons and commute sentences all the time, it’s part of their right and job description as the president of the United States.
But as with everything else when it comes to the era of Trump, media will try to spin anything done against the president, even if what they’re saying isn’t true and even if it’s demonstrably stupid.
Case in point: the New York Times’ Eric Lipton.
Now, according to his Twitter bio he’s an “investigative reporter” for the Times, “helping to cover President Trump and the Trump administration-without fear or favor.”
But perhaps not without bias if you check out what he had to say about Trump’s pardons and grants of clemency on Tuesday.
A moment that live in history. And deserves to be remembered. President Trump is now both the executive and judicial branch. Rod Blagojevich; Michael Milken, Bernard Kerik and others. https://t.co/AVBZ75h0Nd
— Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) February 18, 2020
Is he serious? Declaring Trump is both the “executive and judicial branch” because he exercises his Constitutional right to pardon? Yikes. Perhaps the investigative reporter needs to check Article II of the Constitution and review what the President has the long-recognized power to do since the beginning of the Republic?
He apparently is serious.
There must be a combined decades worth of labor by DOJ prosecutors to build the evidence, file the charges and secure convictions in these cases, entire careers of civil servants defined by these cases that now have been commuted or wiped out.
— Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) February 18, 2020
Shall we talk about how media has been attacking Attorney General William Barr and casting aspersions on all the work he and the DOJ are doing now if they think it has anything to do with investigating Democrats?
A lot of surprising moments so far in the Trump era. This one to me is the perhaps the most awesome, in terms of defining how norms have changed in Washington.
— Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) February 18, 2020
But apparently, back in 2014, Mr. Lipton had a different take on the concept of pardons. At that time he clearly understood that it was part of the power of the President. Of course, that was when Barack Obama was the president.
Good example of how media treat presidential actions taken by Trump differently than they treat actions taken by his predecessor, a man they worship. That Trump derangement causes a dramatic loss of knowledge that pardons/commutations are an executive action is a bonus. pic.twitter.com/LBUEU8KTWs
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) February 19, 2020
Apparently, pardons back then didn’t involve any DOJ work to comment on, it would seem. Just how much work did Obama and Bill Clinton before him wipe out?
But we do acknowledge that there were some differences.
Like Obama commuting the sentence of an unrepentent terrorist who led a group that killed Americans. Obama granted 212 pardons and 1715 commutations more than any other prior president since Harry Truman.
Then there are Bill Clinton’s clemency moves which not only included terrorists, but also included pardoning a donor to his wife’s Senate campaign and two people who had reportedly each paid Clinton’s brother-in-law $200,000 to work for their clemency. Whoops. But guess that wasn’t breaking “norms.”
Let me help you out: https://t.co/1Pnv2M2wsh pic.twitter.com/jDMTQHoKAf
— Unaccountable BureauCat (@UnAcctBureaucat) February 18, 2020
HT: Twitchy
