Bob Schwartz

In an interview yesterday, the President of the United States said:

I’m the only one that matters.

If you think this must be out of context, here’s the context. He was asked about there being so many unfilled high-level positions in the State Department, the foreign affairs arm of the American government. He dismissed the need for these people:

So we don’t need all the people they want. I’m a businessman, and I tell my people, ‘When you don’t need to fill slots, don’t fill them.’ But we have some people that I’m not happy with there. Lemme tell you, the one that matters is me. I’m the only one that matters, because when it comes to it, that’s what the policy is going to be.

“I’m the only one that matters” is something you might hear from someone you’re in a difficult relationship with, or from the person who owns the company you work for, or from a dictator. But no American President has ever publicly said this. Being chief of the public enterprise that is America means that lots of other people matter—even if only a little.

The one blessing of Trump’s disorders (see Narcissistic Personality Disorder) is his unrestrained need to reveal exactly what is in his head at the moment, since these are the greatest thoughts in the world, the only ones that matter. This quote reveals something that everybody already knew, but it is still helpful to hear it from the horse’s mouth.

The power to pardon has been used by a number of presidents, but the full extent of the power has been rarely tested and litigated. So we don’t know definitively how far that power reaches.

It definitely includes the power to pardon people for federal (not state) crimes that have been committed or may have been committed. The best thinking (again, not litigated) is that the president does not have to wait until a crime has been charged or tried. He can pardon in advance, preemptively. And the president can issue a blanket pardon covering an unlimited number of people.

A best guess is that Trump would love to pardon everybody, or almost everybody, who might be caught in the net of the special investigation. His public rationale would be that the only way to protect innocent people from a witch hunt by a powerful witch hunter is to offer this extraordinary shield. His actual rationale is to keep those people from being charged, tried and pressured into revealing information about Trump.

He has almost certainly asked about doing this, and been told about potential pitfalls—prices to be paid.

There is a thought that his pardon of those who might provide evidence in the ongoing investigation could be considered obstruction of justice. Of course, that charge will have to wait until he is out of office, since a sitting president cannot be indicted. Plus, he can pardon himself for any federal crimes, including that. So that would not stop Trump.

There is also a thought that a blanket pardon—or even selective pardons—might move Republicans in Congress closer to impeachment. Under normal circumstances, this might seem an obvious outcome. But nothing is normal, and no one can tell what Republicans might do or say (or not do or say) in response to pardons. So that would not stop Trump.

Which is why it is possible, even likely, that Trump will round up the usual suspects, starting with his family and extending out to others in his circle, and absolve them through pardons, much sooner than later. If that seems so absurd that it is impossible, then you haven’t been paying attention.

The Washington Post reports:

The White House announced Tuesday that it’s releasing official portraits of President Trump and Vice President Pence to be hung in thousands of government offices nationwide — nine months after they were sworn in.

The portraits had been conspicuously missing from the lobbies of federal building and office walls, which have been graced by empty picture frames and hooks that until Jan. 20 held the portraits of Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Can you imagine the portrait above hanging in 9,600 federal buildings? Of course it won’t be. That is a portrait commissioned by Trump in 1987, painted by Ralph Wolfe Cowan, entitled The Entrepreneur. Much more fun than the official one, though (and so 1980s).

A friend tells me that American history travels in arcs, like a pendulum swinging back and forth. Many share this perspective.

Right now, I think of American history as a roller coaster. If you are a fan of roller coasters, you love those sharp turns and steep drops—the sharper and steeper the better. It is artificially death-defying because you are sure you will not die, or even be hurt. You have confidence that all those who brought you to that moment on the ride—the designers, manufacturers, maintainers and operators—have taken scrupulous care to make sure that at that moment and at every moment, the roller coaster is safe. Nothing less will do.

Trump is designing, manufacturing, maintaining and operating the current American roller coaster. How safe do you feel?