Hey about that whole pardons thing.

Funny how it’s always Republicans. Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich was disgusting, but it didn’t open all the doors to criminality the way Ford’s and Bush’s did, let alone the way Trump’s are.

Upon discovering this secret aid, Congress outlawed it, in amendments attached to annual defense appropriations bills and therefore known after their sponsor as the Boland Amendments.

So haha, Reagan wasn’t having that.

North was convicted of obstruction instead; an appeals court threw out the conviction 2-1 because the jury might have been influenced by North’s televised testimony to Congress. Walsh prosecuted former national security adviser John Poindexter for similar offenses next, obtaining a conviction that was thrown out for identical reasons.

Heads they win tails we lose.

Walsh found himself further frustrated by official refusals to acknowledge the existence of contemporaneous notes and claims never even to have received his requests for such notes. He got former defense secretary Caspar Weinberg’s notes only in late 1991, and Bush’s diary in November 1992—after the president had lost his reelection bid. Such delays helped ensure Walsh couldn’t indict Weinberger for obstruction until June 1992. Walsh filed a further charge in October using evidence from Weinberger’s notes showing that Bush knew about the arms-for-hostages portion of the deal. Weinberger’s trial would therefore surely have implicated Bush.

Buuuuut Bush pardoned him.

Bush also pardoned Robert MacFarlane, Elliott Abrams, and three CIA officers for their roles in Iran-Contra. Walsh—a lifelong Republican—said, “In light of President Bush’s own misconduct, we are gravely concerned about his decision to pardon others who lied to Congress and obstructed official investigations.” “The Iran-Contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed with the pardon of Caspar Weinberger,” Walsh noted.

But Bush prettied it up.

When pardoning the Iran-Contra criminals, President Bush said, “the common denominator of their motivation—whether their actions were right or wrong—was patriotism.”

Yeeeahhhh anybody can say that. The Nazis could and did say that. Trump says that constantly (in cruder words, of course). Patriotism excuses nothing.

And what Trump is doing now…you know how that sentence ends.