To emulate the gangster leadership

The Post’s editorial board on Trump’s criminal pardoning of a criminal who crimed on behalf of Trump, who pardoned him:

Though Attorney General William P. Barr moved to reduce Mr. Stone’s sentencing recommendation after conviction, even he called the case against Mr. Stone a “righteous” prosecution. [Stone] was sentenced to 40 months in prison and was due to surrender on Tuesday — thus prompting Mr. Trump’s Friday night action.

As Mr. Trump discussed granting clemency to his criminal friend, Mr. Barr publicly defended the sentence, perhaps to prevent a mutiny among Justice Department staff who signed up because they believe in the rule of law, not the arbitrary rule of an unusually petty man in the White House.

The arbitrary rule of an unusually petty and criminal man in the White House who is not too squeamish to grant pardons to his own criminal accomplices, in full public view.

The president seems to be doing his best, within the confines of the U.S. constitutional system, to emulate the gangster leadership of Russian President Vladimir Putin, a man whose ruinous reign Mr. Trump has always admired. If the country needed any more evidence, Friday confirmed that the greatest threat to the Republic is the president himself.

We didn’t need any more evidence though. That’s been all too obvious all along.

Updating to add: commutation, not pardon.

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