Trump’s triumphant criminals and doubts about the legal system

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Lerato Khumalo

Shortly after his release from a prison in the state of Maryland, Rhodes also appeared in front of a detention center in the capital Washington to express his solidarity with other prisoners. “President Trump did the right thing,” said the man with the distinctive eye patch there, complaining that he and the others did not get a fair trial.

At prisons in various cities across the United States, January 6 inmates were welcomed and celebrated by family, friends and supporters. At a detention center in the capital Washington, an older man wearing a Trump wool hat and a Trump flag over his shoulder was waiting for his two adult children to be released. They were jailed because, among other things, they brutally beat police officers on January 6, 2021. While waiting, the father told reporters how proud he was of his children and that this was a day of victory. Referring to Trump, he said: “There’s a new sheriff in town.”

In fact, with Trump in power in the USA, some people feel like they have been transported back to the “Wild West”. Police officer Michael Fanone, who was on duty at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, was bludgeoned and maltreated with a stun gun, told CNN that after his tormentors were pardoned, he now fears for his safety and that of his children.

But Trump’s decision also raises the question of the state of America’s justice system. A US president has the constitutional authority to shorten the sentences of perpetrators convicted under federal law or to pardon those convicted entirely – even retrospectively, i.e. after a sentence has been served. But the fact that Trump is using this authority to release violent criminals who have injured American police officers and who – fueled by himself – tried to stop the peaceful and democratic transfer of power in the USA is unprecedented. Trump evades questions about this and pretends to have no idea who exactly has been pardoned. And: He points to his predecessor Biden.

Shortly before the end of his term in office, he preemptively pardoned his son, his siblings and their spouses, as well as Democratic representatives and former government officials – in order to protect the son from prison and everyone else from possible prosecution by Trump’s government. The Democrat had previously categorically ruled this out and years ago criticized preventive pardons as wrong. His about-face hasn’t exactly contributed to confidence in the justice of the US judiciary.

The system is inherently very politicized. Presidents select judges for the federal courts and the Supreme Court and compete to see who can get more nominations in one term because it is very helpful in enforcing their policies to have sympathetic judges when their decisions are legally challenged. Now more than ever, the USA needs a justice system that is beyond reproach.