First Draft: đđŽ Guess Who's Afraid of Going to Jail?
Trump officials fret that Dems will try to prosecute them, even if they get pardons. Plus, most Senate Dems vote to oppose arms sales to Israel, and a pro-Palestine PAC endorses El-Sayed in Michigan.
On this day in 1962, the great Walter Cronkite began anchoring âCBS Evening Newsâ â a role that helped define him as âthe most trusted man in America.â Under Bari Weissâs leadership, the program and network have since been turned into a soft MAGA mouthpiece.
Good morning! Itâs Swin again. In a classic 1994 episode of âThe Simpsonsâ (the TV series that nearly three decades ago âpredictedâ a disastrous Donald Trump presidency), Homer Simpson seizes on a crime panic and crumbling trust in institutions, and forms a neighborhood watch to patrol Springfieldâs streets and enforce vigilante justice. When the local TV newsman asks Homer about the âaccusation that your group has been causing more crimes than itâs been preventing,â Homer responds: âIâd be lying if I said my men werenât committing crimes.â
That was fiction â but it also sums up Donald Trumpâs entire second term, thus far. As Trump and his gang break so many laws and commit so many (war) crimes, do they feel invincible? We can answer that for youâŚ
In todayâs âFirst Draft,â Team Trump worries that preemptive pardons wonât be enough to get away with all their crimes; 40 Senate Democrats just voted to block arms sales to Israel; and Abdul El-Sayed picks up a key endorsement in Michiganâs Democratic primary for US Senate.
Fearing Accountability
They can read a poll. They wonât admit it publicly, but much of President Donald Trumpâs inner circle sees Democrats retaking the House in the 2026 midterms as a foregone conclusion. They also know, at some point in the near future, their liberal enemies will control the White House, again.
And Team Trump takes it for granted that there will be an intense appetite among progressive voters for their politicians to go on their own âretributionâ tour and seek accountability for all of this administrationâs extrajudicial killings and crime-doing.
As Zeteo reported in December, the president has already privately discussed preemptive mass federal pardons before this term ends, to gift an extra layer of impunity to his roguesâ gallery of staff and hatchetmen. Last week, the Wall Street Journal followed up on Trumpâs âpromiseâ to do this.
Last year, various Trump administration officials made sure to purchase new legal insurance and professional-liability plans, sources familiar with the matter tell me, in anticipation of future investigations or subpoenas from prosecutors and Democrats. (Itâs a smart move: Staffers on the House committee investigating Jan. 6 did the same thing before the 2022 elections, anticipating a Republican-run Congress around the corner.)
But in the past few months (including during Trumpâs disastrous war in Iran, which has turbo-charged the levels of leaking, backbiting, blame-shifting, and paranoia within Team Trumpâs own ranks), Iâve noticed something.
In my conversations with several senior administration officials, as well as other Trump advisers and elite Republicans close to the White House, their anxiety â over what Democrats might do to them after the midterms, or once Trump is out of power â has kicked up a conspicuous notch. Some of them have told me theyâve noticed a growing trend of Democratic politicians making public calls for aggressive prosecutions of Trumplanders in the future â a trend one Trump aide privately lamented as âkind of worrisome.â
And a significant number of senior appointees working in Pete Hegsethâs Pentagon, in Stephen Millerâs White House, and in so many other departments and crime-laboratories of the Trump-Vance administration do not think that federal pardons will be enough.