Pardons have an interesting characteristic in that you can be both angry at unnecessarily harsh punishment (therefore, be happy with it being undone) but also be angry at the corruption that leads to the pardon (therefore, be angry at it being undone.)

Not to agree too much with a both-sidsing of Trump corruption, but in fact I agree here.

This pardon was... really pretty conventional. It's of a non-violent crime and a comparatively compartmentalized one that doesn't impact the nation as a whole. Incentivising industrial espionage isn't "not bad", but it's not that bad.

This is routine Washington stuff, really. The genuinely corrupt pardons, of his family and associates (and potentially himself) for crimes committed during the administration don't seem to have materialized[1]. The list from yesterday is very long, but really pretty unsurprising.

[1] But there is still an hour and a half left. A pardon can be scrawled on a napkin in 30 seconds and then shown to the media to deliver it. There's no formality requirement in the constitution. If he does it before noon then it counts.

If you're going to both sides this you should at least mention Clinton's most corrupt pardon (Marc Rich).

I would say that it is uncommon for presidents to abuse the pardon power like this, it's just not completely unheard of. It's also worth noting that Trump multiplied the total number of corrupt presidential pardons in US history by something like 10 in his time in office. The scale is hard to fully grasp.

As of November 2020, Trump utilized both pardons and clemencies much less than any president in modern history according to Pew Research [1][2].

He granted clemency to 143 more last night which places him closer in line to Bush and G.W. Bush, but there's no way your data here would include that (and that still places him at a very low number), so I'm wondering where you're getting this data, and how you qualify "corrupt."

If we look at a handful of Bill Clinton's corrupt pardons on his last day in office alone as mentioned in the gp comment above:

(1) Susan McDougal who went to jail for contempt of court for him, (2) Braswell who paid Hillary $200k for the pardon, (3) his brother Roger Clinton Jr, (4) Democrat Mel Reynolds who was granted clemency after being found guilty of sexual abuse of a minor.

Thus, Trump must have had at least 40? Where is the source?

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/11/24/so-far-trum... [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FT_20...

> Not to "both sides" this too much

So not "both siding" too little or too much, but both siding a just right amount?

No “both siding” is the right amount.

The “sides” we ought to be considering are corrupt politicians and those of us who object to corrupt politicians.

Framing this as if there are two equivalent and corrupt sides effectively normalizes and excuses these corrupt pardons.

hence the "...but".

I don't really think it's about "both sides", I think it's about contextualizing the action. Because the Trump administration was so insane in so many ways, we tend to forget (or maybe misremember) that there is a very real and persistent form of corruption in our politics that far predates Trump. The end of the Trump regime does not mean the end of political corruption, not by a long shot, and we would do well to remember that. I think one of my biggest fears with Biden is that because he isn't Trump, everyone will take a deep sigh of relief, and then ignore the more mundane "political corruption as usual" aspects of his presidency.

They framed a relevant point that furthers the discussion in a way that was less ambiguous and less likely to do harm.

For me personally, it's frustrating to see comments about things like whataboutism when they're obviously just to deflect and distract.

At the very least, with caveats like saying "I don't support this, but..." there's some level of acknowledgement of, "yes, this might be veering into sketchy waters".