what did joe know?

an interesting wedge issue on presidential power

i’m travelling this week, but here’s a quick one to stir a little thought:

trump came out this morning claiming that the 11th hour biden pardons are illegitimate because they were signed by autopen and “joe did not know.”

this is an interesting wedge issue.

i suspect this will be very difficult, possibly impossible to prove. proving that "joe did not know" is basically proving a negative. if he says he did, this isn’t going anywhere. of course, if he says he didn't know and joe wants to take a shot at BO and his team, well, that's another matter, and therein lies the rub.

i see a couple of possible angles here:

angle 1 (which i suspect is by far the most likely) is that this will carry very little legal weight and basically go nowhere from an “invalidating the pardons” standpoint. president puddinhead will say “yes, i knew, i wanted this” or more likely just stay silent and that will be that. but it’s still a great PR move which is why i suspect el donaldo is doing it. consider:

this is a VERY dangerous loose ball for the former biden admin and the donkey faction as a whole. it’s clear that joe was more than a few fries short of a happy meal for much of his presidency, especially the latter portion and that’s all admitted now and after the kammy-whammy switcharoo cannot be denied or disavowed. what’s less clear is exactly who was calling the shots. i suspect there’s quite the cabal of former obamies in there from BO to axelrod to jarrett and the rest of that cast of characters. brandon was not doing this on his own and this is a useful way to dig and to force that tribe out of the shadows.

ostensibly, this is more than reasonable, it’s actually quite vital. americans understanding who was running america while joe was on 577 days of vacation and otherwise indisposed or in screen saver mode is a big question. the full dramatis personae and precisely what these svengalis were up to is a fine question and this is a lovely pretext to ask it as the stakes are actually fairly low from the trump side, but the ramifications are massive for the dems. if this claim bears out, it’s a crack in the dam. what other biden policies can be similarly invalidated because “joe didn’t know”? this is NOT a ball they can allow to get rolling. if they don’t stop this, anything the autopen signed could suddenly be on the table for rollback. they cannot allow a precedent, so they have to fight and fighting makes you visible. it likely tags in parts of the intelligence and justice communities. and won’t that be fun?

this low stakes from trump high stakes for the cabal issue will bring the puppeteers into the light and let us start to see who was involved in these pardons. it also traps the donkey gang into defending highly unpopular ground around jan 6, fauci, and others. the pivot/extension to mass manipulations around covid, lockdowns, vaccines, and election interference is obvious and will set up the next trumpian move to “secure elections by having a holiday to vote and counting all votes in person by validated paper ballot and voter ID.”

the folks who hid evidence and prevented accurate or even rudimentary investigation into jan 6 are likely tied in to the same gang that played so fast and loose in the 2020 election and its suspicious mail in vote counts, played “hide the laptop,” and a number of other dirty games. this is a way to make media cycles lock in on them and a pretext to investigate them and what they did. i suspect that a big part of the purpose of the pardons was to prevent such scrutiny by making it seem fruitless. why investigate those you cannot charge? but even if one cannot, the investigation will still yield interesting fruit and the best way to crack open factions and get someone to break ranks and tattle is to open up the possibility of prosecution so one can dangle immunity for turning squealer.

this is a prybar seeking purchase.

it’s sort of a no-lose bet for team trump. sure, the dems will scream “fascist!” “persecution of political enemies!” but they are doing that anyway and it will ring awfully false on this one, especially as evidence emerges about how jan 6 happened and why the investigation of and prosecutions around it had the distinct tenor of marsupials in a bounce house.

but angle two (which i suspect is less likely, but intriguing) is that biden, jill, and the rest of the small core of the home team supports this and that he really, truly did not know about the pardons which were done by an unauthorized faction running wild with an autopen. all it takes is a couple angry insiders. perhaps the biden fam would like a little payback for “the defenestration of brandon.” i mean, look, it’s unlikely, but it’s not impossible. the bidens are clearly pissed at the powers that dethroned them. they made every kind of mess they could, going on TV to take eyes off kammy and even forcing her in as heir instead of allowing a primary that might have produced a more plausible candidate. hell, they probably voted trump.

who knows what they might do if they saw a way to do a dirty to those who they feel wronged them? it could be selective, even surgical. i knew about these pardons, but not those 5 or the other 12. i know it sounds wild, but what doesn’t lately?

(this would also likely garner aggressive support from the clinton/soros faction which seems ascendant of late and have no love for BO and his team and would like to see them swept from the board to clear the field)

at the very least, biden could stay silent here and play the “i’m just a confused old man” card and let the dem party twist while the issue is explored. he does not have a lot of incentive to weigh in here to head this off early nor any love for those upon whom this spotlight will land.

either way, this is clever for trump. he probably won’t win, but it will force his opponents to publicly back some very questionable people and practices and then tar them with it when unsavory facts emerge. this helps drive consensus for change. and who knows, maybe he hits the lotto and joey b wants to play tanya harding on his handlers.

time will tell.