All of you end of America conspiracy theorists need to take a chill pill. In private, the Congressional chickens have made it clear that this is not a thing that could happen. The implication is pretty clear -- the President, by accepting a pardon, would be admitting that he committed a crime. There's not really anything much to do at that point, the impeachment trial would be based on the President's own confession, and no other evidence would be necessary, not even a list of charges.
Say what you will about the GOP House leadership, but the reason there is no movement for impeachment now is because a majority of congressional Democrats don't back it. To every thing there is a season, and believe me that winter is coming. But there is zero meaning in firing that broadside prematurely if we're in the middle of crushing it in the elections. You don't want to motivate the other side to come out and vote, either. There's also no meaning in victory if we get him kicked out of office and half the country thinks it was a liberal sham trial. Without overwhelming evidence, any impeachment victory would be pyrrhic. But the Special Counsel is making progress, one guilty plea at a time.
There's actually a pretty massive post-Mueller firing protest that's been organized, although we've come to be convinced that we won't need it. But you need a moment that's pretty universally beyond the pale. Everyone gets offended by different things -- personally the moment for me when I realized that Trump was a Complete Monster was when he reiterated that certain gang members were not people, but animals. (If you think you can justify this, please write in fanfiction form of your SI explaining this to Tsukino Usagi how this a perfectly normal thing.) But reading the responses above ... basically everyone would recognize the self-pardon as leading towards dictatorship, and mobilize immediately.
Say what you will about the GOP House leadership, but the reason there is no movement for impeachment now is because a majority of congressional Democrats don't back it. To every thing there is a season, and believe me that winter is coming. But there is zero meaning in firing that broadside prematurely if we're in the middle of crushing it in the elections. You don't want to motivate the other side to come out and vote, either. There's also no meaning in victory if we get him kicked out of office and half the country thinks it was a liberal sham trial. Without overwhelming evidence, any impeachment victory would be pyrrhic. But the Special Counsel is making progress, one guilty plea at a time.
There's actually a pretty massive post-Mueller firing protest that's been organized, although we've come to be convinced that we won't need it. But you need a moment that's pretty universally beyond the pale. Everyone gets offended by different things -- personally the moment for me when I realized that Trump was a Complete Monster was when he reiterated that certain gang members were not people, but animals. (If you think you can justify this, please write in fanfiction form of your SI explaining this to Tsukino Usagi how this a perfectly normal thing.) But reading the responses above ... basically everyone would recognize the self-pardon as leading towards dictatorship, and mobilize immediately.
"Kitto daijoubu da yo." - Sakura Kinomoto