Trump’s been busy his last days in office. He announced a weird garden. He dropped a history pamphlet that downplayed slavery, on MLK Day. But he also threatened to make an avalanche of pardons, which he was a bit slow to do. Indeed, it was mere hours until the end of his presidency that word spread about one of the biggest, and least surprising potential pardons. According to CNN, he’s reportedly going to bestow the honor upon Steve Bannon, his former Senior Counselor, with whom he had a falling out after his departure from the White House in 2017.
Sources stress that nothing is final until Trump signs it — and, as of this writing, he only has about eight hours left in office. And what is the crime for which Bannon would be pardoned? As per CNN, back in August of 2020, he and three accomplices were federally charged with “defrauding donors of more than a million dollars as part of a fundraising campaign purportedly aimed at supporting Trump’s border wall.” In others words, Trump is pardoning Bannon for ripping off his own supporters.
Bannon was a key architect of the outgoing president’s campaign in 2016, a job for which he left his post executive chairman at Breitbart News, where Trump remains a (mostly) hallowed figure to this day. Though the two parted ways — in part because he insulted his kids, even calling Ivanka “dumb as a brick” — they had reportedly reconnected in the last months of Trump’s administration. Bannon allegedly fanned the flames of his voter fraud conspiracy theories, and on the day before the failed MAGA coup, he told listeners of his podcast, called “War Room,” that “All hell is going to break loose tomorrow.”
When news broke of Bannon’s potential pardon, people were quick to point out what he was being pardoned for.
“What did Bannon do again?”
“He defrauded your biggest supporters who wanted to help you build a wall.”
“Oh yeah, screw them. Get me my pardon sharpie.”
— Kaili Joy Gray (@KailiJoy) January 20, 2021
Bannon literally stole money from Trump supporters and then *likely* used that money to pay Trump for a pardon. The grift never stops. https://t.co/De14FCLcil
— Captain Jordy (@J_Mei21) January 20, 2021
Steve Bannon stole money from working class Trump supporters promising them he’d build a wall that would keep poor brown people out.
Then trump stole their $ for the coup.
Never lecture me again about how it’s Never Trumpers & Dems who don’t care about Trump supporters. https://t.co/IjoF5wZLVk
— Tim Miller (@Timodc) January 20, 2021
Scriptwriters could not come up with a more perfect ending than for Trump to pardon Bannon for defrauding his base.
— Ramesh Ponnuru (@RameshPonnuru) January 20, 2021
Bannon literally stole money from Trump supporters and then *likely* used that money to pay Trump for a pardon. The grift never stops. https://t.co/De14FCLcil
— Captain Jordy (@J_Mei21) January 20, 2021
Nothing more perfectly sums up the Trump @POTUS presidency than having one of his last acts be pardoning Bannon, a con man buddy who stole from his own cult. The founders purpose of pardons was to create a final outlet for justice. Trump turned it into the opposite.
— Kurt “Masks Save Lives” Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) January 20, 2021
Some remembered Bannon didn’t work alone.
What about Bannon’s three co-defendants? https://t.co/lAkRCtsFZK
— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) January 20, 2021
Others reminded people that Bannon, like Trump, is banned from Twitter, albeit for the crime of demanding people be beheaded.
Bannon a few months ago suggested Dr. Fauci and Christopher Wray should be beheaded. https://t.co/sqUxjE9153
— Donie O’Sullivan (@donie) January 20, 2021
Sure, this guy deserves a pardon https://t.co/UCyizuvRci
— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) January 20, 2021
Others remembered other weird Bannon stuff.
thinkin bout the time steve bannon tried to rent a monestary to start some sort of weird incel nazi academy in europe but then got thrown out for being too weird https://t.co/hFsWKPGKJ7
— kilgore trout, brad r’s brother (@KT_So_It_Goes) January 20, 2021
At least no one can pardon Bannon for wearing too many shirts
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) January 20, 2021
Some reminded everyone that Trump doesn’t pardon people because he likes them.
Remember (as if you had to be reminded), Trump has zero loyalty. He is purely transactional. The only reason he would pardon Bannon is to buy future silence. Same as with Stone, et al. It’s not to say thanks. It’s part of a deal not to incriminate him down the line. https://t.co/TS0aCALu5p
— David Rothkopf (@djrothkopf) January 20, 2021
Trump ended yesterday with aides convinced he wouldn’t pardon Bannon. But a lot of frantic back and forth today about it. And Trump ultimately seems to have decided that a) Bannon could be useful to him in some way in the future and …
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 20, 2021
In any case, this hardly means Bannon is out of the woods.
Trump is reportedly pardoning Steve Bannon. That’s fine. Bannon is going to end up facing a lot more criminal charges than the one he just got pardoned for.
— Palmer Report (@PalmerReport) January 20, 2021
I take solace knowing Steve Bannon will commit another crime really soon and still end up in jail.
— Fred Wellman (@FPWellman) January 20, 2021
And now the feds at SDNY need to walk the Bannon case file across the street to the Manhattan DA. Theft is theft, it’s a state crime too. https://t.co/tZ6BWuwLCW
— Elie Honig (@eliehonig) January 20, 2021
Bannon strikes me as one of the more probable candidates for having broken a state law somewhere.
— PardonMeHat (@Popehat) January 20, 2021
On a more amusing note, there as at least one case of accidentally appropriate autocorrects.
My mom is breaking news to me about Steve Bannon’s pardon pic.twitter.com/bVXoZaUTNA
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 20, 2021
(Via CNN)