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The possibility of a Stone pardon

We don’t have any idea whether Trump will pardon Stone. But it’s a real possibility, precisely because it would be in keeping with the very worldview he articulated in response to Stone’s conviction.

“I think there’s a chance Trump pardons him and Manafort,” former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade told us. “They both have been loyal to him. His pardon power is absolute when it comes to federal offenses.”

That would be a tremendous abuse of the pardon power, of course, but it would go to the deeper core of Trump’s corruption of our political system, as well.

“Stone was convicted on seven counts, all relating in one way or another to lying and obstruction of justice,” McQuade continued. “To be pardoned for that kind of behavior says the rule of law doesn’t matter, that loyalty to the president is all that does matter. It would set an incentive for people in future administrations to recognize that loyalty to the person who holds the pardon power is the most important thing — even more important than adhering to the rule of law.”

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Stone said that as an elementary school student in 1960, he broke into politics to further John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign: "I remember going through the cafeteria line and telling every kid that Nixon was in favor of school on Saturdays ... It was my first political trick."