Pardon Me?

 I used to have a standard line I used when people would say, "Pardon me?" I would reply, "Who do you think you are, Richard Nixon?"

After this week, the number of political felons who would fit in that joke must be nearing a dozen...and may well double by the time we reach January 20. As I heard mentioned last night on MSNBC, this kind of flurry of pardons around the holidays is fairly common...but usually they are non-political: people who were given surprisingly harsh sentences, people who had clearly turned their lives around, people with health problems. 

There's one good thing that might come from all this--if any of the folks Trump pardoned in the last days of his term are called to testify about their role in his malfeasances, they can no longer claim the protections of the Fifth Amendment. The pardon means they cannot be prosecuted for their crimes, and hence they have no fear of incriminating themselves.