Behind the Curtain: The new judge and jury
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Over just eight hours on Inauguration Day, Presidents Trump and Biden forever stretched the immense public and private power of the presidency to once-unimaginable dimensions:
- Presidents can preemptively pardon family and friends in case of any accusation of grift or crimes.
- Presidents can pardon violent criminals convicted of sedition and violence in defense of their politics.
- Presidents and their families can start businesses — or even currencies — and profit without restriction or outcry.
- Oh, and they can do this with the presumption of presidential immunity.
- America doesn't have a king. But we're dancing close to king-like power.
Why it matters: Presidents could always pardon, profit or protect friends, family and allies. It just never has been done this broadly, this brazenly, this quickly. And with this much of a public shrug.
The big picture: So much of modern political and presidential power flows from precedent and imagination: doing unto others what the predecessors did — or did to them. And then stretching the hell out of it.
Biden, under the guise of protecting his family from unfair political and legal persecution, preemptively pardoned his brothers James and Frank Biden, his sister Valerie Biden Owens, and John Owens and Sara Biden, the spouses of Valerie and James. This is unprecedented.
- "It's disgusting," Bill Daley — a longtime Biden friend who was White House chief of staff under President Obama — told us. It "confirms that there are serious concerns about culpability." Daley said the Bidens will never wipe this "stain" from the former president's legacy.
- Trump blasted the pardons, moments before offering his own to approximately 1,500 people convicted or charged in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol — including violent criminals who attacked police officers.
Trump also pardoned Enrique Tarrio, the fascist Proud Boy leader convicted of seditious conspiracy — and serving a 22-year sentence in federal prison — for coordinating the attack on the Capitol from outside Washington.
- Trump also commuted the sentences of 14 extremist members of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers convicted for plotting to violently overthrow the U.S. government and keep Trump in office.
- The sweeping acts of clemency stunned Washington and contradicted prior statements from Republicans — including Vice President JD Vance — that violent offenders should not be pardoned.
Between the lines: Biden, who earlier pardoned his son, Hunter, basically offered blanket immunity to family members who might be accused of profiting from this presidency.
Trump tested new limits by launching a surprise meme coin, $TRUMP, that vaulted him to crypto billionaire status two days before being inaugurated.
- Crypto insiders fear that $TRUMP — as well as the hastily launched $MELANIA meme coin — could destroy credibility that the scam-plagued industry has spent years trying to build.
- Remember, Trump once was a crypto skeptic and converted only during the 2024 campaign. He then became a beneficiary, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, of the industry's open wallet. What an ROI!
Most Americans don't realize there are basically no limitations on presidents profiting off their reins of power through new businesses or business deals.
- Thanks to the Supreme Court, presidents also enjoy the presumption of immunity for "official acts" if they're ever accused of crossing any legal lines.
So Trump and his family conceivably could make billions through deals worldwide, new businesses and new currencies, funding the family — or even a political movement — for a generation. Their only limitation is imagination.
- America has drifted into uncharted waters in the rule of law. Trump and future presidents can test the limits with a presumption of success. And Biden's final act of pardons show Democrats have lost a lot of ability to cry foul.
- Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) told reporters on Capitol Hill Tuesday when asked about Trump's blanket Jan. 6 pardons: "We said all along that Biden opened the door on this."
We'll leave you with this: Now that presidential power is so broad, so deep, so uncontainable, why forfeit it? Well, here's an apparent loophole in the constitutional limit on two presidential terms:
- Trump or future presidents could simply run for a de facto third term — as the vice presidential nominee, with the understanding they will take power back once elected. That's but one of the once-unthinkable scenarios that seem more thinkable than ever.
Axios' Zachary Basu contributed reporting.
