"Video Transcript: The Semi-Inside Story of Why Trump Refused to Pardon Snowden and Assange" (Greenwald):
". . . Trump wanted to pardon Edward Snowden and had strongly considered pardoning Julian Assange, but got scared into pardoning neither of them for reasons I'm about to explain to you.
Now, remember what happened after that Politico article on December 24th? After all of these indications were coming that Donald Trump was considering pardoning both Snowden and Assange, he was considering declassifying the JFK files. He was considering a whole variety of other acts that the establishment in Washington, meaning the establishment wings of all parties or petrified he was going to do.
What happened, they brought a second impeachment trial against him after January six. They brought in impeachment proceedings against the president, who they knew they had no time to impeach and remove from office. Why would they do that? It never made any sense from that perspective. Why would you try and impeach somebody who is obviously going to be leaving the White House before you have a chance to impeach them?
The reason is is because that gave them enormous leverage Republicans in particular over Trump being able to say to him, we know you want to do things like pardoning Edward Snowden and are considering Julian Assange and are considering declassifying CIA documents from 60 years ago about the JFK assassination and other matters that we don't want you to do. And now we have leverage over you. If you do something like pardoning Julian Assange or Edward Snowden, we will vote to convict you in that impeachment trial that will render you potentially barred from seeking office in the future. You will have been the first president or the second president and the first president in over a century to be impeached and then convicted. It was a serious threat that Trump wanted to avoid. And the Republicans like Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham, who were working with Liz Cheney to prevent these pardons, suddenly had a lot of leverage over Trump."
at 1/08/2022 09:01:00 AM