{"id":7320,"date":"2025-11-10T20:17:26","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T20:17:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/11\/10\/trump-claims-he-pardoned-his-fake-electors-he-doesnt-have-that-power-mother-jones\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T20:17:26","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T20:17:26","slug":"trump-claims-he-pardoned-his-fake-electors-he-doesnt-have-that-power-mother-jones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2025\/11\/10\/trump-claims-he-pardoned-his-fake-electors-he-doesnt-have-that-power-mother-jones\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Claims He \u201cPardoned\u201d His Fake Electors. He Doesn\u2019t Have That Power. – Mother Jones"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Donald<\/p>\n

Donald Trump’s November 9 pardon proclamation is legally weak.<\/span>Luis M. Alvarez\/AP<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Get your news from a source that\u2019s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily<\/em>.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Donald Trump has <\/span>reportedly pardoned high-profile attorneys accused of joining in his plot to try to steal the 2020 election, along with dozens of so-called fake electors alleged to have played small roles in the effort. The pardons were announced by Ed Martin, the president\u2019s pardon attorney, who posted a proclamation<\/a> by the president outlining them on X.<\/p>\n

The pardons, which on Monday afternoon had not appeared<\/a> on White House page listing Trump\u2019s clemency grants, are symbolic. They are part of Trump\u2019s larger effort to downplay his attempt to subvert the 2020 election and his responsibility for the January 6, 2021, attack on Congress. None of the people he pardoned Sunday\u2014including<\/a> lawyers Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis and Jeffrey Clark\u2014face federal charges. But many on the list have been charged with state crimes related to the fake elector scheme. The president has broad clemency power over federal crimes, but has no authority over state charges.<\/p>\n

Mother Jones <\/em>first reported<\/a> in June that Martin, who is himself a former<\/a> \u201cStop the Steal\u201d organizer and activist attorney for<\/a> January 6 defendants, was working on a plan for Trump to pardon alleged fake electors. A person familiar with the pardon plan acknowledged at the time that such pardons would have no legal weight, though the source argued that attorneys for defendants might cite the presidential proclamation in court filings urging judges to dismiss fake elector cases.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors in Arizona<\/a>, Georgia<\/a>, Michigan<\/a>, Nevada<\/a> and Wisconsin<\/a> have charged<\/a> so-called fake electors in those states with crimes including fraud. These are mostly small-time Republican activists who falsely claimed to be the legitimate electors, in claims that were part of Trump\u2019s push to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to reject the legitimate election results and accept pro-Trump slates of electors that could throw the election to him. The circumstances in each state differ, but generally, local prosecutors are struggling to persuade<\/a> judges that the defendants broke the law by claiming to be legitimate electors. Many defendants may not welcome Trump\u2019s legally worthless but politically charged attempt to intervene in their cases.<\/p>\n

The Sunday pardons are part of a recent clemency spree by Trump. His latest pardons include former New York Mets star Darryl Strawberry<\/a> and Changpeng Zhao,<\/a> a Chinese-born founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance. Strawberry is one of various celebrities<\/a> Trump has pardoned. Zhao is one of several Trump pardons that appear<\/a> corrupt<\/a>: Zhao, who pleaded guilty to US money laundering charges in 2023, paid Trump associates to lobby for his pardon, and Binance earlier this year cut a deal<\/a> with Trump World Liberty Financial, a crypto company launched by Trump\u2019s sons, that has helped to enrich<\/a> the Trump family.<\/p>\n

Martin served as interim US Attorney for the District of Columbia until his nomination to hold the job permanently failed<\/a> in the Senate in May. He has since worked as Trump\u2019s pardon adviser and head of a so-called weaponization task force in the Justice Department, efforts he has aggressively<\/a> publicized. He has touted<\/a> his role<\/a> in federal prosecutions of New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey in statements that bolster widespread views that those cases are acts of political retribution.<\/p>\n

Martin\u2019s original plan for fake elector pardons went further than Trump did on Sunday\u2014for example, Martin considered recommending that Trump pardon John F. Kennedy supporters who in 1960 signed paperwork saying they were Hawaii\u2019s presidential electors when a recount left the actual winner of the state uncertain. Kennedy won Hawaii, and those electors were accepted as the state\u2019s legitimate slate and never accused of crimes. Also, they are dead. <\/p>\n

But pardoning them, the person familiar with the plan said, would have been a gesture aimed at boosting Trump supporters\u2019 claims<\/a> that 2020 fake electors did nothing wrong. The source did not explain why that part of the fake elector pardon plan did not move forward. But it may have been a step too far, even for Trump.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Donald Trump’s November 9 pardon proclamation is legally weak.Luis M. Alvarez\/AP Get your news from a source that\u2019s not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily. Donald Trump has reportedly pardoned high-profile attorneys accused of joining in his plot to try to steal the 2020 election, along with dozens […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7321,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}