Last night I posted about Tump’s pardon of the ranchers who set fires on federal lands. What I didn’t know is that the pardon seems to have been the result of request from a rich guy named Forrest Lucas, a personal friend and campaign donor of Mike Pence. Mr. Lucas is an anti-regulation, pro-rancher, screw-the-environement guy who had known Pence for years.
Others who supported the pardon were Interior Secretary Zinke and a Republican Representative from Oregon, Greg Walden.
Meanwhile about 10,000 applications for clemency are sitting on a stack in the Justice Department.
The layers of corruption in this administration are amazing. Certain past administrations are often listed as examples of corruption. The Grant administration and the Harding administration are often cited. Now we have the Trump administration. This one will definitely eclipse anything that came before.
Oh yeah, the “base” doesn’t care one little bit. It has been compromised and corrupted along with its hero.
If you would like to read the whole sorry account of the pardon, see Julie Turkewitz, “Behind Ranchers’ Pardons: Tycoons With Ties to Pence,” New York Times, (July 13, 2018), p. A13. And if you wonder why I always credit my sources, it is because I went to Palmerton High School, where Mrs. Kittleberger taught us that one must always cite one’s sources.
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