Report: Senate Republicans Threaten President Trump with Impeachment to Prevent Him From Pardoning Assange, Snowden
Shane Trejo
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President Donald Trump is not expected to pardon whistleblowers Edward Snowden and Julian Assange before leaving office tomorrow, with Senate Republicans holding impeachment over his head to stop him from striking back against the deep state.
The Mercury News has reported that “Trump is also not expected to pardon Edward Snowden or Julian Assange, whose roles in revealing US secrets infuriated official Washington.”
“While he had once entertained the idea, Trump decided against it because he did not want to anger Senate Republicans who will soon determine whether he’s convicted during his Senate trial. Multiple GOP lawmakers had sent messages through aides that they felt strongly about not granting clemency to Assange or Snowden,” they wrote.
President Trump will reportedly not pardon Assange and Snowden because he wants to placate the GOP swamp following the Jan.6 siege on the U.S. Capitol, which has caused many prominent Republicans to turn on the president and blame him for the violence that occurred.
“As he departs office, Trump has expressed real concern that Republicans could turn on him. A conviction in the Senate impeachment trial would limit his future political activities and strip him of some of the government perks of being an ex-president,” the Mercury News stated.
“Trump is less worried about being barred from running from office again, and more concerned with the optics of being convicted by the Senate, people familiar with the matter said,” the report continued.
President Trump will be letting down his most fervent supporters, who have joined a large bipartisan coalition to urge the president to pardon Assange and Snowden, as Big League Politics has reported:
President Donald Trump is being urged by a bipartisan coalition to pardon whistleblowers’ advocate Julian Assange, who is facing charges under the Espionage Act for reporting accurately on war crimes and other heinous government and corporate abuses.
The WikiLeaks founder has been brutalized in a hellish super-max prison in Britain awaiting possible extradition to the U.S. for nearly two years now. Trump has a chance to foil the deep state’s plans to make an example of Assange and set the precedent for other journalists to be attacked in a similar manner.
An eclectic mix of individuals, including hardcore Trump backers, far-left civil liberties activists, former Nobel Prize winners, and current and former heads of state, have signed onto a letter imploring the president to pardon Assange.
The letter, which was delivered in December, urges President Trump to put a “defining stamp on your presidential legacy by pardoning Julian Assange or stopping his extradition.” It was signed by veteran right-wing operatives Roger Stone and Dinesh D’Souza, both of whom received pardons from the president.
The former presidents of the Dominican Republic, Paraguay, Switzerland, Columbia and Brazil also signed the letter. Other signatories include former Nobel Laureates Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Mairead Maguire, Shirin Ebadi and Rigoberta Menchú.
“The US prosecution of Assange is unprecedented: he faces 175 years in prison for the same publications for which he has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. This prosecution threatens the constitutional protections that Americans hold dear. By offering a pardon, to put a stop to the prosecution of Assange, your presidency will be remembered for having saved First Amendment protections for all Americans,” the letter stated.
President Trump will be leaving the White House with the deep state stronger than ever, having failed in every sense to restore accountability to the so-called intelligence community. So much for “trust the plan,” eh?
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