In today’s post by Heather Cox Richardson, where she talks about the Iran-Contra affair, and the pardons that were made:
The independent prosecutor in the case, Lawrence Walsh, worried that the pardons weakened American democracy. They “undermine…the principle…that no man is above the law,” he said. Pardoning high-ranking officials “demonstrates that powerful people with powerful allies can commit serious crimes in high office, deliberately abusing the public trust without consequences.”
This was a real conspiracy, and they got caught. The way we repair, and build democracy back up, is by prosecuting crimes like this and punishing those involved. We are living in the wake of not doing enough of that. What’s weird about it, and this shows how damaging it is to ignore the crimes, the people who say Trump is the victim of a conspiracy, are the same ones who point to this past action of the US and say it proves there is a deep state.
It’s the result of having that kind of chaos and arbitrary justice at the highest level. People throw up their hands and say nothing can be done. Then, someone comes along who claims to be outside of all of the corruption and to be the savior of the people.