'So clueless': Indicted Trump ally lashes out over conservative magazine's new suggestion
A former top Justice Department official indicted in the Georgia election scheme defended Donald Trump against the need for a pardon.
Jeffrey Clark, who has pleaded not guilty to violating the state’s racketeering law and attempting to make false statements, pushed back Friday morning against a column by the National Review's executive editor Mark Antonio Wright, who argued that president Joe Biden should pardon the president-elect for the crimes he allegedly committed.
"He should do this not because Trump is entirely blameless for the circumstances surrounding his indictments that have been leveled against him," Wright wrote. "He's not blameless, especially in the Mar-a-Lago classified-documents case, where the publicly available evidence shows that Trump, at a minimum, negligent and, at maximum, absolutely complicit in ignoring the statutes governing the handling of classified information and, possibly, those concerning the obstruction of justice."
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"The constellation of charges surrounding Trump's actions on and before Jan. 6, 2021, are more opaque, not because Trump's actions were not mendacious, self-serving and contemptible, but because I'm not certain that Trump's plan crossed the line," Wright added.
Clark, who's named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the special counsel's election interference case against Trump and is seen as a leading candidate to lead the Department of Justice in the next administration, argued that pardons were unnecessary because the criminal cases were "a mockery of the law and of justice."
"The National Review calls for Biden to pardon Trump," Clark posted on X Friday. "They say Biden should do that even though Trump is guilty in the Mar-a-Lago documents case brought by Jack Smith. They’re oh so magnanimous and full of rectitude. No, National Review, you continue to be out to lunch. The Mar-a-Lago documents case was always a mockery of the law and of justice. Moreover, the case is currently under an order of dismissal. So why on earth would Trump need a pardon for it?"
"Also, Jack Smith has leaked that his days are numbered and the case won’t proceed past January 20, 2025," he added. "Why is our most famous 'conservative' magazine so clueless?"