John Oliver on Sunday exposed what he called the “flagrant” hypocrisy at the heart of Donald Trump’s use of the presidential pardon power.
The “Last Week Tonight” host warned that Trump’s dubious use of power is “not likely to stop anytime soon,” and he also admitted there is “not much that we can do” about it.
“Trump loves to rail about how tough he is when it comes to law and order,” Oliver noted. “But that toughness is clearly deeply selective because he’ll happily put violent people and fraudsters right back on the streets to victimize people again just because they support him.”
Trump’s use of pardons has “escalated sharply,” Oliver noted, with nearly 2,000 already issued during his second term compared with 238 during his first, including for his supporters involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“I know it is not news that America has a two-tiered justice system, but this is taking it to an absurd extreme,” Oliver said. “The way we’re going right now, we may well end up at a point where we don’t so much have a system of laws as much as we just have ‘a guy.’ And if you’re on that guy’s team, you basically get to commit crimes.”
He added, “But the thing is, that’s just not the social contract any of us signed up for. All of this is a very, very slippery slope.”