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Comment by fny | Hacker News Reader

What you're saying here is contradictory. Sure the GOP hates Trump, and Trump also hates the GOP. And that's exactly why Trump didn't give a damn to GOP criticism of his pardons.

McConnell has no influence. That's why Stone, Kushner, and Bannon are on the list among others.

Trump decided not to pardon Snowden and Assange. Full stop.

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Not quite. Trump knows they're more or less okay with him pardoning Bannon - it pisses them off, but at the end of the day it's water under the bridge. Whereas Assange getting pardoned would absolutely infuriate the "deep state" to an extent that's hard to describe.

Trump should have pardoned Assange, it's the only thing that would actually have taken a (small) chunk out of the "deep state" for real. Instead, as many of us saw coming, Trump's rhetoric about "draining the swamp" and "fighting the deep state" was always empty bluster.

Now Assange will die in prison (there's not a snowball's chance in hell that Biden pardons him, to state the obvious).

If you were waiting until now for trump to prove that he was a righteous man who keeps up on his promises then you willfully avoiding reading the story that repeats ad nauseum for the man's entire existence.

What a senselessly uncharitable comment. Blockcipher said "as many of us saw coming"; clearly Trump's nature is not a recent realization for them.

Hence the "if you were" - if you weren't, feel free to ignore this comment.

> McConnell has no influence. That's why Stone, Kushner, and Bannon are on the list among others.

Hang on, if you’re certain about it being entirely trumps decision not to pardon Snowden or Assange... can we at least have a citation that McConnell cared at all about Stone Kushner or Bannon?

You declaring that those names put together are in any way equal to the weight of Snowden -or- Assange?

I never suggested Trump did want to. I suggested he could not.

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