There was a new emperor sworn in at noontime on January 20th, 2025—Donald John Trump. I immediately thought not of the new emperor, but of Tiberius, the old emperor, stepping down. Because in the last (I'm told) half hour or fifteen minutes of Tiberius’ time on the throne, an order was signed of pardons.
There were pardons of the family of Tiberius, but that's not what I'm looking at. I'm looking at three in particular. A member of Congress, Cheney, a member of the military. Milley. And, the twist here is a member of the executive branch of the government, Mr. Fauci. Representing the civil service, the military, and the Republican style Congress, the pardons of those three were extraordinary, because the only precedent for this pardoning someone before a crime is identified, before they're accused, before there's a grand jury, before there's hearings—the only time that I'm seeing referenced in in the write-up so far is Richard Nixon and September of 1974.
Gerald Ford, his successor, pardoned him about all crimes to do with Watergate. That's the precedent. There is no similar statement yet for General Milley, former Congresswoman Cheney and Doctor Fauci, reminding me immediately of Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, a man who ran a revolution before Caesar's revolution.
This is 1st century BCE. Germanicus and I are a 1st century A.D., and we learned this in school. Sitting here in Londinium, we're reminded suddenly of the proscriptions of Sulla. It had to do with the civil war and when Sulla won the battle back at Rome. He put out a list, and the list was all the powerful men who had opposed him while he was away in Greece winning battles for Rome. And they were to die, and their lands and money were to be forfeit.
There were caveats. If you turned somebody in, you might get mercy, or you could buy your way out, or you could swear allegiance to Sulla, maybe. But the proscriptions were ferocious, and they worked. The bloodletting went on for years. The original two had who had opposed Sulla, Marius and Cinna, were dead, so he was going after people who had supported him.
It reminded me very much of the idea of giving someone defense before they've been accused of a crime. Where is that happened before? Richard Nixon. But now it's happened with Joe Biden. This is not finished business, but there is this: the Trump campaign has talked a big game, but they've done nothing about charging, about accusing, about declaring about a grand jury, nothing.
Campaign talk from the inaugural address by Mr. Trump in these last hours, I heard nothing about arrests or grand juries or detentions. But the president on his way out, President Biden, forgave and pardoned for crimes not named.
This will not end well. But I turn to my friend Germanicus, because he has an uplifting point about this speech.
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