A tale of two cities

Thursday 23rd January, 2025

Donald Trump is no stranger to controversy, but his nonconsecutive second term is going to be even more controversial than the first one if some of the executive orders he signed immediately after being inaugurated as the 47th US President on Monday are any indication. He rescinded about 78 executive actions of his predecessor, Joe Biden. He ordered that the US withdraw from the World Health Organization (WHO), causing much concern to the entire world. He levelled some unsubstantiated allegations against the WHO in a bid to justify his decision. One may recall that during his first term, the US withdrew from the United Nations Human Rights Council, which US envoy to the UN Nikki Haley called ‘a cesspool of political bias’.

President Trump issued another controversial executive order, granting a presidential pardon to about 1,500 Republican supporters serving jail terms for storming Capitol Hill on 06 Jan. 2021 in a bid to disrupt a joint session of the Congress convened to certify the results of the 2020 presidential election, where Trump lost to Biden. That blanket pardon came as a surprise even to some of Trump’s close associates. His sweeping approach to the issue is bound to be used by his critics to bolster their claim that the rioters acted at his behest in 2021. After all, Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives led by Democrats for ‘incitement of insurrection’, but he was subsequently acquitted by the Senate.

Trump’s controversial pardon for the Capitol Hill rioters came close on the heels of a much-publicised statement by Vice President J. D. Vance that those who had committed violence on 06 Jan., 2021 should not be pardoned. Ironically, during his second presidential election campaign, Trump stressed the need to restore the rule of law, and promised tough action against lawbreakers, but his first day in office saw the hard work done by the FBI, etc., in the Capitol Hill probe, which reportedly became known as the largest-ever criminal investigation in the US, being undone. Trump’s pardon will surely find its way into history books just like the one granted to the Confederate rebels after the conclusion of the Civil War.

The US never misses an opportunity to take the moral high ground and pontificate to the rest of the world on the virtues of democracy, the rule of law, justice, etc. Perhaps, what is more disturbing than Trump’s blanket pardon at issue is the fact that the US people ‘pardoned’ Trump, who mercilessly assailed the integrity of the US electoral process by challenging the outcome of the 2020 presidential election, brought the US into disrepute internationally, allegedly backed a riot that almost scuttled the certification by the Congress of the aforesaid election results, and, above all, was convicted of felony; they re-elected him President, enabling him to do more of what he drew much criticism for doing during his first term. Trump himself has been able to avoid punishment for felony thanks to his re-election. He received an ‘unconditional discharge’ from a New York court a few days before his inauguration.

President Biden granted a presidential pardon to his son, Hunter, who was to face sentencing on federal felony and tax convictions, last month, and went on to issue pre-emptive pardons for three of his siblings and two of their spouses, during the final minutes of his presidential term, claiming that they might be targets of ‘baseless and politically motivated investigations’. Those controversial pardons may have emboldened Trump to adopt a sweeping approach to the Capitol Hill riot issue.

Washington and Colombo are doubtlessly worlds apart, but one sees some striking similarities between the two cities where unfolding political scenarios are concerned. In Washington, a man who was accused of inciting an insurrection, which almost derailed the legislative certification of the outcome of a democratically conducted presidential election, in 2021, is now the US President. In Colombo, a political party, which has admitted to an abortive attempt to engineer a mob invasion of Parliament in 2022, is now in power, having secured the coveted executive presidency and obtained a two-thirds majority in Parliament. Some of the rioters have been elected to Parliament! Others who are facing legal action must be hoping for a blanket pardon.