Why Trump is obsessed with the Flynn case

But perhaps the greatest looming rule-of-law risk with respect to Mr. Flynn comes from the president himself. The Mueller Report suggested Mr. Trump’s willingness to dangle pardons to those who do his bidding. In Mr. Flynn’s case the president has since said he is “strongly considering” a pardon. The president has limbered up with a series of dubious pardons and commutations for malefactors or allies ranging from Sheriff Joe Arpaio to Scooter Libby to Gov. Rod Blagojevich. Indeed, it is fair to ask whether Mr. Flynn’s abandonment of cooperation with the government was motivated by the hope of obtaining similar relief.

So we can expect that the Flynn drama will continue. At this point in the Trump presidency, who can believe that the president will resist the temptation to put his personal interests above those of the public? He did that when he said Russia would be rewarded for interfering in U.S. elections. He did it again when he fired the F.B.I. director James Comey, obstructed the Mueller investigation and pressured another foreign nation, Ukraine, to interfere in our elections. Indeed, his initial refusal to admit the seriousness of the coronavirus demonstrates that same elevation of his selfish interests in avoiding obstacles to his re-election.

The good news is that in every prior example, both our institutions and individual patriots stepped forward to respond to the harms that came out of the president’s pathological selfishness and disdain for the public interest.