The comments carried the necessary caveats. He said he might pardon people who were treated “unfairly” — his go-to justification for pardoning political allies — rather than everyone involved. He also encouraged people to protest in those three cities, rather than go beyond protesting.

But we need not look too far in the rearview mirror to see how his supporters can view this as a wink and a nod. Trump’s main defense with regard to incitement on Jan. 6 was that, yes, he told people to march to the Capitol, but he told them to “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.” Nonetheless, numerous Capitol rioters have said they believed they were acting on the wishes of a president who had often toyed with the utility and suggestions of justified violence by his supporters.

Similarly, there’s a very relevant Trump backstory when it comes to the suggestion of pardons. Although he has claimed the Mueller report constituted “total exoneration,” the report in fact laid out evidence suggesting that Trump might well have obstructed justice in many instances. (Robert S. Mueller III merely decided it wasn’t his place to directly accuse a president of crimes.) One of the things it cited: his dangling of a pardon in the Paul Manafort case, which was used to discourage Manafort’s cooperation with investigators — and seemed to work.