Trump has been making a few press appearances after being mostly radio silent since the election, and he said he would pardon the January 6th insurrectionists. I think we should assume that will happen on January 20th or 21st. It sucks, but historical memory is long.
He also said that the members of the January 6th Select Committee should go to jail.
Now, pardoning the insurrectionists is "bad" because they are criminals, but the president has broad (too broad) pardon powers. If he does that, it's bad and skeevy but not the end of the world.
Going after members of Congress is where we start to bleed from "bad" to bad. The thing is, when Trump says they "ought to be in jail" that's likely more of his blustering bullying bullshit. There is no legal reason why he can jail them, even if Kash Patel is head of the FBI.
There is some thought to Biden preemptively pardoning anyone who might be on Trump's "enemies list." What I'd rather see is some billionaire creating a legal defense fund to fight blatantly political prosecutions. The power of the government is not dictatorial but size. They can exhaust you financially by bringing cases against you. The preemptive pardons would feed into Trumpist narratives about his enemies "crimes" but do we care?
It's not my skin in the game, but I would rather they fight this out in court. That will be the evidence of the Orbanization of America.
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