There can be no doubt that Rep. Diana Harshbarger has proved herself a loyal ally to Donald Trump. Last year, for example, when his hush money trial was underway, the Tennessee Republican went to New York City to extend her in-person support. A year later, when the president returned to power, Harshbarger not only followed Trump’s directives, she also helped champion legislation to create a new $250 bill with Trump’s face on it.
The GOP congresswoman’s efforts were not only noticed, they have also apparently been rewarded. The New York Times reported:
President Trump quietly pardoned the husband of Representative Diana Harshbarger, Republican of Tennessee, last week amid a string of clemency grants to allies. In 2013, Robert Harshbarger Jr., a licensed pharmacist at the time, pleaded guilty to health care fraud and distributing a misbranded drug, in this case kidney medications, some of which came from China, that were not approved for the purpose by the Food and Drug Administration.
The White House has yet to explain why the pardon of Robert Harshbarger Jr. went unannounced after the president signed it late last week.
A few days prior, during a briefing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters, “When it comes to pardons, the White House takes them with the utmost seriousness.” The president’s top spokesperson added that each pardon is subjected to “a very thorough review process,” conducted by a team of “qualified lawyers.”
How Leavitt managed to deliver the line with a straight face remains a mystery.
The president’s yearlong pattern hasn’t exactly been subtle. You attacked the U.S. Capitol as part of a plot to keep Trump in power despite his 2020 defeat? You get a pardon. You helped advance a quasi-legal political scheme to overturn the 2020 results? You get a pardon. You’re a Republican official convicted of corruption charges? You get a pardon. You helped finance the president’s stablecoin and put money in the Trump family’s pockets? You get a pardon. You’re a close relative of a Trump political supporter? You get a pardon.
A variety of adjectives come to mind. “Subtle” isn’t one of them.
The president seems eager to act with impunity, confident in the knowledge that a Republican-led Congress will shrug with indifference. Republican-appointed Supreme Court justices have already said Trump’s office effectively puts him above the law. Evidence of corruption doesn’t seem to have an appreciable impact on his approval rating, and news organizations have to divide their coverage between this and a wide variety of other presidential abuses.
The result is a dynamic in which Trump is effectively declaring, “I’m handing out pardons like party favors to my political allies, because they’re my political allies, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” Traditionally, presidents have issued pardons to right a wrong or to protect those who have been falsely accused of wrongdoing. In 2025, if Trump sees a convicted criminal as an ally, or even the relative of an ally, that’s apparently all the president needs to know. For all the GOP hysterics during the Biden era about a “two-tiered” system of justice, it seems the White House has gone out of its way to create the very dynamic Republicans claimed to be against. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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