Trump immediately flexes presidential powers: 1,500 pardons and a raft of executive orders– www.latimes.com
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Excerpt:
President Trump quickly flexed the sweeping powers of the presidency following his second inauguration at the Capitol on Monday, signing a slate of executive orders that would radically alter U.S. policy if allowed to stand.
He also pardoned or commuted the sentences of all of his loyalists — more than 1,500 people — who stormed the same Capitol building in a failed attempt to illegitimately keep him in power four years prior, repeatedly referring to them as “hostages.”
“We hope they come out tonight, frankly,” Trump said during an evening signing ceremony at the Oval Office — a reference to the fact that many of those defendants were in prison for serious offenses such as assaulting police officers.
Trump’s orders reflected an aggressive start to the conservative agenda he promised on the campaign trail, aimed at reining in illegal immigration, strengthening U.S. manufacturing and the broader economy, rolling back LGBTQ+ rights, reinforcing American dominance abroad and bending the sprawling federal bureaucracy to his will.
