The Swamp was the big winner of Trump's last day in office
20 January 2021
It was 12:50 a.m. on Inauguration Day when President Trump announced 143 pardons and commutations — including a pardon for Steve Bannon. 17 minutes later,the White House released an executive order that said it all about his failure to "drain the Swamp," as he'd promised in the '16 campaign
Driving the news: Trump revokedan executive order, signed eight days after he took office, that limits his appointees' lobbying for five years after leaving the administration.
- That's a huge victory for Swamp creatures and — as Axios' Alayna Treene points out — Trump's final "screw you" to the criminal justice system that he thinks unfairly targeted him and his allies.
Among Trump's final-hours pardons:
- The Bannon pardon spared a longtime ally from a federal fraud prosecution over his alleged misappropriation of nonprofit funds for a privately financed border wall, Axios' Lachlan Markay writes.
- Elliott Broidy, former top Republican fundraiser who pleaded guilty to conspiring to violate foreign lobbying laws.
- Rapper Lil Wayne, who had pleaded guilty to a gun charge.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.