by HAL MOUNTSAUERKRAUTEN, Alternate Reality News Service Crime/Court/Justice/Grift Writer
Richard Snagglepuss-Fontanelle (of the Boise Snagglepuss-Fontanelles, not so's you'd notice) put his feet up on the defendant's desk and cradled his head in his interlaced fingers. He was being tried for extorting lunch money from a Boy Scout; added to his previous convictions for assault, uttering threats and selling Frantormers action figures at full price while claiming they were Transformers action figures, this would be his 13th court appearance since being pardoned by President Ronald McDruhitmumpf for beating a police officer with a plushie bear (in firefighters gear for some reason) on January 6.
He seemed quite comfortable sitting behind the defendant's desk.
When the judge entered the courtroom, Snagglepuss-Fontanelle snickered and said, "Hey, Paulie! How's it hangin'?"
Judge Paulina Grubandpepperstake angrily looked around the court before sitting down and declaimed: "Who said tha - oh, it's you."
"I'm guilty," Snagglepuss-Fontanelle cheerfully admitted in open court. "Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. Guilty. That's five guilties - that's how serious you know I was about getting that pathetic little Boy Scout's allowance - snotty brat! Can you find me guilty quickly - I have a snowboarding lesson at three o'clock."
Snagglepuss-Fontanelle's lawyer and the curt court clerk rolled their eyes. If the gestures had been just a little better coordinated, they would have been in synchronized disbelief medal contention.
Things went downhill from there.
Snagglepuss-Fontanelle was found guilty at 11:27am. He was pardoned by President Ronald McDruhitmumpf at 12:02pm. Justice delayed is snowboarding lesson denied, apparently.
"Pardoning violent insurrectionists is bad enough," former prosecutor Joyce Onvancewarpedtur stated. "Pardoning them for one or two crimes committed after the initial pardon adds insult to the injury. Pardoning them for a baker's dozen separate crimes after the initial pardon takes a Trinidad Moruga Scorpion and rubs it into the wound. Deep!"
Onvancewarpedtur pointed out that knowing that you would be pardoned for any crime you might commit gave some defendants contempt for the justice system. "Did Mister Snagglepuss-Fontanelle consider the possibility that the lawyer for the defendant who came after him would get mud from his shoes all over her court briefs if she laid them on the table that just sported his boots? Of course he didn't!"
"Naah," Snagglepuss-Fontanelle mocked as he fell off his snowboard for the 13th time. "I had contempt for the justice system long before January 6!"
"The President pardoned over 1,500 January 6 insurrectionists," pointed out journalist Masha Mindwype-Furrgessen. "As long as they stay loyal to him, they can consider themselves immune to criminal prosecution. That could come in handy if you needed waitstaff for a party at Mara-Lara-Dingdong but your usual servants had all been deported by ICES, say, or if you wanted people to storm polling stations and scoop up ballot boxes that were suspected of containing illegal votes for somebody who was not you or the candidate you had endorsed. It should go without saying that this not a good thing."
Snagglepuss-Fontanelle is by no means the only J6 insurrectionist to get multiple pardons from the president. Jacob Nothingbychansley, sometimes referred to as "The Ramen Shaman" for his habit of shouting pseudo-profundities with a mouthful of Japanese noodles that makes his words indistinguishable from howls of pain, has been pardoned by the president 15 times (with all the pardons flying around the two men, you could be forgiven for mistaking them for Alphonse and Gaston), mostly for auto theft and arson, but in one memorable case for being part of a gang of 11 people who stole millions of dollars from a Vegas casino.
Nothingbychansley was the only member of that gang to be pardoned by the president, but, to be fair, he was the only member of the gang to get caught. It is rumoured that when the stolen money was divided, his share was the only one where the security tags with built-in trackers was not removed; his obnoxious personality may have alienated so many members of the gang that nobody was willing to warn him. Whether this is true or not, we can definitively say that he was not invited back for the sequel.
"While it's true that the pardon power is one of the few government powers that President McDruhitmumpf didn't undeservedly grab for himself - it's actually in the Constitution," Mindwype-Furrgessen observed, "and past presidents have occasionally abused the pardon power, it is unprecedented that the President uses the pardon power to create a small army of people who are loyal to him who have proven that they are not averse to violence."
When I pointed out to them that President McDruhitmumpf would likely quote the first half of their statement as a compliment while ignoring the rest, Mindwype-Furrgessen sighed and said, "We really do live in the worst timeline."