In his excellent book “The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic,” Mike Duncan writes that one of the key things that ultimately brought an end to the Roman Republic, and ushered in the era of emperors, was a breakdown in what the Romans called “mos maiorum,” or the unwritten rules, traditions and time-honored principles that helped govern Roman political life. … I thought of “mos maiorum” today after reading this NYT piece about President Biden’s pre-emptive pardons issued just prior to Donald Trump’s inauguration. From the Times: “Mr. Biden effectively turned the president’s constitutional power of forgiveness into a protective shield against what he maintains would be politically motivated vengeance. No other president has employed executive clemency in such a broad and overt way to thwart a successor he believes would abuse his power.”

And thus yet another wise unwritten political tradition is shattered in America. What a disgrace. … I distinctly recall many expressing concern that Trump might take the unprecedented step of issuing himself a pardon (NYT) after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol. Hey, what’s now stopping Trump from issuing himself a future pardon, a form of personal immunity not covered by the presidential immunity magically found and granted last year by SCOTUS? … Every time these ever-warring political classes violate our contemporary version of “mos maiorum,” they weaken our Republic. And that’s what Biden just did with his pardons (which include members of his family, as the Times reports). … Stay tuned for more outrageous, norm-busting pardons under Trump II.