What does Trump’s chaotic final month tell us about his plans?

True to form, Donald Trump has strayed from convention in his final days in the Oval Office, most recently with a series of questionable pardons. Sean O’Grady considers what this might reveal

Trump is using the vast powers of patronage in the twilight of his presidency (AP)

Usually the transition period, the weeks between the election and the inauguration of a new president of the United States, is a quiet affair. As with so much else about the Trump presidency, this time around things are far from normal.  

In recent days, for example, the president has been dishing out sinecure roles on various quangos, commissions and committees to some of his most loyal and partisan associates, including former campaign manager and adviser Kellyanne Conway to serve on the board of visitors to the US Air Force Academy, with which she has no connection. The soon-to-be former secretary for transportation, Elaine Chao will find a berth on the board of trustees of the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Matt Schlapp, chair of the American Conservative Union and who believes that the election was stolen, will be joining the Library of Congress Trust Fund Board. Trump is not the first president to discover the joys of his vast powers of patronage, but he is certainly spending a lot of time on them during the twilight of his presidency.  

More high-profile, and rather more serious, has been the record number of executions he has caused to proceed. Again, it is a perfectly legitimate power of the presidency, though the unspoken rule has long been that an outgoing president who has ceded a mandate should allow their successor to take a fresh look at such difficult cases on death row.