WASHINGTON — President Trump on Sunday pardoned the National Thanksgiving Turkey in a brisk Rose Garden ceremony, then, noting that the pen was already uncapped and the cameras were already rolling, pardoned three senior aides, a campaign vendor, his real estate attorney’s son, and the turkey’s understudy.
The bird, a 41-pound tom named Tariff, was selected from a pool of 14 candidates after passing what aides described as ‘the most thorough loyalty review of any individual entering this White House since January.’ Tariff reportedly cleared his vetting in under nine minutes, a process the President’s last Defense Secretary nominee did not survive.
‘It’s a beautiful turkey, very strong, very obedient, did not testify against me one time,’ Trump said, signing a proclamation that grew, by the second page, to include ‘and any other persons in the immediate vicinity of this signature, you know who you are.’ Six staffers in the colonnade exchanged glances and quietly stepped closer.
According to a senior administration official who asked not to be named because he had just been pardoned for something, the President has come to view the annual turkey ceremony as ‘a really efficient legal instrument.’ Routine pardons through the Office of the Pardon Attorney, the official noted, can take eighteen months. The Rose Garden takes a Sharpie and a poultry handler.
The understudy bird, named Schedule F, was not pardoned and was returned to the holding pen at an undisclosed Virginia farm. White House sources confirmed Schedule F had ‘made some comments’ during the rehearsal walk-through and would be reassessed.
Karina Boltz, a fellow at the Beacon Project on Executive Power, said the ceremony marked the first time in American history a wild turkey received clemency before a confirmed federal prosecutor finished filing paperwork against an actual human in the same building. ‘Procedurally, it’s airtight,’ she said. ‘The Constitution does not specify that the pardon recipient must be a person, must be charged with a crime, or must be aware that any of this is happening. The turkey meets two of three.’
The Department of Justice declined to comment on whether the pre-pardons issued to bystanders carried the same legal weight as traditional ones, citing a memo it had been drafting since August and would continue drafting through the weekend. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York described herself as ‘genuinely curious how this is going to play in court’ and asked the reporter to call back Monday.
The President, asked whether he intended to pardon any of the roughly 1,200 federal inmates whose petitions have sat in the pardon office for over two years, said he hadn’t seen the list but would ‘absolutely consider it’ if any of them could be persuaded to attend next year’s ceremony in costume. ‘Bring me a guy in a turkey suit, I’ll do it on the spot,’ Trump said. ‘That’s how this works now. That’s the new system.’
Tariff was flown to a petting zoo in Florida, where he will live out his natural life under a non-disclosure agreement. Schedule F was eaten Sunday evening at a private dinner at the Trump International Hotel, where, according to the menu, he was served with cranberry reduction and a brief, unattributed prayer.