Their reported fear is that Trump antagonists like Adam Schiff, Liz Cheney, and others could become legal targets of Donald Trump when he takes office and potentially tries to pull on them the kinds of politically motivated, evil-spirited, targeted lawfare they tried to pull on him. 

The departing cabal’s problem is none of them have the endurance skills and strength, the personal fortune, and the tempered-steel will of the new president, who can’t take office soon enough. That’s Trump’s most powerful political and diplomatic trait as a national leader.

No one knows exactly what No. 47 might do, which affords Trump all the power you can imagine, quite possibly more than he actually has or might use. 

The implied power of Trump’s persona and threats, for example, finally brought North Korea’s tiny leader to the negotiating table after the standard pleas of four previous presidents failed. It certainly convinced more than enough voters to choose Trump on Nov. 5.

I have no idea if Trump really plans retributions for the amazing array of adversities that his enemies have launched at him since he announced a campaign in June 2015. The hoaxes, the distortions, the malicious leaks and lies, the impeachments, exaggerated charges, outrageous fines and bonds, the gag orders. 

Plus, the complicit media selectively hyping the worst details while omitting others. And then a couple of deranged assassination plots.

All this could easily seem to justify revenge. Crime families would strike back and go to the mattresses after lesser attacks.

Karma is a bitch. Watching it strike others who deserve it can be quite satisfying, assuming you’re out of range. Like those online videos of road-rage drivers pulling a reckless stunt right in front of a state trooper.

By far, Trump’s best cabinet pick ever was the calculating Gen. James Mattis as Defense Secretary in 2016. The murderous ISIS Caliphate never knew what hit it.

The picks of a self-assured Trump this term are measured by a yardstick of loyalty and toughness. His vetting process needs work. But a number do have military experience and character, not of Mattis’ caliber, but their determination to shake things up is evident.

And that’s what we need desperately after four years of dazed shuffling through Biden screw-up after screw-up and his vacuous vice president. 

Trump has set an aggressive agenda for the first day and beyond: working to rebuild energy independence, refilling the strategic oil reserves Biden drained, deregulating for job creation, shredding DEI wherever it’s found, cutting taxes, maybe making life harder for legacy media, addressing the infections of illegal immigration, cutting government. 

Previous government efficiency commissions have disappointing records. I suspect this one with Musk and Ramaswamy will be different. 

Presidents never get everything done that they want or promise. But they get it started. The Interstate highway system that Dwight Eisenhower recommended as an Army colonel in 1919 didn’t get started until Ike was president in 1956. But it’s still going strong; millions use it daily and don’t know the origin.

Trump’s promised border wall was not completed in the first term, and Mexico didn’t pay a peso. But it elevated that issue of national security there and proved a key reason for Kamala Harris’ ultimate deserving defeat. 

The nation – specifically, millions of taxpayers in hundreds of communities – will endure the costs of that malfeasance for decades in taxes, schools, crime, and social welfare.

You’ll notice Trump promised the largest deportation program in history — without precise numbers. Realistically, he’ll not be able to deport the 10 million-plus illegals that Biden and Harris so willfully allowed in. But he’ll start.

Come to think of it now, Biden might want to grant himself a preemptive blanket pardon for that gross, intentional malfeasance, among many others. And the other derelictions of duty, inattention, dishonest behaviors, indecision, deadly decisions, and arrogance.  

Do you recall any legacy media blowing a whistle? Until 55 million of us saw his shocking mental incapacity live during the disastrous June debate. No pardon for their malfeasance, either.

If Biden wanted to protect a presidential son from a vulnerable time in prison, he could have simply commuted those sentences and let the convictions stand as an example of the “justice” he dishonestly claims to value.

But no! He or Jill, or whoever is telling him what to do, wiped the slate clean.

Not only that, but Joe Biden granted Hunter Biden a blanket pardon for any other crimes that may or may not have occurred during an 11-year period from Jan. 1, 2014, through last weekend, Dec. 1.

The need to cover that broad period of wanton behavior, the drug and alcohol abuse, tax evasion, influence peddling, deadbeat-dad activities, and prostitution employment, strongly suggests there is more illegal behavior we do not yet know about but that future inquiries by an adversarial attorney general might uncover.

Let's be honest — unlike Joe Biden — it also sounds like a guilty father buying the silence of an incorrigible son who knows the seamy details of Dad’s under-the-table financial cut and notoriously complained on his laptop about “the Big Guy” taking too much of his ill-gotten gains from international influence-peddling.

In Russia, such a potential threat might accidentally fly out of a 10th-story apartment window some dark night. That would be a little obvious in this case. And neither Biden’s beach house nor the White House has 10 stories.

As my friend Don Surber put it:

We knew (Biden) would pardon Hunter, his bagman and son. Blood is thicker than water, but not as thick as someone having the dirt on you. Hunter had the receipts and put them on a laptop.

Biden couldn’t care less that he and his paid spokespeople vowed numerous times that Hunter would never ever get a presidential pardon. Biden family honor.

What can anybody do about it? Which is how Joe Biden thinks, when he is able.

The latest Biden lie (don’t worry, not the last; there will be more in these final 43 days) caused a predictable chorus of CYA outrage among Democrats, who know the old man will be gone in a few weeks. But that their reactions today will show up in any future reelection campaigns.

Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet:

President Biden’s decision put personal interest ahead of duty and further erodes Americans’ faith that the justice system is fair and equal for all.

As if any faith remains in the Biden Justice Department. The next time you hear such false sentiments will be the day when media asks Capitol Hill Democrats about Joe Biden’s passing.

It does not appear that Joe “Mr. Empathy” Biden has a sense of shame or guilt for anything, certainly not for serial lying about anything and everything, including even a dead son’s military record.

We’ll never know if Joe Biden feels any guilt for his fatherly failings with Hunter. Or if karma visits him to atone for his chronic untruths, his double dealings, corruption, his deadly screw-ups like the Afghan exit, his heartless reactions, and cruel comments to families. 

I doubt it. 

More likely, some future summer day, Joe Biden will be sprawled flat again on the presidential beach chair in the umbrella’s shade on the Delaware shore.

He’ll think back to last summer’s political coup by his dear, trusted friends, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, the one that snatched his rigged nomination away and handed it to his hand-picked, incompetent vice president. 

And the 46^th president will lie to himself, “I could have been great.”