Trump has exploited pardons and clemency to reward allies and supporters

The beneficiaries of President Donald Trump s mercy in his second term have mostly been people with access to the president or his inner circle Those who have followed the rules set out by the Department of Justice meanwhile are still waiting Trump has granted clemency to allies donors and culture-war figures as well as felons who like him were convicted of financial wrongdoing On Friday he granted pardons to people including Rudy Giuliani and other allies tied to efforts to overturn the balloting though they are mostly symbolic because federal pardons do not apply to ongoing or viable state prosecutions which multiple of the grantees face Those clemencies came on top of the commutation awarded last month to George Santos the disgraced former New York congressman uncovered guilty of defrauding donors and lying to the House of Representatives Trump cut short Santos seven-year sentence after less than three months For those who followed the standard protocol set out by the Department of Justice the sense is growing that the process no longer matters they ve watched the community database of applicants swell with thousands of pending cases while Trump grants pardons to people who never entered the system at all In just over nine months back in office roughly people have filed petitions for pardons or commutations about two-thirds the total of the applications submitted during the entire Biden presidency Under Justice Department standards and requirements people seeking pardons generally must wait five years after their release from incarceration demonstrate good conduct and remorse and file petitions through the Office of the Pardon Attorney But Trump s actions in his second term show he has largely abandoned that process Those who have followed the rules are still waiting They include small-business owners with decades-old fraud cases veterans seeking to regain the gun rights that were stripped away with their convictions and people working jobs far below their experience because of the stigma of a criminal record It s unfair to the little guy declared Margaret Love who served as pardon attorney from to under Presidents George H W Bush and Bill Clinton and now represents people in clemency cases I tell people Sorry you don t have a chance The pattern began in Trump s first term when fewer than half of his clemency recipients had applied through the Office of the Pardon Attorney By one estimate only in had been recommended by career executives in that office In his second term the break from the formal process has only widened Only of the roughly people granted pardons had filed petitions to the Office of the Pardon Attorney and even within that small group certain did not appear to meet the Justice Department s standards and requirements A huge chunk of the pardons roughly were people convicted for their roles in the Jan riot at the Capitol The rest have come largely through back channels In chosen of the more striking cases Trump s pardons erased not only criminal convictions for defendants tied to large-scale corruption and financial crimes but the restitution judges had ordered or that defendants had agreed to pay The Justice Department did not respond to questions about why various latest pardons appear to have come outside the traditional review process or why the president has tended to use his clemency power to help political allies and people convicted of financial crimes or inhabitants corruption A spokesperson for the department disclosed in an email that the Office of the Pardon Attorney is processing clemency applications The Department the spokesperson revealed is committed to timely and diligently reviewing all applications and making recommendations to the President that are consistent unbiased and uphold the rule of law Last month Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao the billionaire founder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance who had served four months in prison after pleading guilty in to charges of enabling money laundering The Wall Street Journal announced that Binance had hired a lobbyist to pursue the pardon The company has also supported Trump s family s crypto ventures In a Minutes interview Trump noted that a lot of people required me to pardon Zhao and that he didn t know him personally White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed last week that there was a whole unit of qualified lawyers who look at every single pardon request and that Trump was the final decision-maker She commented he was very clear when he came into office that he was most of interested in looking at pardoning individuals who were abused and used by the Biden Department of Justice and were overprosecuted by a weaponized DOJ A House Judiciary Committee account written by Democratic staffers which Republicans on the panel did not respond to located that Trump s second-term pardons had wiped out more than billion in restitution and fines owed to casualties and to the community The White House called the account pointless Last month the Securities and Exchange Commission now led by Trump appointees dropped parallel civil cases that could have forced several defendants who were granted clemency by Trump to return hundreds of millions of dollars more leaving casualties with little recourse beyond private lawsuits But it s not as if Trump broke a system that was working A president s pardon powers are considered absolute For years the clemency process has been criticized as slow opaque and riddled with conflicts of interest with Department of Justice attorneys helping to decide the fate of the very people they once sought to imprison Presidents were usually faulted for using the power too sparingly to right wrongs Trump had a rare opportunity to fix the system Instead experts stated he has exploited it If you re a donor or political supporter you move to the front of the line reported Jim Hux a lawyer representing a Missouri man seeking a pardon for tax crimes he committed two decades ago He disclosed his client has led a model life since finishing his sentence and fits the other criteria the Justice Department says it looks for Related What law and order Trump s first week will only unleash more crime He d love to take his grandson hunting and can t do that because he can t possess a firearm Hux commented He solicited that his client not be named But after months of watching Trump issue clemency to people who didn t meet the criteria and who never went through the Office of the Pardon Attorney Hux commented that he was discouraged If you re just an average citizen you can t even get in the line Hux commented I communicated my guy he d seemingly be better off if he broke into the Capitol or made a major donation to Trump s inauguration In the fall of Jared Kushner convened a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House In attendance were his wife Ivanka Trump conservative legal activist Leonard Leo former Obama adviser Van Jones and Kevin Sharp a former federal judge who had resigned from the bench in protest over mandatory sentencing laws and had become an advocate for clemency reforms Also in the room was Kim Kardashian the reality television star who had reinvented herself as a criminal justice advocate She had already successfully lobbied Trump to commute the life sentence for Alice Marie Johnson a grandmother from Tennessee who had served more than two decades for cocaine trafficking and who became a national symbol of the harsh mandatory sentences imposed on nonviolent drug offenders During the Republican National Convention two years later Trump would go on to grant Johnson a full pardon Johnson s release helped pave the way for the conversation Kushner brought in legal scholars to talk about adjustment inviting Mark Osler of the University of St Thomas in Minnesota and Rachel Barkow of New York University to explain how the clemency system worked why it failed bulk applicants and what it would take to fix it A large number of observers of the presidential clemency system agreed it needed fixing Strong cases languished in bureaucratic limbo while families of applicants pleaded in vain Then Trump had an opportunity to repair it His feud with his own Justice Department during the inquiry into ballot interference by Russia gave him space to rethink the process to pull clemency away from the bureaucracy Kushner had a strong interest in mercy and second chances His father Charles Kushner had been charged with tax and campaign-finance crimes Prosecutors noted he had arranged for a prostitute to lure his brother-in-law into a videotaped encounter and sent the tape to his sister before she was due to testify against him Kushner pleaded guilty and went to prison Jared Kushner would later write in Time magazine that he had spent time with families of people in prison and knew from that experience how much those people would benefit from having someone in my office who cared about this issue Standing at opposite ends of a conference table the law professors proposed an independent board to review petitions promptly and fairly free from prosecutorial bias It would be similar to President Gerald Ford s post-Vietnam War clemency commission which reviewed petitions from draft resisters and evaders recommended pardons or alternative organization for them and revealed directly to the president According to Osler a leading expert on clemency the participants had questions after the presentation but there was no obvious dissent The participants he reported seemed to agree that his and Barkow s proposal was the best path forward Barkow declined to comment Sharp recalled that after the meeting he met again with Kushner and a meager others Jared in our post-meeting seemed to agree with all of that Sharp noted The question was what would it look like We sat back there and kind of mapped out scenarios of what one of these commissions would look like how expected clemency applications funnel through and who would look at them before sending those recommendations to the president Sharp reported the commission would have people with experience from the prosecution side of the justice system people with experience on the defense side of the system citizens who worked in these areas and were familiar with the issues And then Sharp announced it just withered on the vine Kushner did not respond to requests for comment Trump did advance notable criminal justice modification when he signed the First Step Act in December The bipartisan measure eased certain federal sentences by addressing disparities in drug penalties and giving judges added flexibility in sentencing nonviolent offenders While not a pardon particular legal experts have described the law as a structural act of clemency because it reduced mandatory sentences and allowed earlier release for thousands of prisoners Trump handed out pardons on his own terms though Multiple of his first-term pardons came after he had lost the referendum including to campaign aides and four of the six associates who were convicted in the study by special counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the ballot Among the people granted pardons Charles Kushner whom Trump in his second term named U S ambassador to France and Monaco Rather than rely on the Justice Department s traditional review system Trump in his second term has built a parallel configuration of mercy led by political allies and media figures who can reach him directly He appointed Ed Martin a longtime Missouri political operative and early Trump backer as pardon attorney and the head of a new Weaponization Working Group at the Justice Department after Martin s nomination for U S attorney for the District of Columbia was withdrawn when Republican senators pulled their backing Martin s dual role was a sign that pardons had become more overt political weapons He pledged to scrutinize Biden-era pardons and review what he described as a weaponized justice system After Trump pardoned Scott Jenkins a sheriff in Virginia and a longtime supporter convicted of taking bribes for political favors Martin posted on X No MAGA left behind Martin did not respond to requests for comment A newest NBC News description described pardons being overseen by a tight circle led by Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and White House Counsel David Warrington Johnson the drug offender whom Kardashian had convinced Trump to free advises on drug cases as Trump s pardon czar Johnson s position is new She has stated she helps find people serving or who have served long prison sentences for nonviolent crimes and have been rehabilitated and can safely reenter their communities She also seeks out people she believes were targeted for political reasons and submits their names to Trump But it s not clear how people without connections are supposed to reach her or what standards she uses to decide which names make it to the president Johnson has no general contact information and did not respond to messages seeking comment sent to the White House and to her personal email account and Facebook page Warrington and Wiles as well as the White House also did not respond Particular lawyers explained Johnson s influence has been minimal One clemency attorney who represents multiple clients and who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect the chances of his clients receiving clemency recounted ProPublica that in Trump s second term he does not necessarily file cases with the Office of the Pardon Attorney The bulk effective direction he revealed is a direct line to the Office of the White House Counsel Osler reported he doesn t know how to reach Johnson or anyone else on Trump s pardon squad He runs a law-school clinic where students file clemency petitions for people they believe deserve a second chance but revealed We don t know what the process is It s not Alice s fault but this is not what we proposed he commented referring to the amendment plan he and Barkow presented to Trump s association in the president s first term Clemency is not meant to be a function that operates within a closed circle he reported It s something the Constitution establishes to give hope to the a multitude of including those who don t have the support the fame or the connections to address the current system Liliana Trafficante is one of the thousands hoping for clemency Like numerous of the people who have received pardons or commutations she was convicted of a financial crime But unlike Charles Kushner she had no family tie to the president s inner circle And unlike Santos she had never been to Mar-a-Lago She filed her petition for a pardon on her own Trafficante who lives in the Bronx pleaded guilty in to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in a multiyear scheme in which she collected more than million in investments for a water park for foster children that she never built She served just over three years in federal prison and was ordered to pay restitution to her casualties She explained in an interview that she makes monthly payments but at times has been unable to keep up She stated in an interview that she feels remorse and accepts that what she did was wrong though she maintains she was not the mastermind of the scheme Trafficante mentioned that she now works as a chaplain who ministers to people in shelters and on the streets This year she revealed on Instagram that she was running for the New York City Council But under a city law she could not legally take office even if voters elected her unless Trump pardoned her She registered a campaign committee but ultimately didn t enter the race Trump s return to office inspired her to seek a pardon I mean he was going through his own criminal court event and yet he s the president she revealed I was like OK this is my guy Tony Gene Broxton a former fire department bookkeeper from the Florida Panhandle was indicted in on federal charges of theft of residents money and making false statements Prosecutors mentioned he stole more than in leadership benefits from the Social Shield Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs over several years while working for his local fire district He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years of probation and a year of house arrest He made restitution for the full amount court records show As a convicted felon Broxton lost his right to possess a gun He applied for a pardon during the first Trump presidency but it was eventually denied by the Biden administration in After Trump returned to office he applied again I can t go hunting with my rifles he mentioned I can t go target shooting with my wife All my guns are in storage locked up I don t even have access to them He thought it was a good sign when on his first day back in office Trump pardoned the roughly Jan defendants He assumed that Trump would have an attorney review petitions and start approving a few of them He checks the status of his matter every day But he revealed every time I go online it just says still pending Read more about this topic Well-deserving Americans Trump pardons convicted reality TV fraudsters Todd Julie Chrisley Ending manhood in the hall of shame Trump issues pardons for Giuliani others who attempted to interfere with voting The post Trump has exploited pardons and clemency to reward allies and supporters appeared first on Salon com