Trump loyalists who were pardoned for serious crimes could end up in his 2nd administration

04 December 2023

Donald Trump was hardly the first U.S. president to issue controversial pardons.

A month after President Richard Nixon's resignation, President Gerald R. Ford granted him a full and unconditional pardon for any Watergate-related crimes he might have committed — a move that Democratic strategists used against Ford in the 1976 election. The 140 pardons that President Bill Clinton issued on January 20, 2021 during the final hours of his presidency received plenty of scrutiny.

But to Donald Trump's critics, the controversial pardons that he issued during his four years in the White House were uniquely troubling.

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Trump pardoned a long list of MAGA Republicans and loyalists who were either convicted of serious crimes or pled guilty to them, including "War Room" host Steve Bannon, Paul Manafort (Trump's 2016 campaign manager), veteran GOP operative Roger Stone, and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

In a report published on December 2, Washington Post reporters Beth Reinhard, Manuel Roig-Franzia and Clara Ence Morse describe the prominent role that pardoned Trump loyalists are playing in his 2024 campaign.

The journalists report, "Donald Trump's clemency orders forgave more white-collar crimes than any other type of offense — tax scofflaws, health-care fraudsters, corrupt politicians and Ponzi schemers all benefited, The Post review found. Several had donated to Trump's campaigns or had the resources to do so in the future. The Post found 26 clemency recipients or their immediate family members have contributed to a Trump campaign account or a pro-Trump political committee. That means more than 1 out of 10 of the people who received pardons and commutations gave money either before they received clemency, afterward or in both periods, for a total of nearly $1.8 million."

According to Reinhard, Roig-Franzia and Morse, "Much of that tally comes from real estate developer Charles Kushner, the father of Trump's son-in-law, who pleaded guilty to filing false tax returns, witness tampering and lying to the Federal Election Commission and served time in prison in 2005 and 2006. He was pardoned in late 2020; he gave $1 million to a pro-Trump super PAC this year."

Flynn, the reporters note, is a contender for a possible second Trump Administration. And self-pardons, they observe, are a strong possibility should Trump win the 2024 election.

"If he returns to the White House," the journalists explain, "Trump could try to pardon himself in the two federal cases pending against him. In one, he and two co-defendants are accused of mishandling classified documents after he left office. He is the lone defendant in the other federal case, which accuses him of conspiring to subvert the 2020 vote. Trump has denied wrongdoing in both cases. A presidential self-pardon is untested in the courts, and legal experts disagree on whether such a move would be constitutional."

The Washington Post's full report is available at this link (subscription required).

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