Reality TV personalities, former legislators, a sheriff, a nursing home executive, and a drug kingpin. One might ponder what common thread unites these individuals.
The reality is, they are among the American citizens convicted of various offenses who have been granted pardons by US President Donald Trump since his inauguration in January.
While past US presidents have issued controversial pardons, Kermit Roosevelt, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, asserts that Trump is doing so “in a bigger, more aggressive way with sort of no sense of shame.”
“The pardon power has always been a little bit problematic because it’s this completely unconstrained power that the president has,” Roosevelt told AFP.
“Most presidents have issued at least some pardons where people look at them and they say: ‘This seems to be self-serving’ or ‘this seems to be corrupt in some way’.”
However, Roosevelt suggests that Trump’s pardons appear to be “almost quid pro quo for financial donations.”
Among those receiving a pardon was Paul Walczak, a nursing home executive convicted of tax crimes, whose mother attended a $1 million-per-plate fundraising dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in April.
Other beneficiaries of Trump’s pardons include reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were serving extensive prison sentences for bank fraud and tax evasion.
Their daughter, Savannah, is a vocal Trump supporter and delivered a speech at last year’s Republican National Convention.
More than half a dozen former Republican lawmakers convicted of various offenses have also been pardoned, alongside a Virginia sheriff sentenced to 10 years in prison for accepting $75,000 in bribes.
On his first day in office, Trump pardoned over 1,500 supporters who participated in the US Capitol breach on January 6, 2021, as they attempted to obstruct the congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
The following day, Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who had been serving a life sentence for operating the “Silk Road” online marketplace, which facilitated millions of dollars in illicit drug sales.
‘Just Another Deal’
Barbara McQuade, a former prosecutor and current law professor at the University of Michigan, acknowledged that Trump is not the first president to face accusations of “allowing improper factors to influence their pardon decisions.”
Previous instances that drew criticism include Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton’s pardon of a commodities trader whose wife was a significant Democratic donor, and Biden’s pardon of his son, Hunter, and other family members.
“[But] Trump is in a class by himself in both scope and shamelessness,” McQuade wrote in a Bloomberg opinion column.
“To him, pardons are just another deal. As long as a defendant can provide something of value in return, no crime seems too serious,” she contended.
Democratic lawmaker Jamie Raskin, in a letter to Ed Martin, Trump’s pardon attorney at the Justice Department, questioned the criteria used to recommend pardons.
Raskin wrote, “It at least appears that you are using the Office of the Pardon Attorney to dole out pardons as favours to the President’s loyal political followers and most generous donors.”
For his part, Martin has openly acknowledged the partisan nature of the pardons recommended by his office.
“No MAGA left behind,” Martin declared on X after the pardon of the bribe-taking Virginia sheriff, referencing Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.
Lee Kovarsky, a University of Texas law professor, suggests that Trump’s “pardon spree” inaugurates a “menacing new frontier of presidential power,” which he terms “patronage pardoning.”
By reducing the penalty for misconduct, Kovarsky asserted in a New York Times opinion piece, Trump is making a “public commitment to protect and reward loyalism, however criminal.”
