Trump Issues 73 Pardons and 70 Commutations in a Final Wave of Executive Clemency Grants |
Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=58019"><span class="small">Sonam Sheth and Lauren Frias, Business Insider</span></a> |
Wednesday, 20 January 2021 09:14 |
Excerpt: "President Donald Trump issued more than 140 pardons and commutations late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning as one of his final acts in office."
Trump Issues 73 Pardons and 70 Commutations in a Final Wave of Executive Clemency Grants20 January 21
The Washington Post reported that Trump and close aides, including his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, drew up the list during a Sunday meeting in the Oval Office. The New York Times reported that Ivanka Trump sent the final list to the White House counsel's office for approval and that the Justice Department's pardon office, which typically reviews who is granted executive clemency, was not included in the process. People on the list included:
In total, the White House announced 73 pardons and 70 commutations in the latest round. Numerous people at the center of speculation about pardons and commutations did not appear on the president's final list, including Rudy Giuliani, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and Joe Exotic. According to The Times, Trump came to his decision after consulting with the criminal-justice advocacy group Cut50, the former Koch Industries executive Mark Holden, and Alice Johnson, a criminal-justice-reform advocate who was convicted on drug-trafficking charges and sentenced to life in prison before Trump commuted her sentence and later granted her a full pardon. Before the White House announced the latest pardons and commutations, a source told CNN that some Trump allies believed many of the recipients were people the president expected to enjoy beneficial relationships with after leaving office. "Everything is a transaction," the source told CNN. "He likes pardons because it is unilateral. And he likes doing favors for people he thinks will owe him." Last month, Trump pardoned 46 people and commuted the sentences of eight others. The list featured several people who had personal connections to the president. Others were not directly tied to Trump, but right-wing media figures had aggressively lobbied for their pardons. Names on the list included:
In November, the president also pardoned his former national security advisor Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI as part of the Russia investigation. The president is granted extraordinarily broad pardon powers under the Constitution. But Trump has drawn significant scrutiny for circumventing the lengthy legal and ethical review process at the Justice Department that determines who gets executive clemency. Instead, the vast majority of the president's highest-profile pardons and commutations have gone to his friends and loyalists or to others whose names were suggested by conservative media powerhouses, such as Fox News, Newsmax, and One America News. |