WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump has forgiven more than two dozen people, including former campaign president Paul Manafort and Charles Kushner, father of his son-in-law, in the last wave of clemency to benefit longtime members and supporters.
The actions, during Trump’s decline in the White House, bring to almost 50 the number of people the president granted clemency to last week. The list of the past two days includes not only several people convicted in the investigation of Trump’s campaign ties to Russia, but also allies of Congress and other criminals whose causes were defended by friends.
Forgiveness is common in the final stretch of a president’s term, and recipients depend largely on the individual whims of the country’s chief executive. Throughout his administration, Trump put aside the Obama administration’s conventions, when pardons were largely reserved for drug offenders not known to the general public, and instead granted leniency to high-level contacts and associates. who were key figures in an investigation that directly concerned him.
Even members of the president’s own party raised eyebrows with Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, issuing a brief statement that said, “This is rotten to the end”
The Wednesday pardons of Manafort and Roger Stone, who months earlier had his sentence commuted by Trump, were particularly notable, underscoring the president’s desire to destroy the results and the legacy of special attorney Robert Mueller’s investigation in Russia. He has already pardoned four people convicted in that investigation, including former national security adviser Michael Flynn and campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.
“This president’s pardons are what you would expect to get if you gave a mafia boss the pardoning power,” tweeted Andrew Weissmann, a member of Mueller’s team who helped prosecute Manafort.
Manafort, who led the Trump campaign during a crucial period in 2016 before being deposed because of his ties to Ukraine, was one of the first people accused as part of Mueller’s investigation into the ties between the Trump campaign and Russia . He was later sentenced to more than seven years in prison for financial crimes related to his political advisory work in Ukraine, but was released from house arrest last spring because of concerns about the coronavirus in the federal prison system.
Although the charges against Manafort did not refer to the central thrust of Mueller’s mandate – if the Trump campaign and Russia were colluding to deflect the election – he was a central figure in the investigation.
His close relationship with a man whom American officials linked to Russian intelligence, and with whom he shared internal research data, drew particular scrutiny during the investigation, although Mueller never accused Manafort or any other Trump associate of conspiring with Russia.
Manafort, in a series of tweets, thanked Trump and praised the president who is stepping down, declaring that history would show that he had accomplished more than any of his predecessors.
Trump did not forgive Manafort’s deputy Rick Gates, who was sentenced last year to 45 days in prison after cooperating extensively with prosecutors, or former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to related campaign financial crimes. to his efforts to buy the silence of the women he said had sex with Trump. Both were also convicted in Mueller’s investigation.
New York City prosecutors, meanwhile, have sought to get the state’s highest court to revive the mortgage fraud charges against Manafort after a lower court rejected them by double penalty. A spokesman for district attorney Cy Vance said the pardon “underscores the urgent need to hold Mr. Manafort accountable for his crimes against the people of New York.”
Manafort and Stone are hardly conventional recipients of pardon, in part because both were reprimanded by judges for effectively mocking the criminal justice system while their cases were pending. Manafort was accused of tampering with witnesses, even after he was indicted, and was accused by prosecutors of lying when trying to get credit for the cooperation.
Stone, who was convicted of lying to Congress about his efforts to get inside information about WikiLeaks’ disclosure of Democratic e-mails hacked by Russia during the 2016 campaign, was similarly censored by a judge because of his social media posts.
In a statement on Wednesday, Stone thanked Trump and claimed that he had been subjected to a “spectacular Soviet-style trial on charges of political motivation”
Kushner is the father of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and a wealthy real estate executive who pleaded guilty years ago for evading taxes and making illegal campaign donations. Trump and the older Kushner knew each other from real estate and their children were married in 2009.
Prosecutors claim that after Kushner discovered that his brother-in-law was cooperating with the authorities, he devised a revenge and intimidation scheme. It is said that he hired a prostitute to attract his brother-in-law, then arranged for a secret recording of the meeting in a motel room in New Jersey to be sent to his own sister, the man’s wife.
Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie called it “one of the most disgusting and disgusting crimes” he has ever prosecuted as a US attorney.
Trump’s legally troubled allies were not the only ones to receive clemency. The list of 29 recipients included people whose requests for forgiveness were promoted by people who supported the president during his term, including former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky.
One recipient was Topeka Sam, whose case was promoted by Alice Johnson, a criminal justice advocate whom Trump forgave and who appeared in a Super Bowl ad for him and at the Republican National Convention.
“Em. Sam’s life is a story of redemption,” the White House said in its statement, praising her for helping other women in need.
Others with leniency granted included a former Florida county commissioner who was convicted of accepting gifts from people doing business with the county and a community leader in Kentucky who was convicted of federal drug crimes.
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Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in Palm Beach, Florida and Michael Balsamo in Washington contributed to this report.