TRUMP PARDONS EX-AIDE BANNON
Lil Wayne one of 142 to get clemency
WASHINGTON • Donald Trump used his final hours in office to pardon Steve Bannon, his former chief strategist who had denied fraud charges relating to fundraising for the U.s.-mexico border wall, and grant clemency to 142 others including Lil Wayne, the rapper, who was convicted of weapons charges in Florida.
But Trump did not pre-emptively pardon himself, members of his family or his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, reportedly deciding it might imply they were guilty of crimes.
Bannon, 67, was a key adviser in Trump’s 2016 campaign and in the early period of his presidency. He was fired from his role at the White House amid acrimony in August 2017. Last year, Bannon was charged with defrauding supporters of the president over an effort to raise private funds to build the border wall. He had pleaded not guilty.
The pardon power, which emanates from the U.S. Constitution, is broad and a president does not have to give a reason for using it. It is generally used to pardon people who have been prosecuted, but can cover conduct that has not yet resulted in legal proceedings. however, the power only applies to federal crimes and does not cover state prosecutions.
There were pardons for other high-profile people from the world of politics.
They included Elliott Broidy, a Republican fundraiser who pleaded guilty last year to violating lobbying laws in an attempt to influence the Trump administration on behalf of Chinese and Malaysian interests.
He also pardoned Kenneth Kurson, the former editor of a newspaper Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner owned. Kurson had been accused of cyberstalking his ex-wife.
Trump commuted the prison sentence of Kwame Kilpatrick, a former mayor of Detroit, who had served seven years of a 28-year term for racketeering and corruption.
In previous waves Trump had already pardoned a host of longtime associates including Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman, Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law, and his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Some who had campaigned for a pardon were left disappointed on Trump’s final day in office. Supporters of Joseph Maldonado-passage, also known as “Joe Exotic,” had a limousine waiting outside his jail. Maldonado-passage, who starred in the Netflix documentary Tiger King, is serving a 22-year sentence in Texas over a murder-for-hire plot. Trump was not swayed by his pleas for a pardon.
Sweeping final acts of mass clemency are a presidential tradition dating back to George Washington.