MY STINKIN
Feels love for Martha, Blago, too
Period,” Bharara (inset) tweeted Thursday. D’Souza responded with a taunting tweet. “KARMA IS A BITCH DEPT: @PreetBharara wanted to destroy a fellow Indian American to advance his career. Then he got fired & I got pardoned,” he wrote.
Bharara was fired last year soon after Trump took office and has since become an outspoken critic of the President.
D’Souza, who made the incendiary anti-Obama documentary “2016: Obama’s America,” stayed true to form and blamed the past administration for his legal troubles — despite the fact that he pleaded guilty.
“Obama & his stooges tried to extinguish my American dream & destroy my faith in America. Thank you @realDonaldTrump for fully restoring both,” he tweeted. Critics blasted the pardon as politically motivated — and a signal to former aides and associates charged in the federal Russia investigation that Trump is willing to offer a helping hand.
“Dinesh D’Souza pled guilty to violating campaign law; funneling cash to a GOP campaign,” VoteVets, a left-leaning group aiming to support veterans’ public office bids, tweeted. “Trump’s pardon doesn’t just signal Manafort & others that they’ll get one, but foreign regimes that they too can break laws to help Trump.” Others expressed similar sentiments. “Another dangerous and cynical pardon. @realDonaldTrump refuses to consult with DOJ, which would have told him that there are thousands of Americans more deserving of clemency,” Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) tweeted. “Instead, he wants the cheap political hit, and to send a message that silence will be rewarded.”
The surprise announcement on Thursday was Trump’s fifth pardon since taking office, including his controversial choice to pardon former Arizona sheriff Joseph Arpaio.
While most Presidents wait until the end of their term to issue pardons, Trump has used the power of the executive office to aid GOP-friendly convicts including former Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff Lewis (Scooter) Libby and Arpaio.
Last week, Trump also issued a rare posthumous pardon to Jack Johnson, boxing’s first black heavyweight champion.
The pardon cleared Johnson’s name more than 100 years after he was convicted for what many argued was the racially motivated charge of traveling with his white girlfriend.
The other names floated Thursday also raised eyebrows.
Blagojevich, the disgraced Illinois governor impeached in 2009, is currently locked up in a federal prison in Littleton, Colo., serving a 14-year sentence.
He was convicted on an array of corruption charges, including an attempt to sell his power as governor to fill the U.S. Senate seat left vacant when Obama won the White House in 2008.
“What he did does not justify 18 years in jail,” Trump said. Stewart, who maintained her innocence, was found guilty in 2004 of obstruction of justice, conspiracy and lying to investigators about a shady stock trade. She served a five-month sentence in federal lockup.
Both Blago and Stewart appeared on different incarnations of Trump’s “Apprentice” reality TV show. THE WAKE of President Trump’s pardon of conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza, new state Attorney General Barbara Underwood renewed her office’s call to end New York’s double jeopardy law. Doing so would allow the state to continue prosecuting individuals even if they were pardoned for their federal crimes. “We can’t afford to wait to see who will be next,” Underwood said. “Lawmakers must act now to close New York’s double jeopardy loophole and ensure that anyone who evades federal justice by virtue of a politically expedient pardon can be held accountable if they violate New York law.” Underwood said that Trump’s pardon of D’Souza “makes crystal clear his willingness to use his pardon power to thwart the cause of justice, rather than advance it.” Under current New York law, the state cannot try someone for offenses if they have already been prosecuted for the same act or criminal transactions by the federal government or another state, unless an exemption applies. Underwood’s predecessor, Eric Schneiderman, who resigned in disgrace on May 7 hours after The New Yorker ran a story alleging he physically assaulted four women, had been pushing the Legislature to act on a bill that exempts from the double jeopardy law the state prosecution of those who received presidential pardons, clemencies or other reprieves.
Pompeo said despite the positive parley in the Big Apple, he is unsure of what will come of the suspended summit originally scheduled for June 12 in Singapore.
“Don’t know,” Pompeo said, when asked about the date, adding that he believes real progress has been made over the last 72 hours.
Trump called off the face-toface with Kim last week.
Pompeo, who is spearheading conversations with the Koreans, met with Kim Yong Chol for dinner Wednesday night.
He stressed that the goal of the U.S. is total, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the peninsula, but did not say whether North Korea has made sufficient commitments toward that end.
“I know everyone is following this minute by minute and hour by hour, but this is going to be a process that will take days and weeks to work our way through,” he said, noting that talks have been contentious at times. “There will be tough moments, there will be difficult times. I’ve had some difficult conversations with them as well. They’ve given it right back to me, too.”
Pompeo had dinner Wednesday with Kim Yong Chol, the former military intelligence chief and one of Kim Jong Un’s closest aides, before getting down to business.
The two planned a “day full of meetings” on Thursday.
However, the high-stakes discussions in New York lasted a little more than two hours, ending just before 11:30 a.m., and well before the scheduled end at 1:30 p.m., a source told The Associated Press.