Political allies among Trump pardons
In an audacious pre-Christmas round of pardons, President Donald Trump granted clemency on Tuesday to two people convicted in the special counsel’s Russia inquiry, four Blackwater guards convicted in connection with the killing of Iraqi civilians, three corrupt former Republican members of Congress and Pittsburgh dentist.
The pardons included former Republican Reps. Duncan Hunter of California and Chris Collins of New York. Mr. Trump commuted the sentence of former Rep. Steve Stockman of Texas.
He also granted a full pardon to Alfonso Costa, the Pittsburgh dentist whose request for clemency was supported by Dr. Ben Carson and former Steelers running back Jerome Bettis, as well as by numerous business associates, patients, and community leaders, the White House said in a news release that contained brief snapshots of those pardoned.
The White House said Costa pleaded guilty in 2008 “to one count of health care fraud related to false billing, took full responsibility for his conduct, served two years of probation, and paid nearly $300,000 in fines and restitution. He has devoted much of his adult life to service to his community, including
serving on the board of the Pittsburgh Opera, and doing significant service for children and the underprivileged.”
Collins, the first member of Congress to endorse Mr. Trump to be president, was sentenced to two years and two months in federal prison after admitting he helped his son and others dodge $800,000 in stock market losses when he learned that a drug trial by a small pharmaceutical company had failed.
Hunter was sentenced to 11 months in prison after pleading guilty to stealing campaign funds and spending the money on everything from outings with friends to his daughter’s birthday party.
Among those pardoned was George Papadopoulos, who was a foreign policy adviser to Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign and pleaded guilty in 2017 to making false statements to federal officials as part of the investigation by the special counsel, Robert Mueller.
Also pardoned was Alex van der Zwaan, a lawyer who pleaded guilty to the same charge in 2018 in connection of the special counsel’s inquiry. Both men served short prison sentences.
The Mueller-related pardons are a signal of more to come of people caught up in the investigation, according to people close to the president.
Mr. Trump recently pardoned his former national security adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who pleaded guilty twice to charges including lying to the FBI in connection with the inquiry into Russian involvement in the election. Mr. Trump in
July commuted the sentence of Roger Stone, his longtime adviser who was convicted on a series of charges related to the investigation. Both men have maintained their innocence.
Mr. Trump’s pardon list also included four former U.S. service members who were convicted of killing Iraqi civilians while working as contractors in 2007.
One of them, Nicholas Slatten, had been sentenced to life in prison after the Justice Department had gone to great lengths to prosecute him. Slatten, had been a contractor for the controversial company Blackwater and was sentenced for his role in the killing of 17 Iraqi civilians in Nisour Square in Baghdad — a massacre that left one of the most lasting stains on the United States of the war.
Stockman was convicted in 2018 on charges of fraud and money laundering and was serving a 10-year sentence.
And Mr. Trump granted full pardons to two former Border Patrol agents whose sentences for their roles in the shooting of an alleged drug trafficker had previously been commuted by President George W. Bush.
The pardons are not likely to be the last before Mr. Trump leaves office Jan. 20, and they will no doubt feed the notion that Mr. Trump has used his pardon power aggressively for personal and political purposes. The founders gave the president the power to serve as the ultimate emergency break on the criminal justice system to right the wrongs of those deserving of grace in mercy.
A tabulation by the Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith found that of the 45 pardons or commutations Mr. Trump had granted up until Tuesday, 88% aided someone with a personal tie to the president or furthered his political aims.
And by nullifying the legal consequences of convictions in the Russia inquiry, Mr. Trump escalated a long campaign, aided by his outgoing attorney general, William Barr, to effectively undo the investigation by Mueller, discredit the resulting prosecutions and punish those who instigated it in the first place.
The White House continued to chip away at the legacy of the Mueller investigation in a statements released on Tuesday night. The statement made a point of saying that the Mueller investigation “found no evidence of collusion in connection with Russia’s attempts to interfere in the election,” and dismissively referred to Papadopoulos’ crime as “process related.”
Papadopoulos, 33, served 12 days in jail for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian intermediaries during the 2016 presidential race. He later published a book portraying himself as a victim of a “deep state” plot to “bring down President Trump.” In an interview last month, he welcomed the possibility of clemency.
“Of course I would be honored to be pardoned,” he said.
Van der Zwaan was sentenced in April 2018 to 30 days in prison for lying to investigators for the special counsel’s office with a Russian intelligence officer who worked closely with Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort.
Manafort was convicted in 2018 on a range of charges, including tax and bank fraud.