Trump pardons pair convicted in Russia probe.

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 and three corrupt former Republican members of Congress.

Among those pardoned was George Papadopoulos, who was a foreign policy adviser to 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.

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. 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.

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.

The three former members of Congress pardoned by Trump were Duncan Hunter of California, Chris Collins of New York and Steve Stockman of Texas.

Hunter was set to begin serving an 11-month sentence next month. He pleaded guilty in 2019 to one charge of misusing campaign funds.

Collins, an early endorser of Trump, is serving a 26-month sentence after pleading guilty in 2019 to charges of making false statements to the FBI and to conspiring to commit securities fraud.

Stockman was convicted in 2018 on charges of fraud and money laundering and was serving a 10-year sentence.

And 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.

A tabulation by the Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith found that of the 45 pardons or commutations Trump had granted up until Tuesday, 88 percent 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, 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.