The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Trump pardons his ex- campaign chair Manafort, others
President Donald Trump on Wednesday granted pardons or clemency to an additional 29 people, including real estate developer Charles Kushner, his son- in- law’s father; and two former advisers who were convicted as part of the FBI’S 2016 probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Trump pardoned former campaign Chairman Paul Manafort, who was convicted in 2018 of committing financial fraud and conspiring to obstruct the investigation of his crimes, and he upgraded the clemency he had earlier provided to longtime friend Roger Stone to a full pardon.
Trump also pardoned Kushner, the father of Trump son- in- law Jared Kushner, who pleaded guilty to in 2004 to having made false statements to the Federal Election Commission, witness tamperingand tax evasion stemming from $ 6 million in political contributions and gifts mischaracterized as business expenses.
The move came just a day after Trump granted clemency or pardons to 20 people, including three former Republican members of Congress and two others who were convicted of crimes as part of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The president also pardoned military contractors involved in the killing of unarmed civilians during the Iraq War.
With Wednesday’s pardon of Manafort, Trump has now intervened to aid five people charged in the Russia probe, which was eventually taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller. The White House announcement of the pardons made no secret that Trump was taking aim at that investigation. The announcement said Manfort’s convictions were “premised on the Russian collusion hoax.”
In November, Trump pardoned former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his dealings with a Russian diplomat, though he later sought to take it back. In July, he commuted the sentence for Stone, who was convicted of seeking to impede a congressional investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and sentenced to 40 months in prison. And on Tuesday, he pardoned George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser to his 2016 campaign who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during its Russia investigation, and Alex van der Zwaan, a Dutch lawyer who pleaded guilty in 2018 to lying to Mueller’s team.
The practical effect of Trump’s latest move was particularly significant for Manafort, who had been facing a half- year federal prison sentence, though he was released to home confinement in May, about two years in, over fears of coronavirus. Manafort was found guilty in Virginia federal court in 2018 of stashing the money he made as a lobbyist from Ukrainian oligarchs overseas to avoid taxes and then committing bank fraud to keep up a lavish lifestyle when his patrons lost power.