Trump grants pardons to Manafort, Stone
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Wednesday granted pardons or clemency to another 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 — once again using his executive power to benefit his allies and undermine an investigation that dogged his presidency.
With his time in office nearing its end, Trump pardoned former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, a New Britain, Conn., native 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 tampering, and 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 III III. The White House announcement of the pardons made no secret that Trump was taking aim at that investigation. A White House announcement of the pardons called said Manfort's convictions were "premised on the Russian collusion hoax," and that the pardon for Stone would "help to right the injustices he faced at the hands of the Mueller investigation."
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.
Trump has drawn significant criticism for how he has used his pardon power, though one adviser said the president is unconcerned about the blowback.
During the 2016 campaign, Manafort gave Kilimnik internal Trump campaign polling data; Mueller's investigators said they were never able to determine how Kilimnik used the information.