Will Ganim’s old ties to Trump mean a presidential pardon?
BRIDGEPORT — Democratic Mayor Joe Ganim has had a long relationship with outgoing Republican President and businessman Donald Trump, dating back to the latter’s unsuccessful effort to build a casino here in the 1990s during Ganim’s first stint running City Hall.
Now that relationship might be Ganim’s, a convicted felon who returned to office in 2015, last and best chance to receive a fresh slate through a presidential pardon. Trump has offered clemency to a slew of wellconnected individuals with legal troubles in the final chaotic weeks of his term, including Norwalk native, conservative political consultant and ally Roger Stone.
Ajury convicted Stone in 2019 of seven felony counts following Robert Mueller’s special council investigation into tampering in the 2016 election: witness tampering, obstructing an official proceeding and five counts of making false statements. He was sentenced to 40 months in prison but Trump commuted his sentence just days before he was scheduled to report to prison.
Records from the U.S. Department of Justice indicate that Ganim has a pending request for a pardon after completion of sentence. Ganim would have submitted that request for a pardon at the earliest in mid-2015, during the tail end of Democratic President Barack Obama’s second term, based on federal eligibility requirements that impose a five-year waiting period after release from confinement.
Ganim also sought presidential help with his criminal record before: Records show he previously requested a commutation of sentence from the justice department and White House. That application was administratively closed by the former’s Office of the Pardon Attorney on March 25, 2009 during Obama’s presidency. Requests are administratively closed by that office for a variety of reasons including incomplete applications, pending litigation, failure to respond to requests for information and more.
The DOJ offered no further details on Ganim’s commutation and pardon applications, other than confirming their existence, because they are deemed confidential.
And neither Bridgeport’s mayor nor his office provided any insight into the matter.
First approached Dec. 18 with specific questions for Ganim about the timing and reasons for the pardon request, as well as whether he had been in contact with White House staff or the president himself about it, Rowena White, the mayor’s communications director, in an email New Year’s Eve wrote: “I am unable to provide a response to this inquiry. I am not aware of its origin. It is not related to city or mayoral business.”
Ganim this week did not respond to a direct request for comment.
Larry Kupers was former head of the U.S. Office of the Pardon Attorney under Trump until 2019. Kupers said if Ganim wants a pardon, he better hope Trump — who is under significant political duress himself after amob of his supporters invaded the Capitol this week — delivers.
“With someone who commits a crime when in political office, the chances of him getting a favorable recommendation from DOJ are basically slim to none because that sort of abuse of the public trust is considered a really negative factor for the clemency recommendation,” Kupers said.
“This guy as somebody who is a politician and given that the Trump administration is granting clemency mostly by political connections and what have you, he is probably well-situated to get clemency in the way that people are getting it under Trump,” Kupers added of Ganim. “But once it goes over to (Democratic Presidentelect Joe) Biden, he’s going to be out of luck most likely.”
First elected mayor of Connecticut’s largest city in 1991, Ganim was convicted in 2003 following a lengthy FBI investigation on 16 counts of racketeering, extortion and bribery — essentially using his political office to award business and contracts in exchange for money and other perks.
He completed his sentence in July 2010 and waged an improbable but successful political comeback in 2015. He was then re-elected in 2019 for another four years.
The DOJ had over 14,295 pending applications for pardons or commutations of sentences, as of Dec. 3, according to the most recent data available.
Another such pending application out of Connecticut is from Philip Giordano, the former Waterbury mayor now serving a 37-year sentence for child sexual abuse, who is seeking a commutation of sentence. Giordano’s attorney declined to comment.
Traditionally, individuals apply for clemency and their applications are reviewed by multiple attorneys before the pardon attorney and the U.S. deputy attorney general make a recommendation to the White House. Judges, U.S. attorneys, the Bureau of Prisons and the Federal Bureau of Investigations share information with DOJ or share their input.
But presidents have full discretion on whether to act on those recommendations or not. And presidents at various times have also issued pardons for political reasons, completely circumventing the DOJ process.
Trump in recent weeks has exercised his power to issue pardons to some controversial figures, including in December a pair of congressional Republicans who were strong and early supporters, a 2016 campaign official ensnared in the Russia probe and former government contractors convicted in a 2007 massacre in Baghdad.
According to CNN, hundreds of Trump allies have been calling and emailing the White House in the final weeks of the Trump presidency clamoring for clemency.
Asource in the White House said they were unaware whether Ganim had been one of those people.
Attorney Ed Marcus is a long-time political ally of Ganim’s, as well as a former state Senate majority leader and former head of the Connecticut Democratic Party. Marcus on Thursday said he knew nothing about the Bridgeport mayor’s pardon request, but added, “If he can get one it certainly makes sense to get it.”
Although Ganim not only served his time and won his elected office back — and also attempted a gubernatorial bid in 2018 — Marcus said the benefit of a pardon would be that “the issue” of that criminal past “is over with and done.”
While a presidential pardon will restore various rights lost as a result of the pardoned offense and should lessen to some extent the stigma arising from a conviction, it does not erase or expunge the criminal conviction, according to the DOJ.
There are at least two ways in which Ganim remains significantly hampered in Connecticut by his criminal conviction. It has prevented him from getting his law license back and also, when he sought the Democratic nomination for governor, from participating in Connecticut’s public campaign financing program.
But whether a pardon would help Ganim with either of those hurdles was unclear.
Joshua Foley, spokesman for the state Elections Enforcement Commission, speaking generally and not about Ganim’s situation, said: “The (election grants) statute does not have any provision for the situation where a criminal is pardoned, and the Commission has not addressed the issue.”
As for whether Ganim deserves one Marcus said he believes “Joe has turned things around and he would seem to be a perfect candidate for a pardon.”
While a Democrat might seem an unlikely beneficiary of the hyper-partisan Trump’s pardon powers, Ganim for several years at least seemed to want to maintain a friendly relationship with the controversial businessman and president he first met in the 1990s.
Trump, who at the time called New York City home, had bought some land in Bridgeport’s South End during that decade to possibly build a casino and entertainment destination. Ganim, who was first mayor from 1991 until his conviction in 2003, did some partying with Trump and attended Trump’s wedding to Marla Maples at New York’s Plaza Hotel in 1993.
But Trump’s Bridgeport project never materialized and, ultimately, having stopped paying taxes on the land, he agreed to turn it over to Ganim’s first administration for $1.
When Trump was running for president in 2016, he held a rally in Bridgeport that April and Ganim dropped in backstage.
The following November, just as Ganim had stunned local and statewide politicians with his return to the mayor’s office in 2015, Trump similarly shocked the nation and the world when he defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton to become commander-in-chief. Ganim at that time readily acknowledged their similarities as two “unconventional” candidates defying the odds.