WASHINGTON — After he pardoned hundreds of his violent supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, President Donald Trump brazenly granted clemency this week to more loyalists convicted of white-collar crimes including bribery, tax evasion, wire fraud and bank fraud.
The latest pardons paint a picture of a perverted system of justice in which allies of the president are rewarded with “get-out-of-jail-free” cards while his opponents are subjected to federal charges and investigations — the very kind of weaponized justice system Trump often complained about on the campaign trail.
Critics on both sides of the aisle said Trump’s pardon policy is trampling on the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution.
“As someone who spent 20 years at the Department of Justice, I find this abuse of the pardon power absolutely disgusting,” Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, said of Trump’s pardons in an interview with HuffPost.
Over the past few days, Trump, who was himself convicted for multiple felonies, pardoned a former Virginia sheriff who was convicted of trying to sell deputy’s badges, a Las Vegas politician who stole money intended for a memorial dedicated to fallen police officers, a tax cheat whose mother raised millions of dollars for Republican political campaigns, and a pair of Georgia reality television stars who were convicted of bank fraud and tax evasion.
The pardon recipients all had one thing in common, other than being convicted of crimes: They were vocal Trump supporters. In some cases, like that of the reality TV couple, family members appealed directly to the Trump administration for relief and lobbied on their relatives’ behalf at the 2024 Republican National Convention, claiming they had been “persecuted” for their political beliefs.
“It’s no longer a system of rule of law, it’s all about rule of the leader.”
– Barbara McQuade, former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan
Trump has made no efforts to conceal his pardons or their political nature, even though pardons have been problematic for presidents before. In January 2001, hours before leaving office, for example, President Bill Clinton granted businessman Marc Rich a pardon after Rich was indicted for tax evasion and fraud. Doing this on his way out of office suggested Clinton knew the move would cause controversy and damage his reputation. Indeed, he later expressed regret for issuing the pardon.
Trump, by contrast, has expressed no qualms about his clemency moves. In fact, this latest round is an escalation: He began issuing pardons for his supporters starting early in his second term, including to violent rioters who assaulted police officers on Jan. 6, 2021. Some of the people Trump pardoned for crimes related to the attack on the U.S. Capitol have since been rearrested for other crimes.
“It says if you were loyal to the president in the past, you will be rewarded, and if you are loyal now, you don’t have to worry in the future, so go out and commit crimes without regard to the consequences,” McQuade said when asked what message the pardons will send to other Trump backers. “As long as you support him, you will be pardoned for your crimes. That’s a very dangerous place to be. It’s no longer a system of rule of law, it’s all about rule of the leader.”
Marc Short, a conservative commentator who served as chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, said he couldn’t defend the pardons.
“I have no interest in defending his pardon policy. I think it’s been pretty gross,” Short said during an interview on CNN on Tuesday.
The latest Trump pardons seem to have been orchestrated by Ed Martin, the president’s new pardon attorney, who was appointed to the Justice Department after his nomination to be U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia stalled in the Senate due to a lack of sufficient Republican support.
Martin thanked Trump on Tuesday for pardoning former Virginia sheriff Scott Jenkins, who had been convicted on federal bribery charges, and suggested Jenkins had been rewarded for backing Trump.
“No MAGA left behind,” Martin wrote in a social media post.
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal published Tuesday, Martin said he has been inundated with pardon requests since he started his role as pardon attorney last week. Martin said he would examine the requests he’s received with a focus on “the forgotten man and woman.”
One of those forgotten men is apparently Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the far-right Oath Keepers group, who received an 18-year prison sentence after being convicted of seditious conspiracy over his involvement in the storming of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Rhodes’ sentence was commuted by Trump earlier this year, but now Martin is reportedly reviewing his request for a full pardon.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, slammed Trump and Martin over the latest pardons, saying they violated longstanding Justice Department guidelines.
“President Trump and Ed Martin have turned the pardon process into an ethical, legal, and moral disaster,” Durbin said in a statement to HuffPost. “There are Justice Department guidelines to be considered with pardon petitions, but the Trump Administration’s new ‘guidelines’ are clear when Ed Martin tweets, ‘No MAGA left behind.’ Is this what Donald Trump meant when he promised to ‘end the weaponization of the federal government’?”
Democrats have little power to respond to Trump’s pardon moves other than through public shaming. The president’s pardon power is broad and established clearly in the U.S. Constitution. Reforming it would require the passage of a constitutional amendment or laws establishing a system for congressional oversight of pardons. Both options would likely be difficult to achieve.
Republicans have defended Trump’s earlier pardons by pointing to the actions of his predecessor, President Joe Biden, who before leaving office earlier this year issued preemptive pardons for members of his family, former COVID-19 response chief Anthony Fauci, and members of the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. If Biden did it, they argue, Trump can, too.
But McQuade said Biden’s and Trump’s actions are not equivalent.
“Biden gave preemptive pardons to people because Trump threatened to retaliate against them,” she told HuffPost. “He thought it was necessary to protect these people. It’s very different from using that pardon to protect people who attacked the U.S. Capitol … I think this is simply an example of disinformation: Accuse your predecessor of weaponizing the justice system so that you can do the same.”
“This is an abuse, and there should be an outcry about it,” she added.