GV WireBy The New York TimesMay 27, 2025As Paul Walczak awaited sentencing early this year, his best hope for avoiding prison time rested with the newly inaugurated president.Walczak, a former nursing home executive who had pleaded guilty to tax crimes days after the 2024 election, submitted a pardon application to President Donald Trump around Inauguration Day. The application focused not solely on Walczak’s offenses but also on the political activity of his mother, Elizabeth Fago.Fago had raised millions of dollars for Trump’s campaigns and those of other Republicans, the application said. It also highlighted her connections to an effort to sabotage Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign by publicizing the addiction diary of his daughter Ashley Biden — an episode that drew law enforcement scrutiny.[...]Still, weeks went by, and no pardon was forthcoming, even as Trump issued clemency grants to hundreds of other allies.[...]Then, Fago was invited to a $1-million-per-person fundraising dinner last month that promised face-to-face access to Trump at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.Less than three weeks after she attended the dinner, Trump signed a full and unconditional pardon.
Ka-ching as Trump's cash register racks up the donation!
AP NewsBy MATT OTTMarch 28, 2025Trevor Milton, the founder of electric vehicle start-up Nikola who was sentenced to prison last year for fraud, was pardoned by President Donald Trump, the White House confirmed Friday.The pardon of Milton, who was sentenced to four years in prison for exaggerating the potential of his technology, could wipe out hundreds of millions of dollars in restitution that prosecutors were seeking for defrauded investors.Milton, 42, and his wife donated more than $1.8 million to a Trump re-election campaign fund less than a month before the November election, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Ka-ching as Trump's cash register racks up the donation!
Las Vegas Review-Journal, owned by billionaire Miriam Adelson, condemns pardon of ex-lawmaker Michele FioreThe GuardianBy Adam GabbattSat 26 Apr 2025A Nevada newspaper owned by a Donald Trump mega-donor has savaged the US president’s decision to pardon a Republican councilwoman who was convicted of using donations intended to fund a statue of a police officer to pay for cosmetic surgery.The Las Vegas Review-Journal, owned by the billionaire Miriam Adelson, described the decision as a “debasement of presidential pardon power” in a scathing editorial published after Trump granted clemency to Michele Fiore, a former Las Vegas councilwoman and Nevada state lawmaker.Fiore was convicted of fraud last year. Federal prosecutors said at trial that she had raised more than $70,000 for the statue of a Las Vegas police officer who was fatally shot in 2014 in the line of duty, but had instead spent it on cosmetic surgery, rent and her daughter’s wedding.Adelson, who is worth $35bn, spent $100m on re-electing Trump in 2024, but apparently decided not to intervene when the Review-Journal, Nevada’s largest newspaper, attacked him on Friday.[...]“The pardon, which was brief and contained no explanation, is an affront to the federal jury that heard her case and sends precisely the wrong message to public officials tempted to enrich themselves through their sinecures,” the Review-Journal wrote.
Once again, Ka-ching as Trump's cash register racks up the donation!
This is nothing new... he did it in his first term but nothing like he is doing now, but then only $200,000 got you a pardon.
Former Texas construction company owner Paul Pogue, who pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return in 2010SalonBy Igor DeryshFebruary 19, 2020The family of a Republican donor who pleaded guilty to filing a false tax return gave more than $200,000 to President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign before he was pardoned.The White House announced Tuesday that Trump granted a full pardon to former Texas construction company owner Paul Pogue, who pleaded guilty to the charge in 2010. Pogue was sentenced to three years of probation and ordered to pay a $250,000 fine and more than $473,000 in restitution, according to The Associated Press.Other pardons included former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was found guilty of trying to sell former President Obama’s vacated Senate seat, former New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, who pleaded guilty to tax fraud and lying to White House officials after he was selected to head the Department of Homeland Security, and the scandal-plagued financier Michael Milken.[...]Pogue’s son Ben donated $85,000 to the campaign committee in August, while Pogue’s wife Ashleigh contributed $50,000 that same month. Ben Pogue made an in-kind air travel contribution of more than $75,000 the following month. The Pogues also donated the maximum $5,600 each to Trump’s campaign and made “several large contributions” to the Republican National Committee, according to the report.
Ka-ching as Trump's cash register racks up the donation!
There seems to be a pattern here... pay-to-play.
Scratch the surface of many Trump pardons and you will find a campaign finance angle.Brennan Center for Justice
There seems to be a pattern here! Campaign donations buying pardons, it sure does seem suspicious.
This is particularly important in light of a little noticed Supreme Court case from 2019 called Gamble v. U.S., which holds that it is constitutional to charge a person with both a federal and state crime based on a single act. Gamble means that those who violate state law and federal law can get relief from the federal crime under a presidential pardon, but Trump — and every other president — has no way to shield criminals from any parallel state criminal liability.
And that is why dear readers with Trump we have the best government money can buy!
No comments:
Post a Comment