President Donald Trump on Tuesday pardoned 15 people, including two men convicted as part of Robert Mueller’s investigation, and four former Blackwater USA guards convicted of murdering 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007.
Others pardoned included two former Republican congressmen who admitted to committing financial crimes.
Trump has also commuted some or all of the criminal sentences against five other people as the president is in office for his final month.
One such person, Philip Esformes, who owns a health facility in South Florida, was sentenced to 20 years in prison in September 2019 for what prosecutors say was “the largest health-care fraud ever against the Justice Department.” Esformes, 52, will now be released from prison over Trump’s move.
Trump, who was fiercely critical of Muller’s investigation into his 2016 campaign and contacts with Russians, forgave his former campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, who had been convicted of making false statements during that investigation.
“Today’s pardon helps correct the evils that Mueller’s team has inflicted on so many people,” Trump’s press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement on Papadopoulous.
The president also pardoned Alex van der Zwaan, a lawyer and Dutchman who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI during the Mueller investigation. Van der Zwaan was the first convicted person in the investigation and was sentenced to 30 days in prison in 2018.
The four former Blackwater security contractors who were pardoned Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard opened fire in and around Nisur Square in Baghdad on September 16, 2007, according to evidence in their cases. Fourteen civilians were killed, including two women and two boys aged 11 and 9, according to the Ministry of Justice. At least 17 more victims were injured.
Slatten, who was convicted of murder, was fired “without provocation”, according to the Justice Department. He has served a life sentence.
The other three men were convicted of second-degree murder and other charges, and were sentenced again last year to 15 years in prison, half their original sentence.
In a statement, McEnany said that “the pardon of these four veterans is widely supported by the public, including Pete Hegseth,” a Fox News employee, and several GOP congressmen.
Furthermore, prosecutors recently disclosed – more than 10 years after the incident – that the lead Iraqi investigator, on whom prosecutors relied heavily to verify that there were no insurgent victims and to gather evidence, may have had links with insurgents himself. groups, ”said in her statement.
Others pardoned former Congressmen Duncan Hunter from California and Chris Collins from New York.
Collins, who pleaded guilty last year to crimes related to tipping his son about nonpublic information about a pharmaceutical company’s failed drug trial, was the first congressman to endorse Trump’s campaign as president in 2015. He began a 26-month sentence in October.
Hunter pleaded guilty to campaign money abuse in 2019, along with his wife, who converted together and stole more than $ 250,000 over several years. He was to serve an 11-month sentence next month.
Another fallen GOP member of Congress, Steve Stockman from Texas, was bought off by the president for the remainder of his 10-year prison sentence for charitable abuse. Stockman, 64, had served more than two years of that term and signed a contract with Covid-19 this year.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Condemned much of the pardon in a damning statement.
“I doubt government contractors who massacred civilians or corrupt congressional cronies were what the founders had in mind when they drafted the pardon clause,” said Blumenthal, who is a member of the Senate committee.
Most despicably, President Trump is twisting this presidential power to reward allies who have broken the law on his behalf, ”he said. “Donald Trump is leaving the presidency as he took it: without any respect for the constitution and as a complete disgrace to his office.”
Trump also forgave two former US Border Guard agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, for their convictions for shooting and wounding an unarmed illegal alien who traded 700 pounds of marijuana in 2005. President George W. Bush served their sentences of 11 and 12 years respectively, in 2009.
The pardon is because Trump has refused to admit he lost the presidential election to Joe Biden, whose victory was confirmed by the Electoral College last week. Trump’s loss sparked immediate speculation that he would reward allies and others with leniency actions in his final weeks at the White House.
Trump has been particularly stingy about granting executive clemency, including pardons and sentence conversions, compared to previous presidents.
Before Tuesday, Trump had pardoned just 28 and commuted the criminal sentences of 16 other people, a significantly lower rate than even other one-time presidents, according to the Justice Department.
Trump’s pardon includes a pardon on financial fraudster Michael Milken; press baron Conrad Black; former Arizona sheriff Joe Arapaio, who was convicted of contempt of court; Lewis “Scooter” Libby, former Vice President Dick Cheney’s advisor for obstruction of justice; conservative hornet Dinesh D’Souza, for campaign contribution fraud; and ex-New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik for tax and other crimes.
In November, Trump pardoned his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, for making false statements to FBI agents.
In July, Trump commuted the 40-month jail sentence of Republican adviser Roger Stone, who had been convicted of lying to Congress.
Beneficiaries of his prison sentence also included former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich, who attempted to sell an nomination to the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama when he became president.
Trump has previously pardoned several deaths, including early 20th-century Black Boxing champion Jack Johnson, for the crime of crossing state lines with his white girlfriend, and Susan B. Anthony, the 19th suffragette convicted of illegal acts. to vote.
Trump also forgave the late scientist Zay Jeffries, who was convicted of anticompetitive behavior in 1948 in violation of Sherman’s antitrust law, the year President Harry Truman awarded him the Presidential Medal of Merit for work during World War II, including contributions to the Manhattan project.
Trump pardoned Alice Marie Johnson, a woman convicted of cocaine conspiracy, in August. The president had commuted Johnson’s life sentence two years earlier after being lobbied on her behalf by reality TV star Kim Kardashian West.
The only other president for the past 30 years, Trump’s fellow Republican George HW Bush, by comparison pardoned 74 people and issued commutations for three others.
Obama, who served two terms for Trump, pardoned 212 people, or more than six times as many as Trump in half that time. Obama has commuted the sentences of more than 1,700 people.
The last Republican to serve two terms, George W. Bush, pardoned 189 people and commuted 11 sentences.