In his final full day in office, President Donald Trump refrained from the most outrageous possible abuses of the pardon power. Perhaps wary of causing political backlash, given his impending Senate impeachment trial, Trump has not pardoned himself, his children or his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani.
Elie Honig
But make no mistake: With his final batch of 73 pardons and 70 sentence commutations, Trump offered up one last burst of cronyism and self-dealing. While Trump issued pardons to several recipients whose cases had been rightly advocated by criminal justice reform groups, he also doled out free passes to an unseemly lineup of criminals who apparently have been granted mercy based largely on their personal connections to Trump, their wealth and access or their status as celebrity objects of fascination.
This is, needless to say, not how pardons are supposed to work. The best way to understand Trump's abuse of the pardon power is by comparing his actions to those of his immediate predecessors. President Barack Obama issued far more pardons and commutations than Trump has. But the vast majority of Obama's grants of leniency went to nonviolent drug offenders who had received harsh prison sentences and to whom Obama had no personal or political connections -- while Trump's pardons have gone largely to his own political and personal allies and other well-connected recipients.
President George W. Bush wrote that he was taken aback by the last-minute blitz of pardon requests from well-connected individuals during his final days in office. Bush resolved not to grant any such requests but rather to consider only those pardon applications that had been vetted by the Justice Department's Office of the Pardon Attorney (who traditionally provides nonbinding guidance to the President to ensure that pardons are properly vetted and equitable). In contrast, Trump has largely ignored the pardon attorney.
Here's a rundown of the most odious of the pardons and commutations that Trump granted in his final hours, in his own version of Pardongate:
Steve Bannon. Bannon brazenly ripped off Trump's own most ardent followers who donated to a scam called "We Build the Wall," federal prosecutors said. Bannon allegedly defrauded donors of hundreds of thousands of dollars they'd given to that fund and used the money for his own lavish personal lifestyle. Now, Trump has let Bannon off the hook, while hanging his own most fervent supporters out to dry.
Elliott Broidy. The former Republican Party and Trump fundraiser pleaded guilty to secretly lobbying the US government on behalf of Chinese and Malaysian interests. The Justice Department previously had declared that Broidy's conduct "poses a serious threat to our national security and undermines the integrity of our democracy." He, too, gets a free pass.
Why Trump can't legally pardon himself
Why Trump can't legally pardon himself
