The White House Pardon Office Is Open for Business
Pardons are just another deal to President Trump.
Let’s make a deal.
Photographer: Win McNamee/Getty Images North America
A pattern is emerging in Donald Trump’s use of the pardon power: The president appears to view clemency as a means to simultaneously reward supporters and rewrite history.
Since taking office for his second term in January, he has granted clemency to almost 1,600 defendants. According to Trump — who accused the Biden administration of “weaponizing” federal law enforcement to persecute political rivals — he is simply correcting injustices. The two dozen recipients of pardons and commutations this week include a former Chicago gang kingpin, three founders of a cryptocurrency exchange, and an embezzling nursing home executive whose mother attended a $1-million-a-plate dinner for Trump at Mar-a-Lago.