Trump pardons former media mogul Conrad Black

Donald Trump pardons biographer and ex-Fairfax owner Conrad Black, who was jailed for fraud.

Conrad Black, pictured with wife Barbara Amiel, outside a US court in 2010.

US President Donald Trump has signed a full pardon for former media mogul and one-time business partner Conrad Black, who was convicted in 2007 of fraud and obstruction of justice and spent three-and-a-half years in prison, the White House said.

Lord Black, 74, a Canadian-born British citizen, once ran an international newspaper empire that included Australia’s Fairfax newspapers, the Chicago Sun-Times, Britain’s Daily Telegraph and the Jerusalem Post.

“Lord Black’s case has attracted broad support from many high-profile individuals who have vigorously vouched for his exceptional character,” the White House said in a statement announcing the pardon.

“Consistent with his distinguished reputation for helping others, while in prison, Lord Black served as a tutor for 150 students, helping them achieve their educational goals,” the White House statement said. “In light of these facts, Mr Black is entirely deserving of this Grant of Executive Clemency.”

Lord Black was found guilty in the United States in 2007 of scheming to siphon off millions of dollars from the sale of newspapers owned by Hollinger, where he was chief executive and chairman.

Two of his three fraud convictions were later voided, and his sentence was shortened. He was released from a Florida prison in May 2012 and deported from the United States.

Lord Black has written books and columns expressing his conservative views. Last year, he wrote the book, “Donald J Trump: A President Like No Other.”

In it, he describes Mr Trump as “a good deal more ethical and honest than many other businessmen and corporate directors I have known.”

In 2001, when Lord Black led the company, Hollinger made a deal with Mr Trump to develop a skyscraper at the site of the old Sun-Times newspaper building in downtown Chicago, which the company owned. The future president bought Hollinger’s stake in the project in 2004, according to the Chicago Tribune.

At his trial, Lord Black’s defence lawyers debated whether to call Mr Trump as a witness, hoping he would bolster their argument that a 2000 surprise party Lord Black gave for the 60th birthday of his wife, Barbara Amiel, was a business, rather than a social event. Mr Trump wasn’t called.

Mr Trump has used his power of pardon before this and critics say he does it for people who back him or his ideas. Last year he granted a full pardon to Dinesh D’Souza, a conservative author and firebrand who pleaded guilty in 2014 to using fake donors to make political contributions to a Republican Senate campaign.

In 2017, Mr Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio, a former sheriff convicted of violating a court order to halt traffic patrols that targeted suspected unauthorised immigrants.

Lord Black built Hollinger into what once was the world’s third-largest newspaper company by circulation, at one point operating more than 300 newspapers.

In 2001, he gave up his Canadian citizenship to become a British lord, taking the title Lord Black of Crossharbour. He hobnobbed with the likes of Henry Kissinger, Margaret Thatcher and Diana, the Princess of Wales, split his time between residences in London, New York, Florida and Toronto. Lord Black also wrote biographies of Franklin Roosevelt and Richard Nixon.

The office of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau declined to comment.

For a period in the 1990s, the former Fairfax newspapers, now owned by Nine and which publish The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, were part of the Black stable.

Lord Black sold the Australian papers in 1996, after federal parliament refused to relax cross media laws to allow him to increase his stake in the media group.

Reuters, Dow Jones, AFP