Trump Issues fifteen pardons and five commutations
The President grants 15 pardons and five commutations, including George Papadopoulos, the former adviser who set off the Russia probe.
President Trump has granted 15 pardons and five commutations to individuals including a former campaign adviser who set off the Russia investigation, three former congressmen and several former military contractors accused of wartime killing of Iraqi civilians.
The list was the first in a wave of pardons the president is expected to announce in his final weeks in office. Mr Trump has discussed with advisers the prospect of pardoning several individuals involved in the Russia investigation, as well as members of his family and his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani.
Among those he pardoned on Tuesday was George Papadopoulos, his former campaign adviser whose barside comments to an Australian diplomat helped trigger what would become Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
He also granted clemency to former New York Rep. Chris Collins, former California Rep. Duncan Hunter and former Texas Rep. Steve Stockman, all Republicans.
Mr Collins pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy to commit securities fraud and lying to law-enforcement officials, while Mr Hunter pleaded guilty to one count of campaign-finance violations. Mr Stockman was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2018 for misuse of charitable funds. Messrs Collins and Hunter received pardons, while Mr. Stockman’s sentence was commuted.
The White House said the pardons for Messrs Collins and Hunter had been requested by many members of Congress.
Mr Trump also pardoned four military contractors accused of killing more than a dozen Iraqi civilians in a 2007 incident in a Baghdad traffic circle at the height of the Iraq war, an international incident that badly strained US-Iraq relations. Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard were convicted in 2014 of manslaughter, while a fourth contractor, Nicholas Slatten, was found guilty of murder in a 2018 trial.
All four at the time worked for Blackwater USA, a private firm that was contracted to offer support for US military personnel in Iraq and elsewhere. The company at the time was owned by Trump ally Erik Prince. Mr Prince’s sister Betsy DeVos currently serves as Mr Trump’s secretary of education.
In a statement released by the White House, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Mr Papadopoulos had been charged with a “process-related crime” and that his pardon “helps correct the wrong that Mueller’s team inflicted on so many people.”
Alicia Caldwell contributed to this article.
The Wall Street Journal
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