‘Get out of jail free’: Everything wrong with Donald Trump’s latest move
Pardons are big business in the white house and fury is spreading over Trump’s latest plan that could change everything.
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Rap tycoon Sean “Diddy” Combs is facing conviction on sex trafficking charges. President Donald Trump is already considering granting him clemency.
Pardons are big business in the White House. Trump has set hundreds of people free in his first four months.
First among them were almost all 1500 of those convicted for the January 6 insurrection attack on Capitol Hill. They’ve since been joined by reality TV stars, a well-connected nursing home executive, a MAGA county sheriff and several drug barons.
It’s a rare expression of compassion and empathy from the Commander-in-Chief.
His public messaging emphasises a no-nonsense, get-tough-on-all-crime approach.
But it’s all in the name of justice, the White House insists.
5“The punishment does not always fit the crime,” an administration spokesman told media last week. “The president is open to seeing if these people are worthy of redemption.”
Some are guilty of “fiddling the books” to dodge tax or skim a little (or a lot) out of company profits.
Others were responsible for feeding the nationwide drug emergency Trump is so determined to defeat. Not to mention murder and gun crimes.
But patterns are emerging among the pardons.
Many are celebrities or have high public profiles. Others control enormous wealth.
“It’s unusual in the way that it seems very partisan,” New York University Professor of Law Rachel Barkow told US media. “It seems that most of the people, if not all of the people, on the list have some kind of connection to the president, to the president’s cronies.”
‘Worthy of redemption’
“WORDS CAN’T EXPRESS MY GRATITUDE FOR OUR DEVOTED ENDURING PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP FOR FREEING LARRY HOOVER,” writes social media celebrity Ye.
Kanye West (currently calling himself Ye) has been championing the release of the convicted drug lord. And he managed to convince Trump of the justice of his cause.
Hoover, 74, was sentenced by a jury to several life sentences for crimes linked to his Chicago Gangster Disciples gang, including murder. His 1970s network of pushers and enforcers extended across 35 states.
Former US lawyer Ron Safer, who prosecuted Gangster Disciples members during the 1990s, says he is dismayed at the pardon.
“Larry Hoover was the head of perhaps the most pernicious, efficient drug operation in the United States,” Safer told US media. “They sold over $US100 million of drugs a year in the city of Chicago alone. They were responsible for countless murders. They supported their drug territories with ruthless violence.”
The pardon certainly seems against Trump’s professed policies.
The 47th President recently expressed outrage at a meeting of state governors that they were giving drug smugglers and dealers little more than a “slap on the wrist.”
“I am ready for it, the death penalty, if you deal drugs,” he told the governors in February.
But Trump has so far this year signed Presidential pardons for eight convicted mobsters.
It’s not the first time.
In his first administration, Trump freed 13 other high-level drug trafficking convicts. He also freed senior Mexican military commander General Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, who had been arrested for helping cartels cross the US border.
Corporatised Clemency
Cato Institute drug policy analyst Jeffrey Singer says Trump’s pardons often appear “transactional” and influenced by powerful individuals.
“He actually promised in front of the Libertarian Party convention that if he was elected, he would pardon (drug network creator) Ross Ulbricht. That was a promise he made hoping to get support from Libertarians,” Singer told US media.
Ulbricht is a former tech entrepreneur who was sentenced to a life term in 2015 after being convicted over the Silk Road dark web drug distribution network.
This included hiring six contract killers – though there was no evidence that the murders had been completed.
Trump sought to appeal to his supporters during a 2024 election campaign appearance: “If you vote for me, on day one I will commute the sentence of Ross Ulbricht to a sentence of time served,” he declared.
Then there are the reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley.
The couple was convicted of tax evasion and bank fraud in 2022. After just two years in jail, Trump – himself a former reality television host and producer – has let them walk free.
That may have something to do with the campaigning of their daughter, Savannah Chrisley. Earlier this year, she published an episode of her My View television show featuring the President’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump. She also took to the stage of the Republican National Convention on his behalf, accusing the Biden administration of running a “two-faced justice system”.
Ms Chrisley told NewsNation she had spoken with Trump on the phone.
“He was like, ‘you know, you guys don’t look like terrorists to me’,” she said. “But he just said that their sentences were outrageous and they were treated unfairly from everyone that he has spoken to.”
Convicted entertainers regularly feature among Presidential pardons.
Rapper NBA YoungBoy (Kentrell Gaulden) was given clemency on gun charges last week.
Trump says he is thinking the same way about “Diddy” Combs.
The 55-year-old is approaching the end of his trial over sex trafficking, racketeering, and prostitution allegations.
“First of all, I’d look at what’s happening. And I haven’t been watching it too closely. “I haven’t spoken to him in years,” he told reporters at the weekend.
“He used to really like me a lot, but I think when I ran for politics, he sort of- that relationship busted up, from what I read, I don’t know. He didn’t tell me that, but I’d read some little bit nasty statements in the paper all of a sudden …
“It’s not a popularity contest, so I don’t know. I would certainly look at the facts.”
‘No MAGA left behind’
“(His pardon is) used as messaging so that, if someone was convicted of a crime similar to the ones that President Trump himself had been charged with, he can cast doubt on focusing on a crime like that,” says Professor Barkow.
And the clemency law specialist says she’s surprised at the lack of public outrage: “Under Joe Biden’s administration, (if) someone in his administration said ‘no Biden supporter left behind’, I think there would be outcry”.
Former nursing home executive Paul Walczak was convicted late last year over tax crimes and the theft of more than $US10 million from the medical staff that worked at his facilities.
His 18-month prison sentence and $US4 million fine was made to go away by Trump. But only after Walczak’s mother and MAGA donor Elizabeth Fago paid $US1 million for a ticket to dine with the President at Mar-a-Lago.
The Trump administration then decided Walczak was a political prisoner.
“Paul Walczak is an entrepreneur targeted by the Biden administration over his family’s conservative politics,” White House spokesman Harrison Fields said upon his release.
“After Walczak’s mother stood up to Joe Biden and his attempt to oust her and fellow conservatives from government boards, the Biden IRS turned Walczak’s civil case over outstanding tax obligations into a criminal matter and indicted him.”
Among the January 6 insurrectionists to be pardoned were members of the extremist Proud Boys and Oath Keepers militias that had actively supported Trump’s re-election campaign.
And Biden is also blamed for the jailing of Virginia sheriff Scott Jenkins.
A jury last year found him guilty of bribery, fraud and corruption.
Trump, however, took to his personal social media service, Truth Social, to declare Jenkins had “been dragged through HELL by a Corrupt and Weaponised Biden DOJ”.
Trump’s Pardon Attorney, Ed Martin, responded to the move by proclaiming: “Thank you,
@potus Trump, for pardoning Sheriff Jenkins! No MAGA left behind.”
But are criminal convictions by jury political?
“People would justifiably question whether or not this authority, which should be even-handed and equally available to all Americans, was somehow being used for partisan ends,” Professor Barkow warns.
Follow the money
“Today, 26 deserving individuals were granted clemencies and pardons. Each one represents a story of redemption, rehabilitation, and resilience,” Trump’s personally appointed (and ex-felon) “Pardon Czar” Alice Marie Johnson posted to the social media platform X last week. “Their second chance is a second shot at life.”
The Presidential pardon power derivates the British Monarchy’s ability to bestow mercy.
“It’s a venerated power that the (constitution’s) framers thought was really important for us to have as a country because laws could be excessively severe, and it was important to have a mechanism to check that,” argues Professor Barkow.
But the United States’ founding fathers didn’t want the return of kings. And they knew “no President was an angel”.
So they established a three-way balance between the legislative power of Congress, the interpretative power of the Judiciary, and the enforcement actions of the Executive.
Constitutionally, US Presidents can issue a pardon once it has been through a Department of Justice validation process. A formal petition would be filed. The Office of the Pardon Attorney would examine the conviction and the supplicant’s prison record and background.
Only then would a recommendation be passed on to the President.
Some semblance of this process remains.
Johnson had her life sentence for cocaine smuggling commuted under Trump’s first term in office.
She’s been appointed under his second administration to be a “pardon czar”, working alongside Trump’s formal new Pardon Attorney, Ed Martin.
Reality TV star Kim Kardashian was instrumental in winning her release.
“One thing that is easy to see is, setting aside the January 6 clemencies, that there’s really been a focus on grants to people who committed financial crimes,” says University of St Thomas law professor and former federal prosecutor Mark Osler.
Trump has been convicted of falsifying business records to cover up hush money paid to former mistress Stormy Daniels.
But corruption convictions have proven no reason to keep former Republican Congressman Michael Grimm or Connecticut Governor John Rowland behind bars.
During his first term, Trump also granted clemency to several of his political allies. This included his 2019 election campaign team chief strategist, Steve Bannon, and campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. But it also extended to Charles Kushner – the father of Trump’s son-in-law and first administration adviser, Jered Kushner – who had been convicted of tax evasion and witness tampering.
“It’s not as if it was a secret,” Professor Barkow concludes. “You know, I think the greatest check on the pardon power is making sure you elect somebody with the good character to exercise it prudently”.
Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer | @jamieseidel.bsky.social
Originally published as ‘Get out of jail free’: Everything wrong with Donald Trump’s latest move
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