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NEW TRUMP PARDONS DO LITTLE TO SPUR CLEMENCY HOPE

President Trump last week granted a full pardon to media tycoon Conrad Moffat Black and Patrick Nolan, former Republican leader of the California State Assembly, but there is little in those acts of executive grace to cause prisoners who are not politically connected or are not BBFs with celebrities that Trump will start granting clemency to the thousands whose applications languish on file.

Black, a British citizen, had been the CEO of the publisher of Chicago Sun-Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Jerusalem Post. He was convicted in 2007 on three counts of mail fraud and one count of obstruction of justice. Two fraud counts were later thrown out by the Supreme Court. Black served 37 months in federal prison. Last year wrote a book called Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other, which some media accounts allege was little more than a hagiography.

Nolan was a California legislative leader who spent years in prison after being convicted in the 1990s, after being secretly recorded accepting checks from an undercover FBI agent. He pled to one count of racketeering and did 25 months. Trump characterized Nolan’s decision to plead guilty as a “difficult” one, which makes him no different from all the other 94% of federal defendants who plead guilty every year.

These pardons do little to encourage federal inmates that Trump will wield his clemency power to benefit prisoners who are not connected. 

The President has pardoned nine people and commuted the sentences of three others since taking office, in a pattern apparently driven by politics, celebrity support and television. The only commutation of someone who was not politically connected was that of Alice Johnson, whose case had been taken to the president by Kim Kardashian West.

A few have complained that the President’s pardons are driven by politics or are “all about him.” This, of course, makes him no different from his predecessors (Obama and Manning, Clinton and Rich).

The President has been rumored to be planning pardons, timed for the Memorial Day weekend, of servicemen who have been accused or convicted of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.  However, the opposition to such actions appears to be fierce, and some have suggested that the hue and cry may cause Trump to abandon the plan.

The Hill, Trump pardons media tycoon, former GOP leader of California State Assembly (May 15)

The New York Times, Trump May Be Preparing Pardons for Servicemen Accused of War Crimes (May 18)

The Hill, Here are the 12 pardons or reduced sentences granted by Trump (May 16)

– Thomas L. Root