‘No MAGA left behind': Trump's pardons get even more political
As President Donald Trump's interim US attorney for the District of Columbia, Ed Martin was remarkably blunt about intermingling Trump's political goals with the ostensibly independent actions of the Justice Department. That might have cost him the permanent gig.
So leave it to Martin, now Trump's pardon attorney, to say the quiet part out loud about Trump's pardons. 'No MAGA left behind,' Martin posted Monday on X.
Martin's missive came after Trump pardoned a MAGA-supporting former Virginia sheriff, Scott Jenkins, who had been convicted of bribery.
Martin's further posts suggested this pardon wasn't about rewarding a Trump ally, per se – a more problematic proposition – but rather about correcting what Trump allies argue was a weaponized Biden administration prosecution.
However, if you look closely at how Trump's used his pardon power – which he has exercised dramatically this week, with a slew of new pardons and commutations on Wednesday alone – it's virtually impossible to miss the political overtones. Many of Trump's acts of clemency have rewarded an ally or someone tied to an ally, or they have served a clear and not terribly subtle political purpose.
Politics have loomed over other controversial and high-profile pardons – from Andrew Jackson's, to Gerald Ford pardoning Richard Nixon, to Bill Clinton pardoning Marc Rich, to Joe Biden pardoning his own son. (Biden in his closing days also preemptively pardoned other family members and Trump critics who hadn't been accused or convicted of crimes, because Trump and his allies had suggested they could be targeted.)
But Trump took things up a level by pardoning a spate of key convicted allies in his first term, often without the kind of extensive process usually used in pardons. And his second term continues to push the envelope.
The big one, of course, was the blanket pardoning of virtually all January 6, 2021, defendants – about 1,500 people in total. These were people who quite literally rose up on Trump's behalf and in some cases assaulted police. Trump pardoned nearly all of them even as polling later showed 83% of Americans opposed his pardons for those convicted of violent crimes.
There has been more where that came from this week.
On Monday, Trump pardoned the MAGA-supporting former sheriff. Jenkins was sentenced to 10 years in prison (during the Trump administration) for offering local businessmen positions as auxiliary deputy sheriffs in return for campaign contributions. On Tuesday, Trump made a splash when he spared reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley lengthy prison sentences for bank fraud after their daughter campaigned extensively for Trump in 2024.
Campaign assistance appears to be a common denominator for some Trump pardons. The New York Times reported on Tuesday, for example, that Trump's April pardon of convicted nursing home executive Paul Walczak came after Walczak's mother raised millions for Trump and other Republicans, sought to publicize the diary of Biden's daughter, and attended a $1-million-per-person fundraising dinner last month. Walczak even cited his mother's pro-Trump political activity in his pardon application.
And on Wednesday, as Martin took to social media again to proclaim it 'pardon day,' Trump granted clemency to even more individuals, including pardoning former GOP Rep. Michael Grimm of New York. That means Trump has now pardoned no fewer than eight convicted former GOP members of Congress, between his first and second terms.
Earlier in the day, Trump suggested that next in line for pardons could be two men convicted of conspiring to kidnap Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. ('It looked to me like somewhat of a railroad job,' Trump said.)
Beyond the pardons mentioned above, Trump has also pardoned or granted clemency to:
Former Republican Connecticut Gov. John Rowland, who was convicted on two separate occasions in recent decades
Mark Bashaw, an officer who formerly served at the Army Public Health Center and was found guilty of violating the Biden administration's military Covid safety rules by a court martial
Trevor Milton, who with his wife gave Trump's reelection effort $1.8 million just a month before the 2024 election and had been represented by lawyers with ties to Trump
Ross Ulbricht, whom Trump had pledged to pardon during the 2024 campaign as an appeal to potential libertarian supporters
Two key witnesses in the Biden impeachment inquiry (Devon Archer and Jason Galanis)
Brian Kelsey, a Republican former state senator from Tennessee
Ex-Illinois Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who has supported Trump and called himself a 'Trumpocrat'
Former Las Vegas City Councilwoman Michele Fiore, a Republican who some have labeled 'Lady Trump'
About two dozen people convicted of blocking access to abortion clinics
In case the politics of that last one weren't clear enough, Trump announced the pardons just a day before he addressed the anti-abortion-rights 'March for Life' in January.
Indeed, you have to strain pretty hard to find Trump pardons or grants of clemency that don't have some kind of political element.
Trump in March pardoned three cryptocurrency figures who don't have an obvious political connection to him. But he's also made inroads – both political and personal – into the crypto world, and has pushed for deregulation.
He pardoned two DC police officers convicted in a deadly pursuit, and he did so with at least some support from D.C.'s police chief and Democratic mayor. But he also suggested the police had been targeted 'because they went after an illegal' – suggesting the decision was linked to his harsh anti-illegal immigration efforts.
Jean Pinkard might be Trump's most normal-sounding act of clemency, given she was sentenced to just one year in prison and has battled cancer. But even there, she was represented by a lawyer who prominently pushed Trump's baseless claims of a stolen 2020 election.
Trump on Wednesday also made several pardons and commutations with no immediately apparent political nexus. For instance, he commuted the sentence of former Gangster Disciples co-founder Larry Hoover, just months after Biden pardoned Hoover's second-in-command.
Regardless of intent, the pattern of Trump's pardons is pretty clear. They're heavily focused on people who support Trump or have ties to him, those who targeted people Trump also doesn't like, and instances where the pardons could send messages to key constituencies.
And there's no sign it's going to slow down any time soon – especially where Martin is involved.
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