Pardon hopefuls pitch themselves as judicial system victims — just like Trump

Politico

9 hours ago

President Donald Trump has railed against the judicial system for years.
And prospective pardonees, in turn, are modeling themselves after Trump to increase their chances of winning his favor.
The bulk of the over 1,500 clemencies the president has issued in his second term have been granted to celebrities, politicians, Trump donors and loyalists — including those convicted in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot — many of whom have used their platforms to make the case that the judicial system was manipulated against them for political reasons, just like the president himself.
After Trump pardoned his longtime supporter and former Virginia sheriff, Scott Jenkins, of conspiracy to commit bribery at the end of May, the Department of Justice pardon attorney, Ed Martin, took to X to make clear the administration's priorities: 'No MAGA left behind.'
That spirit appears to have pervaded the administration's pardons process — or at least, the perception of it has.
Some people in search of clemency, like former New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez, a Democrat, have appeared to be angling for a pardon by hooking into Trump's argument about judicial weaponization, arguing that they, too, are victims of the system.
Menendez has penned multiple lengthy tracts on X about his victimhood from the weaponization of the Justice Department, and made a thinly veiled plea for clemency in a post shortly after he was sentenced to 11 years in prison at the end of January.
'President Trump is right. This process is political and has been corrupted to the core. I hope President Trump cleans up the cesspool and restores integrity to the system,' Menendez wrote at the time, tagging the president's official account.
The New Jersey Democrat has yet to receive Trump's blessing. A lawyer for Menendez did not respond to a request for comment.
Menendez isn't the only Democrat who has seemingly cozied up to the president to clinch a pardon.
New York Mayor Eric Adams appeared to pounce on the suggestion that Trump was open to granting him a pardon in his now-dismissed federal corruption case earlier this year, even showing up at the president's inauguration after repeatedly saying he was unlikely to attend the event.
Adams' decision to pass on New York's Martin Luther King Jr. Day events to show face at Trump's inauguration rankled Black political and religious leaders in his home state, who said the choice indicated the mayor was more interested in a pardon than his constituents. His case was ultimately dismissed — over the objection of attorneys working on it — after Adams signaled he would assist the Trump administration on immigration and national security measures.
White House deputy press secretary Harrison Fields maintained that the president is wielding his pardon powers 'to right many wrongs,' adding that Trump's actions fall 'within his constitutional authority.'
'President Trump doesn't need lectures from Democrats about his use of pardons,' Fields said in a statement, bashing Joe Biden's pardons of his son and Anthony Fauci, among others. 'President Trump is using his pardon and commutation powers to right many wrongs, acting reasonably and responsibly within his constitutional authority.'
Others, like reality TV couple Julie and Todd Chrisley, have had better luck than Menendez.
In a case that garnered national attention, Trump at the end of May pardoned the longtime reality stars, who had been convicted of bank and wire fraud in 2022 and sentenced to seven and 12 years in prison.
The pardons came after a relentless messaging campaign by their daughter, Savannah, who publicly supported Trump throughout his 2024 presidential campaign and made an appearance at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee to speak about the justice system that she said was targeting both her family and Trump.
'We have a two-faced justice system. Just look at what they're doing to President Trump,' she said at the 2024 convention. 'All while, let's face it, Hunter Biden is roaming around free and attending classified meetings.'
After their May 28 pardon, the Chrisleys held a press conference where they thanked the president and his administration — and previewed their new TV series.
Virginia Tech political science professor Karen Hult, who specializes in the powers of the presidency and the executive branch, said that while issuing pardons in arenas of personal interest to the president isn't necessarily unusual — see Jimmy Carter's pardon of people who evaded the Vietnam War draft — repeatedly circumventing the Justice Department's pardons process, as Trump has done, is a less-than-common occurrence.
'Mr. Trump, especially in his second term, seems to be especially distinctive in really not wanting to use advice from anybody else, but certainly not from career civil servants, especially in the Justice Department,' Hult said, noting that, for the first time in modern history, the president replaced the head of the DOJ's pardon office with a political appointee.
Trump's selection of Martin, whose short-lived stint as the U.S. Attorney for D.C. ended after his nomination for the full-time job failed, put a vocal MAGA figure in the traditionally nonpolitical office. Martin has been a staunch defender of people connected with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and fired dozens of prosecutors who pursued riot-related cases during his time as U.S. attorney.
In response to a question about the nature of the pardon process and the perception of partisanship surrounding the system, a DOJ spokesperson said the office of the pardon attorney 'administers the executive process, reviews applications for executive clemency submitted to the Department of Justice, and makes recommendations to grant or deny those applications based on the Justice Manual,' adding that 'the Department is committed to timely and carefully reviewing all applications and making recommendations to the President and Pardon Czar that are consistent, unbiased, and uphold the rule of law.'
A senior administration official, granted anonymity to speak freely about the pardons process, pushed back on claims that the administration was circumventing the traditional pardons process.
The official maintained that the DOJ, Martin and pardon czar Alice Marie Johnson — who herself was the recipient of a 2020 pardon from Trump before he selected her for the role in his second term — review each pardon case individually before making their recommendations to the president.
But not everyone is so eager to be spared.
Pam Hemphill, who earned the online moniker 'MAGA Granny' for her role in the Capitol riot, was one of the Jan. 6 rioters pardoned by the president on his first day in office. But Hemphill, who has since apologized for the part she played in that day's violence and has spoken out against the president, rejected Trump's pardon, saying she doesn't want to play into Trump's hands.
'I cannot have this happen, because then I'm part of Trump's narrative that the DOJ is weaponized,' Hemphill said in an interview.
According to Hemphill, Trump's lengthy list of pardons is part of his broader mission to build a narrative around the existence of the 'deep state' and argue that the DOJ was 'weaponized against him' under the Biden administration.
But not all of those pardoned by Trump have obvious ties to the president.
Two clemency recipients, Tanner Mansell and John Moore Jr., were pardoned of a 2022 theft conviction after freeing what they believed at the time to be illegally captured sharks from a line off the coast of Florida.
Mansell said in an interview he's not sure why the president chose him as a pardon recipient. He said he has never promoted the president online — in fact the professional shark diver avoids publicly talking about politics in order to maintain a neutral business profile that doesn't alienate potential customers.
According to Mansell, his legal team did not apply for a pardon.
'I'd love to ask him, like, 'Hey, did you do this because you like sharks?'' Mansell said of the president, adding that it's 'anybody's guess' what actually prompted Trump to pardon him.
But whatever the reason, Mansell said he hoped the pardon wasn't 'politically driven.'
'I hope to believe that it wasn't just politically driven on his part,' he said. 'I hope to believe that, you know, he read Cato's article and he saw the injustice in the situation and did it because it was the right thing to do.'