Trump pardons former Republican politicians Grimm, Rowland
May 29 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump on Wednesday issued several more pardons, including those for his political allies: former U.S. House member Michael Grimm of New York and ex-Connecticut Gov. John Rowland.
Trump has largely circumvented the process run through the Department of Justice. Trump's new pardon attorney Ed Martin last week reviewed commutation applications for the president to consider, a source told CNN.
A pardon ends the legal consequences of a criminal conviction and a commutation reduces the sentence.
Grimm, a member of the U.S. House from 2011-2015, served seven months in prison after being convicted of tax evasion in 2014.
He attempted to win back his House seat in 2018 but lost in the Republican primary.
Grimm, 55, who worked for Newsmax from 2022-2024, was paralyzed in a fall from a horse during a polo competition last year.
After the State of the Union in 2014, Grimm threatened to break a reporter in half "like a boy" when questioned about his campaign finances. He also threatened to throw the reporter off a balcony at the Capitol.
Rowland, a Republican governor in Connecticut from 1996-2004, was convicted twice in federal criminal cases. He resigned as governor after the first offense of election fraud and obstruction of justice. Then, he was sentenced to a 30-month prison term in 2015 for his illegal involvement in two congressional campaigns.
Also pardoned was another Republican, Jeremy Hutchinson, a former Arkansas state senator, who was sentenced to 46 months in prison for accepting election bribes and tax fraud in 2014.
Hutchinson is the son of former Sen. Tim Hutchinson and nephew of former Gov. Asa Hutchinson.
Imaad Zuberi, who donated $900,000 to Trump's first inaugural committee and was also a donor on fundraising committees for Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, had his sentence commuted on Wednesday.
In 2021, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison for falsifying records to conceal work as a foreign agent while lobbying high-level U.S. government officials and obstructing a federal investigation of the inaugural fund.
Trump also Wednesday commuted the sentences of eight others, a White House official said.
Larry Hoover, the co-founder of Chicago's Gangster Disciples street gang, was serving six life prison sentences in the federal supermax facility in Florence, Colo., after a 1997 conviction. He ran a criminal enterprise from jail.
Hoover, who is now 74, had been seeking a commutation under the First Step Act, which Trump signed into law in 2018. U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber denied Hoover's request, calling him "one of the most notorious criminals in Illinois history."
But he won't get out of a prison yet because he is also serving a sentence of up to 200 years on Illinois state murder charges. Trump can't give clemency to those convicted on state charges.
An entertainer and a former athlete were also pardoned.
Rapper Kentrell Gaulden, who goes by NBA YoungBoy, was convicted in a federal gun crimes case last year. He was released from prison and won't need to serve probation.
Charles "Duke" Tanner, a former professional boxer, was sentenced to life in prison for drug conspiracy in 2006. Trump commuted his sentence during his first term.
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