Trump gives clemency to more than two dozen, including political allies

Miami Herald

3 days ago

President Donald Trump issued a flurry of clemency actions Wednesday, according to a White House official familiar with the matter, wiping the convictions or cutting sentences for more than two dozen people, including political allies, a rapper and the co-founder of a Chicago gang who was serving multiple life sentences for violent crimes.
A blitz of pardons and commutations this week benefited a hodgepodge of recipients, including Larry Hoover, the former leader of the Gangster Disciples, a highly organized gang that had nearly 30,000 members in Chicago alone and raked in $100 million a year trafficking drugs across the country. It also included those who have expressed political support or echoed the president in claiming they had been unfairly targeted because of their political affiliation.
Trump also issued pardons for Michael Grimm, a former New York representative who pleaded guilty in 2014 to felony tax evasion. Trump's aides have compared Grimm's prosecution to Trump's own legal troubles, which he has described as a witch hunt.
The White House did not immediately make public the list of the recent pardons and commutations on Wednesday.
On Monday, Ed Martin, a Trump adviser helping lead efforts that include the pardon process, wrote on social media, 'No MAGA left behind.'
The new slate of clemency actions was the latest sign of Trump's efforts to redefine the sweeping presidential act of forgiveness. Rather than following the formal and often lengthy Justice Department process to vet clemency applicants, Trump has preferred to hand out pardons to reward his supporters, incentivize loyalty to his administration or bolster supporters.
He has also relied on Alice Johnson, who was sentenced to life in prison in a drug conspiracy case and whose sentence was later commuted by Trump. He then named her 'pardon czar.'
Here is a list of recipients of Trump's latest acts of clemency.
Pardons
Mark Bashaw: Bashaw, a former Army lieutenant, was convicted in 2022 by a military judge for disobeying lawful COVID-19 protocols, including refusing to work remotely, failing to submit required testing and not wearing a face mask indoors.
James Callahan: Callahan was a New York labor union leader who pleaded guilty to failing to report more than $300,000 in gifts. He admitted that the reports he filed for the engineers union he led omitted his receipt of goods and services from an advertising firm that the union used to place ads, including free tickets to nearly 100 sports, concert and theater events and hospitality packages valued at $315,000.
Julie and Todd Chrisley: The Chrisleys, who are reality television stars, were convicted three years ago of evading taxes and defrauding banks of more than $30 million to support their luxurious lifestyle. Trump called their treatment 'pretty harsh.' The Chrisleys' daughter Savannah is a supporter of Trump. During the Republican National Convention last summer, she said her parents were 'persecuted by rogue prosecutors' because of their public profile and conservative beliefs.
Kentrell Gaulden: Gaulden, a Louisiana rapper, is better known as YoungBoy Never Broke Again or NBA YoungBoy. He pleaded guilty in December to possessing weapons as a felon. During the presidential campaign, Trump occasionally appeared with hip-hop artists as a part of an effort to connect with Black male voters.
'I want to thank President Trump for granting me a pardon and giving me the opportunity to keep building -- as a man, as a father and as an artist,' Gaulden, a father of 10, said in a statement Wednesday. Gaulden also credited Johnson, the president's so-called pardon czar.
Michael Grimm: Grimm, a Republican, represented Staten Island and part of Brooklyn in the House of Representatives from 2011 until he resigned in 2015. He was indicted in 2014 after he failed to report nearly $1 million in gross receipts and hundreds of thousands of dollars in employee wages from a Manhattan restaurant he had owned, prosecutors said. In recent years, he has gone on television to defend Trump. But he has been off the air since a horseback riding accident at a polo tournament last September that left him paralyzed.
Michael Harris: Harris is a music executive who co-founded Death Row Records. He served 33 years of a 25-year-to-life sentence after being convicted of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. Harris, known as Harry-O, began working as a social activist while in prison. He endorsed Trump in October.
Jeremy Hutchinson: A former Arkansas state senator, Hutchinson was sentenced to more than four years in prison in 2023 for tax fraud and accepting bribes.
Hutchinson, a Republican, is the son of Tim Hutchinson, a former U.S. senator, and the nephew of Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas. In a letter to the president advocating a pardon, Hutchinson's lawyers wrote that 'it is absolutely clear that Democrats at the Department of Justice and within the FBI chose to prosecute the case because he was a high-profile conservative legislator from a Republican family.'
David Leavitt, a lawyer who represented Hutchinson in his appeal, said in an interview that 'the reason why this pardon occurred is because it's a statement to prosecutors everywhere: 'Stop forcing people to plead guilty.''
Marlene and James Kernan: The Kernans, of New York, were sentenced to probation in 2010 in connection with employing a felon at their businesses.
Tanner Mansell and John Moore: Mansell and Moore, Florida commercial divers, were convicted of theft in 2022 for removing sharks from a government-sanctioned fishing line in federal waters, according to a White House official and their attorneys. They argued they were rescuing the sharks from an illegal poaching operation, but prosecutors said the line was legally set and not theirs to disturb.
John Rowland: Rowland served as the governor of Connecticut from 1995 to 2004, when he resigned to avoid impeachment during an investigation into corrupt government practices. He pleaded guilty later that year and was sentenced to a year and a day in prison. Ten years later, Rowland was convicted again of public corruption, including obstructing justice, conspiracy, falsifying documents relied on by federal regulators and other violations of campaign finance laws.
Earl Smith: Smith was an Army reserve sergeant in 2010 when he was caught stealing thousands of government computers and selling them for profit. Smith pleaded guilty at the time and waived his right to a trial.
Alexander Sittenfeld: Sittenfeld, a former Cincinnati City Council member, was sentenced to 16 months in prison for bribery and attempted extortion by a government official.
Charles Tanner: Tanner was a professional boxer from Gary, Indiana, until his arrest in 2004 and later conviction for possessing and conspiring to distribute cocaine. His life sentence was earlier commuted by Trump in 2020.
Charles Scott: Scott, of Virginia, helped the CEO of an Ohio-based lighting company manipulate the corporation's stock value, make coordinated trades and defraud investors. He was sentenced this year to more than three years in prison for securities fraud.
Kevin Eric Baisden: Baisden was convicted in Washington, D.C., of shoplifting and second-degree theft.
Commutations
Larry Hoover: Hoover, known as 'King Larry,' has been imprisoned in Illinois since the 1970s for the murder of a rival drug dealer when federal prosecutors dragged him back to court in 1997. His full commutation is not expected to put him back on the streets of Chicago. He has over 100 years left to serve on state murder charges in Illinois that presidential clemency does not erase. But it may lead to his transfer out of the supermax prison in Colorado where he is held.
Imaad Zuberi: Zuberi, a venture capitalist and major political donor, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for violating lobbying, campaign finance and tax laws, and obstructing an investigation into Trump's 2017 inaugural committee.
In the three months after the 2016 presidential election, Zuberi donated more than $1.1 million to committees associated with Trump and the Republican Party, scoring coveted invitations to black-tie dinners celebrating Trump's inauguration. In 2020, Zuberi pleaded guilty to obstructing a federal investigation into the source of a $900,000 donation he made through his company to Trump's inaugural committee in late December 2016.
Marian Morgan: Morgan, of Sarasota, Florida, was sentenced to 35 years in prison in 2012 for wire fraud, money laundering and other charges. She and her husband, John Morgan, were found to have defrauded investors of more than $28 million by selling fictitious investment opportunities. She was ordered to pay more than $19 million in restitution to nearly 90 people and organizations, as well as the IRS.
Morgan, who originally pleaded not guilty, was resentenced in 2013 to roughly 33 years in prison. Her husband, who pleaded guilty, was sentenced in 2011 to about 10 years in prison and was released in 2017, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Garnett Smith: Smith was convicted in Maryland of conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine.
Edward Sotelo: Sotelo was convicted in Texas of conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute 1 kilogram of cocaine.
Joe Sotelo: Sotelo was convicted in Texas of conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute 1 kilogram of cocaine.
Anabel Valenzuela: Valenzuela was convicted in Hawaii of conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine.
Lawrence Duran: Duran was convicted in Florida of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and related crimes, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and to receive and pay health care kickbacks.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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