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SEE ED FUCKING MARTIN FAKE ELECTORS LIARS TICKTIN

SEE CORRUPT 3 // TRANSACTIONAL

SEE STONE PRES HONDURAS TRAFFICKER

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SEE FASCISM MILITIA TARRIO GONDOR ed fucking martin

see bitmex crypto

ONLINE DRUGS MOM 1 MILL$ DINNER MARAlaGO?

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OMG DOH

President Donald Trump adores felons with bottomless pockets, and now one of the tech industries most infamous felons is almost through the ribbon, reports Gizmodo.

“Sam Bankman-Fried, the FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder about three years into a 25-year prison sentence for around $11 billion in fraud against FTX customers, investors, and lenders, presumably thinks the amount of time he’s served so far should just about square the bill,” said Gizmodo.

“In a prison interview with The Economist’s “Money Talks podcast,” Bankman-Fried continued to insist on his innocence even as his lawyers argue the $11 billion forfeiture in the case (an amount basically equal to what he stole) should be thrown out on constitutional grounds.”

The BBC reported in June that Bankman-Fried’s lawyers were seeking a pardon from President Donald Trump. But now they are pursuing a petition before the Supreme Court while chasing Trump’s generosity.

“Donald Trump, … uses pardons as patronage and is happy to hand them out to other powerful men who claim to be victims of partisan lawfare,” reports Gizmodo. “Last year, Bankman-Fried began praising Trump’s wisdom on pardons on X, writing that ‘President Trump knows that, when you weaponize the DOJ, you start putting innocent people in prison.’

“Getting a pardon is “an uphill battle,” Bankman-Fried told Money Talks. “All I can do is put forward, you know, the truth as I see it, and hope that parties are more reflective, and that there’s less visceral reaction than there was before.”

But Gizmodo said that “The visceral reaction Bankman-Fried is referring to” is likely a U.S. Senate resolution to Trump urging the president not to pardon him—which was passed without opposition.

“For the record, Bankman-Fried’s transfer of $8 billion from FTX to his crypto trading firm, Alameda Research, was fraud," assures Gizmodo. “It was not normal margin trading, and his lawyers have already lost one appeal predicated on a similar argument.

Bankman-Fried told Economist hosts that FTX was “a legitimate and successful business,” but suffered a “run on the bank, which is a thing that happens with margin businesses. But Gizmodo writes that his supposed “run” came after FTX was already insolvent and Bankman-Fried had padded Alameda’s balance sheet with FTT, a worthless trade token that FTX cooked up itself.

“About the only thing this interview is effective evidence for is the thesis that money poisoning causes permanent brain damage,” added Gizmodo writer Tom McKay.

Meanwhile, critics like DOJ's former pardon attorney Liz Oyer, accuse have condemned Trump's approach to the clemency process and accuse him of abusing his Article II powers. Oyer and others claim Trump is using the "unfettered executive power" to grant pardons in a way that has served to "degrade, corrupt and politicize the justice system.

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Tyler Pager @ The New York Times: A Billionaire Wanted a Trump Pardon. His Family Gave Alina Habba a $50 Million Deal.

Julio Herrera Velutini, a prominent Venezuelan, was seeking clemency. He got it not long after his daughter gave Ms. Habba, a lawyer close to President Trump, an extraordinarily lucrative job.

WORKED FOR BONDI? OFFICE AT DOJ?

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Trump's secret White House ballroom donor list has leaked, revealing that some of the $333 million comes from companies with lucrative government business interests and a $2.5 million pledge by the daughter of a banker who Trump later pardoned.

Internal fundraising records obtained by *The Washington Post* identify 67 donations over $10,000 and show at least $77 million came from donors who requested to stay anonymous. The report says the money was funneled through a nonprofit into a White House account controlled by the president.

One of the more controversial names on the list is Isabela Herrera, who is the daughter of international banker Julio Herrera Velutini. Her father was indicted in 2022 for allegedly helping finance a Puerto Rican governor's campaign in exchange for getting rid of a regulator investigating his bank.

Following Trump's 2024 presidential campaign victory, the Post’s expose revealed that Isabela Herrera gave $3.5 million to a Trump-aligned political committee. In September 2025, she also pledged $2.5 million to the ballroom fund and paid the first installment of $835,000 the following month.

Shortly after the donation, in August 2025, prosecutors had reduced her father's bribery case charges to a misdemeanor through a plea deal. Trump then pardoned him in January 2026, four months after his daughter's ballroom donor pledge.

The reporting does not establish a specific link to the ballroom donation influencing the pardon.

Apple and Nvidia each committed $25 million, as did billionaire Charles Ergen and the Adelson family. Nvidia sought anonymity for its contribution, even though it publicly supported the project.

Ergen put up his $25 million once federal regulators had closed an inquiry into his firm, the telecommunications company EchoStar. In the case of Rocket Companies, a subsidiary put forward a $10 million pledge some weeks after one of its big acquisitions was given the nod by a federal agency, per the documents. Rocket has said there is no link between the gift and the government’s sanction.

The Post found that about half of the funds raised come from companies or executives tied to federal contracts during Trump's second term.

White House spokesman Davis Ingle defended the donors and said the administration would hunt down the leakers. He described allegations of conflicts of interest as baseless and added that the contributors are “a wide array of great American companies and generous individuals.”

Despite Trump’s claim that he will also help fund the project, his name did not appear on the list.

The $333 million in pledges is far below his initial target of $400 million. Furthermore, the cost of building the larger East Wing project has soared to $600 million.

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Since returning to the White House one year and a half ago, Donald Trump has used to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to target his political foes — from former FBI Director James Comey to New York State Attorney General Letitia James — while pardoning allies, loyalists and supporters, including those connected to the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building. According to former Energy Department Director William S. Becker, Trump is creating a two-tiered justice system in which his allies are exempt from all "legal accountability."

"In his second term, Trump is doing more than ignoring legal and ethical constraints on his behavior," Becker argues in a Monday op-ed for The Hill. "He is helping his allies escape legal accountability, too. He has subverted equal justice to create two classes of citizens: one privileged, the other persecuted. The privileged group includes around 1500 supporters who participated in the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021. As president, Trump not only released them from jail and erased most of their criminal records, but he also wants to pay them millions of taxpayer dollars in restitution for the inconvenience of facing justice for trying to overturn a lawful election."

Becker continues, "Trump has also granted pardons to people who have given him political donations and financial favors, as well as to colleagues with whom he has direct financial or political ties. This pay-to-play scheme is wildly unethical, but the Constitution does not limit the president's pardon power. At last count, Trump's pardons had not only deprived victims of justice; they also wiped out nearly $2 billion in court-ordered fines, forfeitures and restitution for victims and taxpayers."

The "privileged group," according to Becker, "apparently includes the 1835 loyalists Trump has appointed to federal jobs as well as his 22 Cabinet-level officers."

"Thus protected, members of his Cabinet have openly lied to Congress and ignored laws," Becker laments. "For example, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche refuses to comply with the bipartisan law that requires him to release all files related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The withheld files may contain additional references to Trump. They also contain the allegations against the 'Epstein class' — that is, other rich and prominent people who live lives of leisure, lack moral scruples and could have been involved in Epstein's crimes. The Just

When rapper Boosie Badazz — a.k.a. Torence Ivy Hatch Jr. — announced he was suing a lobbying firm that he paid to get him pardoned by President Donald Trump for alleged unlawful firearm possession, the music star did more than air his own grievances. According to a recent report, Hatch also shed light on how Trump has systematically used his pardoning authority to enrich his allies and consolidate his power.

“$600,000: That's the amount rapper Boosie Badazz reportedly paid a Washington lobbying firm to secure a presidential pardon,” NPR's Ayesha Rascoe told NOTUS reporter Jasmine Wright in a Sunday interview. “The rapper, whose real name is Torrence Hatch, was looking to overturn a federal conviction over the unlawful possession of a firearm. But the pardon hasn't happened. Now Hatch is reportedly looking to recover half of what he paid through arbitration. The rapper's case represents a growing industry in Washington, D.C.: wealthy clients paying to try to secure clemency from President Trump.”

As Wright explained to Rascoe, “There was an impetus by folks around the President, and the President himself, to do more of these pardons,” with the Justice Department’s pardon attorney Ed Martin losing much of his authority to the president and his inner circle.

“I've talked to a lot of different pardon attorneys, pardon lobbyists, folks who are involved in this business, and they say that their number one piece of advice to their clients is, one, call who you know,” Wright said. “If you know anybody remotely close to the White House, let them know that you're looking for a pardon. And two, try to get in front of the President. I've talked to people who say they have advised their clients to go to Mar-a-Lago, the President's resort residence in Palm Beach, Florida. Any way that you can get your application — your reasons for why you deserve clemency — in front of the President, they say, is an easier way to get closer to a pardon.”

Regardless of the ethical controversies surrounding this process, Wright emphasized that it is also entirely legal.

“This is legal,” Wright told Rascoe. “To be fair, people have always paid attorneys and lobbyists for pardons. You're not paying for the individual pardon; you're paying the person to go advocate on your behalf to get you a pardon or commutation.”

She added, “What's happening now is that, because of the normal barriers that used to exist to obtaining a pardon, it is now easier for people with some sort of association — they don't have to have a law degree, they don't even have to be an actual registered lobbyist — to go advocate to the White House to get their clients pardoned. And so this has created and normalized a new economy in which people are paying up to $5 million in some cases to individual lawyers or lobbyists to advocate on their behalf in hopes of getting a pardon. Now, not everybody who is doing this is getting a pardon, as we can see from this case.”

Not all of Trump’s pardons occurred because of lobbying efforts. Trump also used his power to help roughly 1,500 rioters who helped him attempt to overthrow the government on Jan. 6, 2021 after he lost the 2020 presidential election. Ever since, many of the Jan. 6ers have gone on to engage in serious crimes.

"At least 12 of the pardoned rioters have since been charged with other serious crimes, including child molestation, assault, harassment, murder plots and charges related to a vicious dog attack," The New York Times editorial board wrote in June. "The outcome was predictable. Critics, including this board, had warned that Mr. Trump’s pardons would embolden the rioters by signaling that crime has no consequences. One does not have to be a criminologist to predict that people who commit a violent act and are absolved of any punishment might become repeat offenders."

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CONTEXT? JDV SPOZED TO FIGHT? SEE PARDONS

Fox News ignored Trump’s pardons of health care fraudsters while promoting his administration’s efforts to fight health care fraud

07/02/26

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SOME NEW OUTRAGE 626? INDIAN BILLION CHARGES DROPPED DON JR?

Marisa Taylor, Chris Prentice, Kaylee Kang and Allison Martell @ Reuters: How to get a Trump pardon: Forget the DOJ, call “Bobby” and other influencers

A Reuters investigation found nearly all the clemency decisions made by President Trump during his current term flouted longstanding Justice Department guidelines. In place of traditional rules, the White House relies on a network of influential advocates espousing pardons based on partisan, personal criteria.

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How to get a Trump pardon: Forget the DOJ, call “Bobby” and other influencers

A Reuters investigation found nearly all the clemency decisions made by President Trump during his current term flouted longstanding Justice Department guidelines. In place of traditional rules, the White House relies on a network of influential advocates espousing pardons based on partisan, personal criteria.

By Marisa Taylor, Chris Prentice, Kaylee Kang and Allison Martell

June 11, 20263:50 AM PDTUpdated June 11, 2026

WASHINGTON - Days before granting him a pardon in March of last year, President Donald Trump phoned Trevor Milton, an electric-vehicle entrepreneur and Republican donor who was convicted of defrauding investors of more than $660 million.

The president, according to previously unreported details of the conversation reviewed by Reuters, told Milton that high-profile advisors convinced Trump that Milton had been unfairly prosecuted by the Justice Department of President Joe Biden. Among those who put in a good word, Trump said, was U.S. health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Milton’s treatment was unjust, Trump said, and similar to his own targeting by federal investigators around the same time. “You had a lot of support,” Trump told Milton. “Bobby Kennedy. You have to call Bobby and thank him.”

In an emailed statement, Milton didn’t answer questions from Reuters about the exchange with the president or any support he received from Kennedy or others. The Department of Health and Human Services, where Kennedy is serving as secretary, didn’t respond to requests for comment on this report.

Trump’s reference to “Bobby” is emblematic of how the president has upended the pardon process in his second administration, discarding over a century of protocol overseen by the Justice Department, or DOJ. Today, winning a pardon or other grant of presidential clemency routinely hinges upon an informal and highly personalized network of influencers and advocates appealing to Trump himself, according to a Reuters analysis of pardon, lobbying, and electoral records, as well as interviews with over 80 people familiar with clemency decisions during the president’s current term.

Pardon applicants once had to comply with longstanding DOJ guidelines, such as a five-year wait after conviction or demonstrated remorse for their crimes. Reuters’ analysis shows that under Trump, clemency now is far more dependent upon access to his inner circle. That access, Reuters found, is enhanced when an applicant can craft a narrative that resonates with the president’s own sense of victimization, a sentiment he has regularly expressed since being indicted twice by federal prosecutors during his four years outside the White House.

Reuters reviewed thousands of records to document a cast of characters involved in pardons or commutations granted by Trump since he returned to the presidency. Using public databases and artificial intelligence to help search, compile and analyze the records, reporters identified many of the recipients, their advocates and Trump administration insiders involved in clemency for more than 1,700 people since January 2025. The review found:

96% of Trump’s second-term clemency grants have gone to recipients who didn’t fulfill longstanding DOJ guidelines for such requests. Past presidents on occasion have sidestepped those rules before. But fewer than 1% of those who received clemency during the Biden administration and just 14% of recipients in Trump’s first presidency failed to meet the guidelines.
Reuters identified 290 advocates, or influencers, who publicly or privately helped secure clemency for 197 recipients. Because some of the advocates worked on behalf of multiple candidates, their efforts at times overlapped, representing 624 different acts of influence. Among the influencers, 73 helped secure more than one pardon or sentence commutation. Brett Tolman, a former U.S. attorney now in private practice in Utah, has been involved in at least 12 pardons or commutations. Roger Stone, a veteran political consultant and longtime Trump confidant, had a hand in at least five.
Of the influencers identified by Reuters, at least 110 are known Trump allies. Eleven of those received clemency themselves from Trump during his first term. High-profile advocates and pardon recipients include Stone and Angela Stanton King, a conservative author and campaign advisor to Kennedy before he ditched his 2024 run for the presidency and backed Trump.
Six people familiar with recent clemency acts said intermediaries with proven access to Trump’s entourage can charge as much as $2 million for their services. Reuters, however, couldn’t establish how much each advisor it identified had charged for help with a given pardon.

Stone and Stanton King each acknowledged to Reuters their role in advocating for pardon recipients. Stone said he received no money for his services; Stanton King declined to say how much she was paid. Tolman, the Utah attorney, didn’t respond to requests for comment.

“The constitutional authority to issue pardons and commutations rests solely with the president,” Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, wrote in a statement. “The White House has a rigorous pardon review process which includes the White House counsel, the Department of Justice, and ultimately the president.”

The statement didn’t answer Reuters’ questions about the president’s call with Milton or the role of Kennedy or other specific administration officials in clemency decisions.

In a separate statement, a DOJ spokesperson wrote that it plays “a key role in assisting the president with exercising his constitutional authority.” The department continues “to make recommendations to the president that are consistent, unbiased, and uphold the rule of law. There has been no departure from this long-standing process.”

Trump’s new pardon protocols, and the privileged access that has come to define them, have sparked coverage in the media and uproar among legal experts, traditionalists at the DOJ, and victims of some of the pardoned offenders. Even some of Trump’s top aides, including Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, have pressed for a pause in clemency ahead of the midterm elections, fearing further criticism could harm Republican chances, according to three people familiar with discussions over the matter.

A White House official who declined to be identified disputed the assertion that Wiles has argued for a slowdown in pardons.

The Reuters review is the first to measure the scale of the influencer network and identify the repeat roles that some of these advocates are playing. Because most of the advocacy isn’t officially reported to government regulators, the news agency was unable to identify every single person involved in each act of clemency.

Roger Stone, a Trump confidant and pardon recipient himself during the president's first administration, is one of the high-profile influencers who has helped clemency seekers during the current term. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno

Reuters was also unable to determine the total amount of money, including attorney or consulting fees, involved in securing these high-profile influencers. Insiders say the value they provide is clear: “I have access, I have relationships,” Stanton King, the author and former Kennedy advisor, told Reuters. “Because of that, I’m in the perfect position to be able to advocate and make sure that someone’s name or application isn’t just sitting over somewhere in a pile getting dusty.”

In this new landscape, personal access to Trump or his confidants is more effective than traditional methods of wooing an administration. Reuters found only two successful pardon recipients who disclosed hiring registered lobbyists, a conventional path for courting influence, to work on their behalf, paying a combined $2.7 million. Another 26 people, lobbying records show, spent a total of nearly $1.9 million on lobbyists to no avail.

In her statement, the White House spokesperson wrote that “anyone spending money to lobby for pardons is foolishly wasting their money.”

Lobbyists must disclose in federal filings their persuasion efforts and what they do for the money. The hush-hush of informal influence is more difficult to track. One influencer, who asked not to be identified, has helped several clemency recipients through access to Trump’s confidants. The tactic “is a little bit like Game of Thrones – who’s in power, who’s important,” the person said. “We’ll say to a client, ‘tell us anybody you know in the political world. It could be your best friend’s cousin from elementary school.’”

That influencer was one of several who told Reuters their advocacy has included outreach to Trump family members including Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son. The person declined to elaborate on those contacts. In a statement, Andy Surabian, a spokesperson for Trump Jr., said: “Don has not advocated for any pardons for anyone during his father’s second term.”

Some pardon recipients and their advocates have gained favor by making political donations or with help from well-funded partisans or political organizations. Although criticized by some ethics experts as a possible quid pro quo, it’s not a crime for a president to grant clemency to benefactors of their campaign or party, unless an explicit agreement to sell forgiveness exists.

According to Federal Election Commission records, 10 of the recipients, influencers and companies they ran – including Milton, the EV entrepreneur – donated a total of more than $10 million to Trump-related political coffers, both before and after clemency decisions. Others, including a Florida man convicted of stealing fishing gear used to trap sharks for research, benefitted when political interest groups espoused their causes.

Compared with the past, “there’s nothing other than money, praise, partisanship and relationships that dictates who gets pardons,” said Ty Cobb, a White House counsel during the first Trump administration who is now a private attorney in South Carolina.

Clemency Connections

Roger Stone

Political Consultant

Juan Orlando Hernandez

Former President of Honduras

Scott Howard Jenkins

Former Sheriff

Michele Fiore

Former Las Vegas City Councilwoman

Michael McMahon

Former NYPD Officer

Rod Blagojevich

Former Governor of Illinois

Stone’s advocacy has helped at least five people, including a former Virginia sheriff convicted of taking bribes, receive clemency from President Trump during his current term. Photos: REUTERS/Ricardo Arduengo, Andy Buchanan, Screenshot/Culpeper County Sheriff’s Office via Wayback Machine, Screenshot/City of Las Vegas via Wayback Machine, Brendan McDermid, Vincent Alban

“CREATE A STORY”

The pardon power, meant to correct injustices and allow for mercy from outside the judicial system, is entrusted to the president by the U.S. Constitution. It is broad in reach. Presidents can pardon, or forgive, any federal criminal conviction. They can commute sentences to shorter terms.

To formalize the process, and minimize any corruption associated with it, the DOJ began overseeing pardon recommendations in the late 19th century. Most presidents since have followed the department’s guidelines, but there have been exceptions.

Bill Clinton in 2001 notoriously pardoned Marc Rich, a billionaire commodities trader who fled the United States rather than face charges including tax evasion, after Rich’s associates made donations and advocated on his behalf. Joe Biden, just before leaving office, broke a public vow by pardoning his troubled son Hunter, who had recently been convicted on federal gun and tax charges.

Both former presidents have defended their clemency actions.

Starting his first day back in office, Trump outdid them all. He immediately granted clemency to the estimated 1,500 people who stormed the U.S. Capitol in 2021, none of whom would have qualified under DOJ guidelines. More than 200 other pardons and commutations have followed, including at least two pardons initiated by the White House before recipients had even sought one.

Can you create a story that is similar to what members of this administration, including the president, have gone through?

Sam Mangel, clemency consultant

Most of those subsequent recipients have employed what several people involved in the actions described as a “hybrid” process. The approach entails some combination of personal appeals, influential intermediaries, political donations, and a narrative of victimization by Biden-era prosecutors. It has enabled those who get the right access to leapfrog a line of other applicants. Liz Oyer, a former DOJ pardon attorney during the Biden administration and early in Trump’s current term, calculates the current backlog at about 20,000 applications.

Sam Mangel, a Florida clemency consultant, said he has worked on behalf of 10 successful recipients during this Trump term and is currently pressing for about 20 others. He described the process this way: “Can you create a story that is similar to what members of this administration, including the president, have gone through? Then, can you somehow get it into the hands of the White House counsel?”

Mangel declined to name his clients, but said he usually charges tens of thousands of dollars to advise them.

Milton, founder of Nikola, a failed electric vehicle manufacturer based in Arizona, was convicted in October 2022 of defrauding investors by promoting a business venture for products that didn’t work. Among other evidence cited by federal prosecutors, he famously filmed a promotional video of a truck rolling down a hill – but gravity, not electricity, was propelling it. When Trump re-entered the White House, Milton was out on bail, appealing his conviction and four-year prison sentence, and heavily courting the new president and his allies.

Trump last year pardoned Trevor Milton, shown here on his YouTube channel, following his conviction for defrauding investors in Nikola, a failed EV manufacturer, of more than $660 million. Screen capture via YouTube

In 2024, electoral records show, Milton contributed at least $1.84 million to campaigns supporting both Trump and Kennedy ahead of the presidential election. Reuters couldn’t ascertain when or where Milton and Kennedy may have first crossed paths. But Trump in his phone call to Milton in early 2025 made clear that Kennedy was a strong advocate.

Trump also spoke fondly about his own personal meeting with Milton and his family at an undisclosed place and time before the pardon. According to previously unreported details of the conversation, Trump said: “You made a great impression – your father, you and your wife.”

The president said he identified with Milton’s plight. “When I met you I said, ‘This man didn’t do anything wrong,’” Trump told Milton. He disparaged the federal prosecutors on the case. “I heard the scum that was after you was the same scum that was after everybody.”

After being pardoned, Milton expressed little of the remorse traditionally required of recipients. According to the DOJ guidelines: “A petitioner should be genuinely desirous of forgiveness rather than vindication.” In a social media post the day of his pardon, Milton wrote he was one of many Americans “railroaded by the government.” He added that “trust and confidence in the Justice Department has eroded to nothing.”

Milton, in a social media post the day of his pardon, showed little of the remorse traditionally required by Justice Department guidelines from recipients of pardons. Screenshot via X.com

In his statement to Reuters, Milton blamed a plot among the media, financial markets and federal prosecutors to “burn my company to the ground.” He said he was targeted because of his longstanding support for Trump. He offered no substantiation of those claims. “They came after me, my family, and everything I had built because of it.”

That sense of grievance is widely voiced among the president’s populist supporters. It’s a throughline for much of Trump’s mercy – from the Capitol riot clemency to the pardons he granted shortly thereafter for 24 activists convicted of interfering with abortion clinics. Then there was the pardon last November for Troy Lake, a truck shop owner in Wyoming.

Sentenced in 2024 to just over a year in prison, Lake had pled guilty to altering emissions controls on at least 344 diesel trucks. The tampering was a violation of the Clean Air Act, an environmental law long derided by conservatives. Lake’s sentence caused outcry among critics including Cynthia Lummis, a Republican senator from Wyoming. Last year, citing Lake’s case, Lummis sought to amend the act, arguing that Democrats and environmental regulators “wage war on rural America.”

Meanwhile, two military veterans, friends of Lake’s, petitioned Lee Zeldin, a retired Army Reserve lieutenant colonel and Trump’s administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. “Please reach out to the President,” they wrote in an August email reviewed by Reuters, “to request a pardon, clemency, or commutation.”

EPA spokespeople didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Holly Lake, Troy’s wife, said Zeldin’s intervention proved crucial. “That’s when we started getting some movement,” she said in an interview. The movement included a phone call from Sean Hayes, a White House attorney, to discuss a pardon. Hayes is a central figure in any pardon process, according to several people familiar with the administration’s clemency efforts.

Lee Zeldin, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, are among administration officials who have advocated for pardon recipients. The two cabinet members spoke earlier this year at a Washington event. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

Reuters was unable to reach Hayes outside official White House channels for comment.

In addition to discussing her husband’s pardon, Holly Lake said, Hayes asked the couple whether they knew of other cases in which defendants had been targeted by overzealous prosecutors. They have since advocated for others prosecuted on similar charges involving emissions devices. In January, the DOJ said it would stop prosecuting such cases.

Lake, who served seven months of a yearlong sentence, told Reuters the president believes that regulatory agencies have gone too far. “They’re going rogue,” he said. “In his second term, he really realized how much is wrong out there.”

Some politically influential organizations have worked to bring cases to the White House’s attention. After Trump’s November 2024 election, the Cato Institute and the Reason Foundation, libertarian organizations dedicated to limiting the role of government, both highlighted the case of John R. Moore, Jr., a Florida boater and diver. Moore was convicted in 2022 of stealing fishing gear used to catch sharks by a company licensed to do so for research.

Moore and a colleague were fined and sentenced to probation for theft in federal waters. The men thought they were freeing the sharks from illegal capture, Moore told Reuters.

After the two libertarian organizations published opinion pieces criticizing the convictions, Jim Jordan, a Republican congressman from Ohio and Trump ally, highlighted the case in a May 2025 hearing of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee. Also at the hearing were a Cato researcher and Tolman, the former U.S. attorney who has been involved in at least 12 pardons. Michael Fox, the Cato researcher, told Reuters that Tolman, while not part of Moore’s defense team, helped draw attention to the case.

“I had no idea that anyone was working on my behalf,” Moore said in a telephone interview. “I’m still surprised that my case resonated.”

After the hearing, Hayes, the White House counsel, called Marc Seitles, Moore’s attorney, to discuss a pardon that Trump ultimately announced weeks later. “I was shocked,” Seitles said in an interview, noting he hadn’t even requested a pardon yet. “He asked, ‘Can you tell us the facts and circumstances of the case?’ And of course I took full advantage of that.”

As with Lake, the Wyoming truck mechanic, Seitles said Hayes asked if he knew of other cases of prosecutorial excess. Seitles said he has since made recommendations for others.

“PUT A KIND WORD IN”

Among the most effective advocates, Reuters’ review shows, are Trump associates who themselves have received clemency. The official the White House has dubbed its “pardon czar,” responsible for organizing clemency efforts, is Alice Marie Johnson. She was pardoned by Trump during his first term after serving more than two decades in prison on a conviction related to a cocaine conspiracy and money laundering. When Trump announced her appointment last year, he described her as “an inspiration” and told her “to find people just like you,” perceived to have been victimized by the courts.

Last year Trump appointed Alice Marie Johnson, a pardon recipient during his first term, as his "pardon czar," telling her to find others who had been unfairly treated by the courts. The two appeared here at a White House event in February. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Another top advocate is Stone, the political consultant. At the end of his first administration, Trump pardoned Stone, who had been convicted in 2019 for obstructing a Congressional investigation regarding the 2016 presidential election. Stone’s connections have proven valuable for clemency seekers. Not only does he enjoy access to the White House, Stone also hosts a radio show on prominent conservative broadcasters, where he has championed some of the recipients’ causes.

In a text message exchange, Stone said he is motivated by justice, not remuneration. “I have not received a single penny,” he told Reuters. “I was moved by either prosecutorial overreach or misconduct, judicial bias, or political weaponization.” Reuters was unable to confirm his assertion.

Trump last year posted online about his pardon of Jenkins, the former Virginia sheriff convicted of accepting bribes. Jenkins, Trump wrote, was a victim of "Radical Left 'monsters.'" Screenshot via TruthSocial.com

One beneficiary is Scott Howard Jenkins, a former county sheriff in Virginia. Jenkins was convicted by a federal jury in December 2024 of accepting over $75,000 in bribes from area businesspeople in exchange for appointing them deputies. Despite vocal opposition from Virginia public officials, Stone was among several advocates who urged the administration to pardon Jenkins, an outspoken Trump supporter.

In May 2025, as Jenkins prepared to surrender for a 10-year prison sentence, Trump pardoned him. In a post online, the president said Jenkins had been “persecuted by the Radical Left ‘monsters.’” Jenkins appeared on the day of the pardon on Stone’s show. “All of you who have put a kind word in and did the work you did to communicate with the White House,” Jenkins said, “I’m forever indebted.”

Absent from Trump’s clemency: three others who cooperated with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and pled guilty to paying Jenkins the bribes. Stone, by text message, said he didn’t speak up for the others because he found their testimony flawed and characteristic of the “politically motivated” trial.

In one case, prominent connections enabled a longtime Democratic operative to receive clemency. Carlos Watson and Ozy Media, his California-based media company, along with co-conspirators were found in 2024 to have defrauded investors of more than $60 million by lying about business deals with Google and Oprah Winfrey. Watson, who is African American, argued at his sentencing that prosecutors unfairly targeted him because of his race, that his conviction was “a modern lynching.”

Watson didn’t respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

An attorney for Carlos Watson, a media entrepreneur convicted of defrauding investors, reached out to influential contacts who helped secure clemency from Trump last year. Watson is pictured here in 2023. REUTERS/David Dee Delgado

With Trump’s return to office, Watson’s attorney, Arthur Aidala, turned to friends in high places, according to three people familiar with the process. Based in the president’s native city of New York, Aidala had represented figures including Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor and Trump attorney, and Steve Bannon, the populist ideologue and White House strategist during the first Trump administration. Both men, accused separately of federal crimes, are themselves among Trump’s pardon recipients.

The people familiar with the process told Reuters that Bannon knew Watson before his conviction and spoke to his family about the clemency bid. Bannon told them they could use him as a reference, these people said.

Bannon in a telephone call confirmed the interaction, but declined to elaborate. Neither Aidala nor Giuliani responded to requests for comment.

DoJ pardon attorney

On May 13, 2025 Martin announced he would serve as the pardon attorney, vowing to review the Biden administration's outgoing pardons.^[27] He also announced that he would head a "Weaponization Working Group" within the United States Department of Justice, saying, "When it comes to the problem of weaponization. . . . that's what the Biden administration, they didn't tell you what they were doing they just targeted people," and "if they can be charged, we'll charge them. But if they can't be charged, we will name them . . . and in a culture that respects shame, they should be people that are ashamed."^[28] On May 22, he met with Peter Ticktin of the American Rights Alliance. Ticktin recommended full pardons for Oath Keepers leader Stewart Rhodes; for Proud Boys members Joseph Biggs, Ethan Nordean, Zachary Rehl, and Dominic Pezzola; and for Dan Wilson and Elias Costianes, former January 6 defendants who are currently in prison for unrelated charges.^[84] Separately, in a podcast episode that aired May 22, Martin said of the two men convicted of plotting in 2020 to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer: "we can't leave these guys behind".^[85] On May 26, Martin described the rationale for granting pardons as "No MAGA left behind".^[86]

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RWW

04/16/2026

Kiera Butler @ Mother Jones: Tech Billionaires Want Christians to Believe in AI

Much in the way they have shaped culture with social media algorithms, tech evangelists now are attempting to normalize the use and acceptance of AI by wrapping it in a spiritual message.

Adam Kinzinger @ AdamKinzinger.com: Franklin Graham Defends Trump’s Jesus Post. Again.

The pattern is clear: when Trump crosses a theological line, a familiar roster of pastors arrives to explain why it isn't really a line.

Vittoria Elliott @ WIRED: Government Workers Say They’re Getting Inundated with Religion

“From executive orders to agency-wide directives to even early dismissal emails, it is abundantly clear that this administration is not so much proudly Christian as it is belligerently so.”

Kristin Du Mez @ Du Mez CONNECTIONS: American Dominion: The Rise and Radicalization of a New Christendom

Rooted in an intense, literalized reading of Scripture, dominionism is animated by spiritual warfare: demons are not metaphors but actors, and demonization becomes both a theology and a tool of political mobilization.

Kylie Cheung @ Abortion, Every Day: How Celebrity Smear Campaigns Are Inspiring Attacks on Birth Contro

Conservative billionaires are weaponizing pop culture news to draw in a new generation of young women

Fred Wertheimer @ Wertheimer’s Political Report: Trump Grossly Abuses His Pardon Powers, Harms Victims

Trump has egregiously abused his pardon powers since the day he took office, often at the financial expense of the criminals’ victims.

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AN 3 26

The New York Times editorial board on Tuesday tore into President Donald Trump for his corrupt and rapid-fire use of pardons, breaking down the "crime spree" that his recipients have gone on and the "mayhem" they have created as a result.

In the past, despite some questionable instances, presidents have generally strained to be careful about their use of pardons, fearing the "backlash" that could occur if a pardoned individual reoffended. For that reason and others, they have generally waited until the end of their time in office to issue pardons, to mitigate their exposure to any blowback. All of these principles, however, have gone out the window under Trump.

"President Trump has abandoned this approach. His self-serving pardons are so numerous that public attention cannot keep up with them," the NYT board explained. "It is a version of the strategy that his former adviser Steve Bannon has described as 'flood the zone': Do so much so fast that people cannot follow the consequences. He has created a veritable pardon industry, in which people with White House connections accept payments from wealthy convicts. Among those on whom he has bestowed freedom are dozens of people convicted of fraud."

Worst among this onslaught of pardons, the board argued, was Trump's blanket pardons for everyone who took part in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the results of which "have been disastrous."

"At least 12 of the pardoned rioters have since been charged with other serious crimes, including child molestation, assault, harassment, murder plots and charges related to a vicious dog attack," the board explained. "The outcome was predictable. Critics, including this board, had warned that Mr. Trump’s pardons would embolden the rioters by signaling that crime has no consequences. One does not have to be a criminologist to predict that people who commit a violent act and are absolved of any punishment might become repeat offenders."

The board broke down the crimes committed by each newly charged recipients of a Trump pardon, singling out four in particular who were already in prison or jail at the time the pardons came down.

Andrew Paul Johnson of Florida, for example, was sentenced to life in prison after molesting two 12-year-old children, reportedly offering them part of a potential Jan. 6 restitution payment in exchange for their silence. Jake Lang, meanwhile, was charged after destroying an ice sculpture outside the Minnesota state capitol and organizing an anti-Muslim rally in New York City "that turned violent," both within the last two months. Zachary Alam, "among the first to enter the Capitol building from its west lawn" during the Jan. 6 attack, was arrested and charged after allegedly breaking into a Virginina home to steal a diamond necklace and tablet computer.

Finally, Enrique Tario, founder of the far-right group, The Proud Boys, "scuffled with protesters at a news conference and was briefly detained on assault charges, a month after Mr. Trump freed him from a 22-year prison sentence." Tario's was among the harshest sentences connected to Jan. 6, given the part he played in organizing it.

The NYT concluded with a plea for Trump and the GOP to be held accountable for these pardons in the upcoming midterms.

"The Jan. 6 pardons undermined the law, and they undermined public order," the board wrote. "They were an affront to police officers everywhere. Mr. Trump has a constitutional right to pardon whom he chooses. The rest of us have a right to hold him and his enablers responsible for their actions."

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PENSION PLAN

an 3 26

Conservative Dispatch CEO and editor Steve Hayes visited Bonita Springs, Florida, during campaign season and says he found the kind of political personalities you get in “Trump country.”

Former U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn was one of the first personalities Heyes shined a light on trying to nab Florida’s 19^th Congressional District. In his article, titled “Meet the Has-Beens, Never-Weres, and Felon Locked in a Trumpy Primary,” he makes clear he is not impressed.

“That Cawthorn is a viable candidate — indeed, given his name recognition and MAGAworld celebrity status, he’s considered a real contender—says a lot about the contest in this dark red corner of Florida’s Gulf Coast and about the state of the Republican Party in the Trump era,” said Hayes, recounting Cawthorn’s congressional service beginning “with a rousing speech to the pro-Trump mob at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021,” where he praised the mob’s “willingness to fight, declared the 2020 election fraudulent, and later voted against certification.”

But that same career ended with “a flurry of bizarre and discrediting moments over the weeks leading up to the GOP primary for his reelection campaign,” said Hayes.

“A week after he lost that primary contest, the House Ethics Committee announced it was investigating the congressman for a possible improper relationship with a staffer and for a potential conflict of interest in his promotion of the LGB (Let’s Go Brandon) cryptocurrency,” for which he was ultimately fined $15,000,” said Hayes.

Another Trump Republican with a legal background would be former New York U.S. Rep. Chris Collins, who was charged with lying to the FBI in 2018, on top of charges related to insider trading. Republican leaders stripped Collins of his committee assignments. And even though he initially insisted on his innocence, two months later he accepted a plea deal. Three months after that he confessed his guilt at his sentencing hearing.

“Jonathan Barr, another lawyer for Collins, told Judge Vernon Broderick: ‘He accepted responsibility for his crimes, he has demonstrated sincere remorse. There is no excuse for the conduct. He doesn’t make any excuses for the conduct,” reports Hayes.

At the community meeting in Florida Hayes said Collins “used his opening remarks to emphasize (again and again) his coziness with Trump, [but] he left out the best evidence of their close relationship: Trump pardoned Collins after his guilty pleas and let him out of prison just two months into a two-year sentence.

But being an ally of Trump is what really matters in this deep-red Trump district, said Hayes. In fact, of all the candidates (and there are many more than Cawthorne and Collins) the only candidate whose website didn’t lead with Trump is Jim Oberweis, said Hayes. But of course his campaign—like all the others—is “nudging the White House political team for a Trump endorsement.

Every candidate is allied on policy, so the only advantage is which one gets the presidential nod, said Hayes.

“Nobody’s really campaigning — except to campaign to Trump,” said Francis Rooney, the former representative for the district. “The idea of Trump, the impact of Trump and MAGA is so overwhelming right now that the people want to be in that tent. And so they’re focusing on the things that are going to get the attention of the MAGA leadership.”

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AN 3 26

Many prominent U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) alumni — including former federal prosecutors and MS NOW legal analysts Joyce White Vance and Barbara McQuade — are scathing critics of President Donald Trump and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi's criminal justice policies. Trump and Bondi, they argue, are using DOJ as a tool of retribution against political foes and doing things they never would have considered when they were federal prosecutors.

But at the same time, Trump isn't shy about issuing presidential pardons for his allies. On his first night back in the White House, Trump pardoned hundreds of rioters who violently attacked the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.

In an article published on March 6, New York Times reporter Kenneth P. Vogel emphasizes that Trump's use of presidential pardons isn't merely a matter of policy — it is an "industry."

According to Vogel, a "lucrative pardon industry" has "emerged around Mr. Trump."

"It is based in part on the proposition that paying the right person to deliver a message tailored to Mr. Trump's politics or grievances is more important than demonstrating remorse or a low likelihood of recidivism," Vogel explains. "A growing number of practitioners promise access in this murky enterprise, but some also may exaggerate their effectiveness to elicit payments from clients desperate to avoid incarceration. Pardon seekers routinely offer to pay as much as $1 million or more, often with bonus payments triggered by a successful outcome, according to lobbying filings and people familiar with the fees."

Vogel continues, "This transactional approach to clemency has been welcomed by white-collar offenders like those serving time at the Otisville camp, a minimum-security facility about 75 miles northwest of Manhattan. Many of its inmates cheered Mr. Trump's election, seeing him as a kindred spirit who shares their grievances about the unfairness of financial crime prosecutions like the one that led to his own conviction, according to four people familiar with conversations at Otisville."

One of Trump's pardons was Joseph Schwartz, who was convicted of federal tax crimes related to nursing homes he owned and sentenced to three years but served only three months.

"Mr. Schwartz had not been shy about sharing the strategy behind his clemency campaign with other inmates," Vogel reports. "So they knew he had paid multiple people to try to get the job done, according to two people familiar with conversations at Otisville. Nearly a million dollars went to right-wing operatives who claimed to have worked with Laura Loomer, a social media provocateur who has the ear of Mr. Trump, to advocate for Mr. Schwartz's release…. The perception that freedom is for sale to affluent offenders like Mr. Schwartz outrages some of his victims, including former employees of his nursing homes who were deprived of health insurance or left scrounging for supplies to care for residents."

One of those ex-employees, Theresa Dante, told the Times, "This man hurt a lot of people. If it's OK for Mr. Schwartz to do this to everybody, then in the future is this going be OK?"

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AN 2 26

Washington Monthly writer David Atkins says the Republican Party has been President Donald Trump’s greatest enabler, but even they might be willing to curb a president’s wanton power for granting pardons after Trump’s second term.

“Often [Trump’s] pardons appear to have been a product of direct bribes to the president’s election campaigns himself,” said Atkins. “[I]n other cases, the recipients were donors or friends of donors; and, of course, many of them had committed crimes in direct support of Trump’s attempts to overthrow democracy itself.”

The scam goes much further than pardons, argued Atkins, pointing out that The Wall Street Journalreported that an investment firm tied to the United Arab Emirates purchased nearly half of the Trump family’s cryptocurrency company in 2025. And soon after, the Emirati government nabbed an agreement with the Trump administration for the export of hundreds of thousands of advanced chips — despite President Biden rightfully withholding the technology for national security reasons.

But don’t ask too much of the Republican Party these days, said Atkins. At least the president’s abuse of the pardon power may be “one issue that is both so obviously in need of reform and potentially prone to abuse by all future presidents, that reform should be achievable across party lines.”

Atkins pointed out that gradual democratic backsliding under Trump goes much further than pardons, and it remains a product of the executive branch’s “direct flouting of the law." He asserted that Trump violates laws and direct judicial orders only to be rescued later by the Supreme Court, “without penalty or consequence.”

“This is because 1) the framers of the Constitution did not anticipate that a man of such ill character as Trump would gain office, … but also 2) they expected that a lawless Executive would be countered by a Legislative Branch that jealously guarded its power as a coequal branch,” said Atkins. “One consequence of the devolution of the conservative movement into a cult of personality around Donald Trump is that almost no Republicans remain who dare to challenge the president.”

The framers, he said, expected a president who so avariciously abused the pardon power to be impeached, “but Republicans in Congress refuse to fulfill their constitutional role.”

“Meanwhile, the pardon power in the hands of a ruthlessly criminal president is the skeleton key to a dictatorship,” said Atkins. “So long as his allies in Congress refuse to impeach, a criminal president could repeatedly, openly and intentionally violate the law and order his accomplices to do likewise, with promises of infinite pardons to follow.”

“Only the threat of state-level prosecutions might dissuade his minions, but many of the worst crimes Executive Branch officials can commit are covered more by federal law than state law,” Atkins added. “The pardon power, combined with the Supreme Court’s ruling that a president has immunity for all ‘official acts’ conducted while in office, functionally allows a president to rule as a tyrant. So the power itself must be curtailed.”

This would require a constitutional amendment. However, Atkins wrote that despite Republicans' enabling of their own corrupt president, their suspicion of future Democratic administrations could cause them to cross party lines and support such an amendment.

“Republicans would want to constrain the next Democratic president,” Atkins said.

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an 3 26

President Donald Trump’s sometime-attorney and longtime-friend, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, is reportedly urging the Republican leader to pardon two leaders of a sex-focused women’s wellness company accused of abusing their customers.

“I believe this is a miscarriage of justice,” Dershowitz said in an interview with NBC News. “I intend to present the case for clemency directly.”

The Harvard law professor is referring to OneTaste founder Nicole Daedone and former executive Rachel Cherwitz, both of whom were convicted in June of forced labor conspiracy and are held at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center for sentencing on March 30. They could receive as much as 20 years in prison for their convicted crimes. In addition to being convicted of forced labor conspiracy, Daedone and Cherwitz are accused of running a company that regularly inflicted emotional and physical abuse on its members. The former OneTaste executives adamantly deny all claims of abuse.

When it comes to at least the crimes for which they were convicted, Daedone and Cherwitz have a supporter in Dershowitz.

“As soon as I saw the indictment, I realized that with a few changes of words, this indictment could have been directed against Mormon groups, against Hasidic groups, against various Protestant or Catholic sects,” Dershowitz told NBC News. “There are so many people who join ideological or religious groups, volunteer their time and later become disillusioned. The idea that prosecutors can later say that voluntary participation must have been coercion is extremely dangerous.”

This does not mean that either Dershowitz or the OneTaste legal team has abandoned their hope in overturning the conviction on appeal. That said, they hope a pardon from Trump will make all of that unnecessary.

“We will seek every possible remedy, legal and political,” Dershowitz explained. “This is a federal case, and the president has the ultimate authority. President Trump has uniquely viewed the pardon and commutation power as part of the system of checks and balances.”

Certainly Dershowitz has the access to Trump to make such a plan theoretically possible. In December it was reported that Dershowitz loaned Trump an advance copy of his upcoming book, “Could President Trump Constitutionally Serve a Third Term?”, which offers the inaccurate advice that a president can ignore the 22nd amendment’s plain text and seek an illegal third term in office.

"I said ‘it’s not clear if a president can become a third term president and it’s not clear if it’s permissible,'" Dershowitz told The Wall Street Journal about his conversation with Trump regarding the book.

Speaking with this journalist for Salon in 2019, Dershowitz infamously denied the reporter’s claim that Trump was planning on refusing to accept the result of the 2020 presidential election if he lost.

“No president will refuse to step down if his opponent is elected in his place,” Dershowitz told Salon at the time. “It just will not happen, and the American public would never tolerate it.”

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AN 1 26 GIK

Since returning to the White House a year ago, President Donald Trump has been pardoning his allies while using the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to target his political foes — from former FBI Director James Comey to New York State Attorney General Letitia James to former National Security Adviser John Bolton. Trump pardoned supporters who violently attacked the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021, including members of far-right groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. But many of the people he has pardoned were convicted of federal white-collar crimes.

In an article published on January 26, The Guardian's Adam Gabbatt notes that Trump's recent "focus" has been "to grant clemency to those convicted of fraud."

"Those include Wanda Vázquez Garced, the former governor of Puerto Rico who pleaded guilty last year to a campaign finance violation," Gabbatt reports. "The U.S. Department of Justice said Vázquez took hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from a Venezuelan, Julio Herrera Velutini, and Mark Rossini in exchange for firing a federal official investigating a bank owned by Herrera Velutini. Trump pardoned Herrera Velutini and Rossini, who were both convicted of wire fraud, along with Vázquez…. Another pardon this month was given to a woman to whom Trump had granted clemency during his first term."

Gabbatt adds, "Adriana Camberos had a fraud-related sentence commuted by Trump in 2021 after being convicted as part of an elaborate fake 5-hour Energy Drink scheme."

The Guardian reporter notes that "more than half of Trump's 88 individual pardons" were "for white-collar offenses."

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, told The Guardian, "Our analysis shows that Trump's criminal pardon spree is, in addition to everything else, an astonishing giveaway to lawbreakers to keep the money they stole from their employees, their investors, and all the American taxpayers. Whoever said crime doesn't pay has certainly not studied the Trump Administration."

===

an 1 26

President Donald Trump has once again signed clemency paperwork for convicted fraudster Adriana Camberos, despite commuting a previous jail sentence once before in his first term.

The New York Times reported Friday that Trump officially freed Camberos, who in April of 2025 had been sentenced to one year in prison. She was one of several Trump clemency recipients who went on to commit more crimes after being let out of federal prison.

According to the Times, Camberos was initially jailed in 2019 after being convicted of selling millions of counterfeit bottles of 5-Hour Energy. She mounted her clemency bid by hiring Trump-linked attorney Adam Katz (who previously represented former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani) and former Trump deputy White House counsel Stefan C. Passantino.

A month after filing her clemency application, Camberos' brother, Andres, made a $50,000 donation to Trump's 2020 campaign. Her 26-month sentence was ultimately commuted during Trump's lame-duck period after he lost the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden.

However, Camberos went right back to crime not long after Trump freed her from prison. She and her brother schemed to buy steeply discounted consumer goods directly from manufacturers in order to sell them in Mexico (which is legal). However, rather than offloading the items in the Mexican market, the Camberos siblings sold the goods in the United States at a markup, and committed bank fraud and mail fraud in order to conceal their paper trail.

Andres and Adriana Camberos were charged by the Biden administration's Department of Justice in 2023, and convicted in 2024. Andres was sentenced to one year of home confinement, while Adriana was sentenced to 12 months plus additional time for violating her probation.

While both siblings were ordered to pay back millions in restitution, it remains unknown whether the commutation will liberate Adriana Camberos from her obligation to pay the penalties. The Times reported that clemency recipients are typically not expected to pay restitution.

Click here to read the Times' full report (subscription required).

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AN 1 26

Mike Tyson handed Trump letter from Diddy begging for pardon: report

Carl Gibson

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LONG

Is this how Pardons work now?

HONDURAS GIL DURAN STONE AT MAL CRISH SOCIALISM AND SAVE FREEDOM CITY PROSPERA TECH BROS

The Bitchuation Room (with Francesca Fiorentini)

242K subscribers

15,571 views Dec 28, 2025

In his first year in office of his second term, Trump has pardoned a whopping 2,000 criminals who have committed all kinds of horrible acts and are still menaces to society. We’re talking Jan 6 rioters who have abused children, killed people while driving drunk, and threatened other federal workers. Mind you, these are crimes they committed AFTER being pardoned! Surely they can expect new pardons for these crimes any day now, right?

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an 1 26 5 pedo?

As CBS News reporter Scott MacFarlane noted, Friday is the anniversary of President Donald Trump's pardons of all Jan. 6 attackers, and it turns out some are back in "legal peril."

In a thread on X, MacFarlane began with Zachary Alam, who is set to have a sentencing hearing in January over a breaking-and-entering case in Virginia.

Alam was among those who made it inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. Alam could be seen in the Speaker's Lobby, where he confronted the police.

Christopher Moynihan of New York was pardoned along with the Jan. 6 attackers who invaded the building to target Senate leaders. But months after his pardon, he sent threats to "eliminate" Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.)

"John Banuelos faces a court hearing later this month in a kidnapping case in Utah," reported MacFarlane. "Banuelos, who was accused of firing a gun into [the] air during [the] Capitol siege, was arrested months after his pardon."

According to police, a DNA test linked the man to a 2018 sex assault.

Edward Kelley is already back in jail after he was accused of "develop[ing] a plan to murder law enforcement, including agents, officers, and employees of the FBI" during his Jan. 6 "investigation." He'll remain in prison until April 2061.

Shane Woods is also behind bars with a 14-year prison term after he killed a woman in 2022 driving the wrong way down a street. He was charged before Trump issued his blanket pardon.

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CONTEXT AN 1 26

Russian-U.S. national Ilya Lichtenstein, who hacked a crypto exchange and stole nearly 120,000 bitcoin, claims he has been freed after only a year into his five-year sentence.

Lichtenstein posted on X late Thursday night, saying, “Thanks to President Trump’s First Step Act, I have been released from prison early.”

The admitted fraudster pleaded guilty to a money laundering conspiracy charge and admitted to hacking crypto assets now valued in the billions of dollars," CNBC reported.

The Justice Department calculated the value at approximately $4.5 billion.

The First Step Act was a 2018 piece of legislation that allowed non-violent offenders to earn credits toward an early release.

"Allows certain prisoners to earn 10 days of time credits for each 30 days of successful participation in recidivism reduction programming or activities, including prison jobs. Allows these prisoners to apply their time credits to transfers into pre-release custody, which includes halfway houses and home confinement. Certain inmates are excluded from earning credits, including violent offenders, sex offenders, leaders or organizers of fentanyl or heroin trafficking rings, etc,"the Justice Action Network described.

The goal of the program is to reduce recidivism rates.

“I remain committed to making a positive impact in cybersecurity as soon as I can,” Lichtenstein’s post continued. “To the supporters, thank you for everything. To the haters, I look forward to proving you wrong.”

In a statement to CNBC, a Trump administration official claimed Lichtenstein “has served significant time on his sentence ..."

Lichtenstein was able to count part of his time awaiting trial for his sentence. So, he was in jail after his 2022 arrest through his Nov. 2024 plea deal.

The official confirmed he was "currently on home confinement consistent with statute and Bureau of Prisons policies.”

Lichtenstein’s wife, Heather Morgan, also pleaded guilty to helping to launder funds. She too celebrated his release on X, saying, “The best New Years (sic) present I could get was finally having my husband home after 4 years of being apart.”

He has not received a pardon or commutation from President Donald Trump.

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NERD REICH

On Tuesday, Donald Trump pardoned a convicted drug trafficker who happens to be the former president of Honduras.

There's a Network State angle.

Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted of conspiring to smuggle over 400 tons of cocaine into the United States, is the right-wing politician who supported the creation of Prospera, the Network State city on the Honduran island of Roatán.

Hernández, who served two terms as president of Honduras, championed special economic zones where investors could set their own tax, labor and regulatory rules under long-term legal guarantees.

From the *Wall Street Journal

He courted Silicon Valley investors by offering semiautonomous “charter city” zones on the country’s Caribbean coast.

After Hernández left office, his successor started rolling back his illegal reforms, including the special economic zones that he had championed, and which resulted in the creation of Prospera, “a libertarian ‘startup city’ backed by Silicon Valley investors including Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen.”

Hernández had made special zones known as ZEDEs—where investors could set their own tax, labor and regulatory rules under long-term legal guarantees—a hallmark of his presidency. Foreign backers embraced the idea, selling Próspera as a “Hong Kong of the Caribbean.”

After Castro [Hernández's successor] came into office and rolled back the ZEDE framework, its developers hired Washington lobbyists to pursue an $11 billion arbitration claim against Honduras—amounting to roughly two-thirds of the country’s annual budget.

TheWSJ story reveals that Trump goon Roger Stone explicitly argued pardoning Hernández could “crush socialism and save a freedom city in Honduras,” calling Prospera a project with “major implications for U.S. policy and the future of freedom throughout the world.”

A spokesman for Thiel told the WSJ the billionaire played no role in the pardon. A spokesman for Andreessen did not respond to requests for comment.

Prospera is a flagship project of the Network State cult, which seeks to create billionaire-funded cities around the globe in preparation for an alleged collapse of nation-states in the 21st century. This fact is never mentioned in the WSJ story, in keeping with the mainstream media’s general allergy to acknowledging the existence of the Network State.

But Roger Stone’s decision to refer to Prospera as a “freedom city” is interesting, since Trump has announced plans to build ten so-called freedom cities on federal land in the United States. This confirms that Trump’s call for corporate-run fascist cities is connected to the Network State cult.

Freedom cities = Network State.

Fortunately, Kiera Butler at Mother Jonesunderstands the importance of the Network State connection. She writes:

Próspera is an example of the tech-right concept of the network state, a phrase coined by Silicon Valley venture capitalist Balaji Srinivasan. I wrote about it earlier this year:

In a 2021 essay on his website, Srinivasan laid out his vision for people seeking to build a new utopia or, as he put it, “a fresh start.” Sure, there were conventional ways to do this—forming a new country through revolution or war. But that would be, well, really hard, not to mention unpredictable. A cruise ship or somewhere in space were appealing options, but both presented logistical challenges. Far simpler and more practical was “tech Zionism,” creating an online nation, complete with its own culture, economy, tax structure, and, of course, startup-friendly laws.

Click here to read “Why Did Trump Pardon the Former Honduran President? Follow the Tech Bros” at Mother Jones.

Click here to read “How a Man Convicted of Running a Latin American Narco State Landed a Pardon” in the WSJ(gift link, may require registration)

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AN 12 25

President Donald Trump's most recent "bizarre" pardon seems to have been negotiated in part thanks to his frequent golf habit, according to an analysis from MS NOW.

Trump is no stranger to controversial pardons, often appearing to hand them out to loyalists or those convicted of crimes he looks favorably upon. Even so, some of his more recent pardons have managed to turn heads, including those of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in one of the largest drug trafficking cases in US history. At least one recent pardon, that of real estate developer Timothy Leiweke, contradicts his own Justice Department, and seems to have been decided over a round of golf, according to MS NOW contributor and Rachel Maddow producer Steve Benen.

According to Benen's analysis of the situation, Trump's DOJ pursued charges against Leiweke over allegations that he attempted to rig the bidding process for a $375 million basketball arena that was ultimately built at the University of Texas. Despite his own administration launching the case, Trump issued a pardon for Leiweke last week.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed that this decision was made after “a very thorough review process,” done by “qualified lawyers.” Benen, however, called this "one of the most laughable claims Leavitt has ever made" and added that, "in this administration, 'pardons' and 'utmost seriousness' clearly do not belong in the same sentence."

To back up that argument, Benen highlighted reports from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, which both noted that Trump made the decision after Leiweke's case was brought up to him by Trey Gowdy, a former South Carolina congressman turned Fox News contributor.

"While the Journal’s report has not been independently verified by MS NOW, Gowdy, who became a Fox News host after stepping down from Congress in 2019, effectively confirmed the reporting, telling the paper on the record that he played a round of golf with the president on Nov. 16, at which point Trump asked Gowdy if there was anything he needed," Benen wrote. "The former Republican congressman brought up his client, Leiweke, arguing that he’d been treated unfairly."

Gowdy reportedly suggested a nonprosecution deal for Leiweke, but Trump ultimately opted to give him a full pardon.

The president's decision flies in the face of efforts directly tied to two of his most high-profile administration officials: the investigation against Leiweke was led by an FBI official appointed by Director Kash Patel, and charges were eventually brought by a DOJ prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Pam Bondi.

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BIZZARELY SAME TIME AS 2X TAP BOAT STRIKE HEGS 12 25

Ben Shapiro criticizes Trump pardoning former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez: “I just don't understand the president's logic here”

12/02/25

### Newsmax host on Trump's threats against Venezuela: “If it was about drugs, he'd be in Mexico right now, right?”

12/02/25 12:15 PM EST

### Tim Pool: “Trump seems to be going a little bit into the neoliberal. You know, neocon-neoliberal.”

12/02/25 12:05 PM EST

### Roger Stone claims Trump announced pardon for Juan Orlando Hernández “three hours after” he sent Trump a letter from the former Honduran president

12/01/25

Roger Stone claims Trump announced pardon for Juan Orlando Hernández “three hours after” he sent Trump a letter from the former Honduran president

Ana García de Hernández to Stone: “We also want to express our helpful gratitude for the support that you had given … to my husband and the father of my daughters. Since you start speaking about this case, you made such a huge difference.”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published 12/01/25

November 30, 2025

Audio

From the November 30, 2025, edition of WABC's The Roger Stone Show

ROGER STONE (HOST): For many months, at least six months, I have written extensively about the persecution of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, who I believe was framed for drug trafficking on the basis of really no evidence whatsoever in a politically motivated act of lawfare by the Biden administration. These are the exact same tactics that were used against President Donald Trump himself by the illicit and unconstitutional investigation of Jack Smith. And I had great sympathy for President Hernández, who was framed not because there was evidence that he was actually involved in drug trafficking, but framed to get him out of the way to make way for the narco-Marxist regime to take power in Honduras. There's an election in Honduras today, but that's not what I'm really here to talk about.

On Friday, I got from the investigative journalist Shane Trejo a letter that President Hernández wrote to President Trump. It was a extraordinarily compelling nine-page letter, which frankly broke my heart because I have been where President Hernández was. I know what it is to be persecuted and have the full power and the unlimited financial and legal capacity of a corrupted, politicized Justice Department come after you, as well as the complicity of the mainstream media who never wants to pick apart the charges against him and just takes everything for granted.

...

STONE: I was delighted about three hours after I sent a copy of this letter to President Trump to read on Truth Social that he had announced the full and unconditional pardon for Juan Orlando Hernández. I think this is fitting. This is justice. Now the [unintelligible] — the US-based media has gone completely insane because they refuse to look at the facts regarding the persecution and trial of Juan Orlando Hernández. And to them, they say, “Well, why is Trump pursuing the Venezuelan dictatorship over drug trafficking at the same time that he's releasing a drug trafficker?” To which I say, there is no shred of evidence other than the testimony of convicted drug traffickers, people that Juan Orlando Hernández himself's government prosecuted, that would tie the former president to drug trafficking. He is an innocent man who was a target and victim of lawfare. And anyone who will examine his trial and the charges against him and the sham trial that they ran in New York would realize that.

Joining us now is the former first lady of Honduras, Ana García de Hernández, President Hernández's daughter, Ana Daniela Hernández, and his other daughter, Isabella Hernández. I want to welcome you to The Roger Stone Show, and I want to tell you how incredibly proud I am to have played just a small role in the justice that has now been meted out for your father and for your country and for your family.

...

ANA GARCÍA DE HERNÁNDEZ (FORMER HONDURAN FIRST LADY): Oh, thank you, Mr. Stone. This is Ana. We are so grateful because of what’s happening to our family. We’d like to say thank you for you for hosting us on your radio show today. It’s truly a pleasure speaking with you.

We also want to express our helpful gratitude for the support that you had given to our — to my husband and the father of my daughters. Since you start speaking about this case, you made such a huge difference. Because as you say, you suffered the same that my husband is suffering or was suffering before President Trump decided to give him a full pardon. So thank you, because — thank you to your efforts, in part Juan Orlando would be [unintelligible] free man, an innocent man has been pardoned and will finally be reunited with our family. So we are really deeply grateful with that.

A comprehensive guide to Trump ally Roger Stone, a racist, sexist conspiracy theorist

05/09/16

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BBC

Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras, has walked free after President Donald Trump pardoned the man once characterised as the key figure in a drug trafficking scheme that flooded America with over 400 tonnes of cocaine.

Trump has said that Hernández, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison by a US court, is a victim of political persecution and has been "treated very harshly and unfairly".

The pardon has surprised some experts, given the seriousness of the crime and the administration's promised crackdown on illegal drugs flowing into the US.

Here is a look at Hernández's political career and crimes, and why Trump may have pardoned him.

400 tonnes of cocaine and a $1m bribe from El Chapo

Hernández first ran for president of Honduras, a country of 10 million people, in 2013 as the candidate for the conservative National Party. He ran again in 2017, in an election marred by fraud allegations and violent protests.

Throughout his two terms, he maintained a cordial relationship with the US. Former President Barack Obama called him one of the "excellent partners" on the migrant-children crisis, and Trump backed him as the winner of the disputed 2017 vote.

But Hernández's fortunes began to unravel in 2019.

US federal prosecutors accused him of accepting a $1m bribe from notorious drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán for his first presidential campaign in exchange for protecting narcotics routes through Honduras.

The allegations surfaced in a separate case involving his brother, Juan Antonio "Tony" Hernández, who was arrested in Miami in 2018 on charges of smuggling cocaine into the US. At the time, the then-president denied any involvement in his brother's crimes.

Tony Hernández was convicted in 2019 and sentenced to life in prison.

But the end of his brother's trial marked only the beginning of the ex-president's legal troubles.

Shortly after leaving office in 2022, he was arrested and extradited to the US on drug-trafficking and related weapons charges.

Reuters

Hernández was arrested, handcuffed and escorted to a US-bound plane in 2022 to face federal charges of drug trafficking.

Hernández's federal trial lasted three weeks in 2024.

US prosecutors argued that he was a central figure in a more than 18-year-long drug-trafficking scheme that funnelled over 400 tonnes of cocaine into the US - equivalent to roughly 4.5 billion individual doses.

"The people of Honduras and the United States bore the consequences," said then-attorney general Merrick Garland.

Prosecutors detailed how Hernández abused office by shielding drug traffickers armed with machine guns and grenade launchers. In exchange, he received millions of dollars to fuel his political campaigns.

Multiple branches of the state were involved, including the Honduran National Police, who protected cocaine shipments as they moved through Honduras to the US for distribution, prosecutors said.

In some cases, the drug traffickers associated with Hernández committed violent crimes and murders to quell rival gangs and grow their enterprise, they said.

During sentencing, Hernández insisted he was the victim of "political persecution".

"The prosecutors and agents did not do the due diligence in the investigation to know the whole TRUTH," he wrote in a letter following his conviction.

Trump: Hernández conviction was a 'Biden setup'

Trump announced the pardon on Friday in a Truth Social post, writing that, according to "many people that I greatly respect", Hernández had been unfairly treated by prosecutors.

In the same post, he also endorsed Tito Asfura for president of Honduras ahead of Sunday's election. Asfura ran under the same National Party ticket as Hernández.

As of Tuesday, preliminary results show the election is too close to call, forcing a hand recount of ballots.

Trump's endorsement of Asfura wasn't surprising to many, given the right-leaning National Party's ideological alignment with the current US administration.

Trump has also weighed in on the politics of other countries in the Western Hemisphere, like Brazil and Argentina.

"We've seen the President's affinity with leaders on the right that he sees as being favourable to some of interests of his administration," noted Jason Marczak, vice-president and senior director at the Atlantic Council's Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

But the decision to pardon Hernández simultaneously stunned some experts.

"It was hard for me to believe, because there was such an overwhelming case against Hernández," said Michael Shifter, an adjunct professor at the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University.

Mr Shifter added that what he found more puzzling was the "contradiction" between the pardon and Trump's declared policy of clamping down on drug trafficking.

Trump has repeatedly pledged to curb the flow of drugs into the US, and carried out highly controversial strikes on boats in the waters around Venezuela that his administration says are piloted by drug traffickers.

More than 80 people have been killed in a number of strikes in the Caribbean Sea since early September.

Images

While pardoning Hernández, Trump endorsed Tito Asfura for president of Honduras.

At the White House briefing on Monday, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt argued that charges against Hernández were tainted by corrupt "over-prosecution" under President Biden.

Asked if the pardon undermined the US president's campaign against "narco-terrorists" on the American continent, Leavitt said the aim was to "correct the wrongs" of the justice department under Biden.

"I think president trump has been quite clear in his defense of the United States homeland to stop these illegal narcotics from coming to our borders whether that is by land or by sea," Leavitt added.

US media outlet Axios later reported that Hernández penned a four-page letter in October praising President Trump, and requesting a review of his case "in the interest of justice".

In the letter, he reportedly recalled the working relationship he and Trump had during the US president's first term, and said his case "advanced only because the Biden-Harris DOJ pursued a political agenda to empower its ideological allies in Honduras".

The outlet also reported that Roger Stone, a lobbyist and long-time Trump advisor, had told the US president that a pardon for Hernández would energise the National Party ahead of the Honduran election.

Trump subsequently told reporters on Sunday that he believed the ex-president's prosecution "was a Biden setup".

Mr Marczak of the Atlantic Council noted that the prosecution of Hernández was the result of an independent investigation by the US justice department.

But he added that the decision to pardon Hernández was in line with the Trump administration's "willingness to question decisions made during the Biden presidency".

## Honduran ex-president Juan Orlando Hernández released from US prison after Trump pardon

## Honduras presidential candidates locked in 'technical tie', official says

## Honduras ex-president gets 45 years for drug crimes

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an 11 25

President Donald Trump recently issued dozens of preemptive pardons for far-right attorneys and activists who assisted in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. One expert is cautioning that the pardons are less about actual clemency and more about sending a specific message.

In the memo, Trump pardoned attorney John Eastman (who wrote the "Eastman Memo" outlining the plan to have then-Vice President Mike Pence invalidate the 2020 electoral vote certification), former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (also Trump's former personal attorney before losing his law license last year), lawyer Kenneth Chesebro (who hatched the "fake electors" plot), and attorney Sidney Powell (who was one of Trump's co-defendants in his Georgia election interference case). Trump's memo also named former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, former Department of Justice (DOJ) official Jeffrey Clark, Trump advisor Boris Epshteyn, and attorneys Christina Bobb, Jenna Ellis, and Ray Smith.

In a Monday article, Politico's Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein reported that the pardons do little of substance, as those who were named in the announcement have mostly been ensnared in state-level investigations (which presidents have no power over). However, Liz Oyer — who was the DOJ's pardon attorney in former President Joe Biden's administration – said that the memo should be understood as Trump blessing future efforts to overturn unfavorable election results.

"Trump is sending a message to his supporters that if you commit a crime in the name of Donald Trump, I’ve got your back," she said.

Oyer further warned that the memo was so vaguely written that current DOJ pardon attorney Ed Martin (who presided over the dismissal of multiple January 6 defendants) could use it as justification to have the administration grant additional pardons of election deniers in the future.

"That’s just not how pardon paperwork is written," Oyer said.

While former DOJ special counsel Jack Smith dismissed his criminal cases against Trump after he was reelected, the state-level cases against the various election deniers named are ongoing. Last year, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) indicted 18 members of Trump's legal team – including Bobb, Eastman, Ellis, Epshteyn, Giuliani, Meadows, and other Republican officials — for their efforts "to prevent the lawful transfer of the presidency to keep Unindicted Coconspirator 1 in office against the will of Arizona’s voters." Investigators in Nevada and Wisconsin are also prosecuting their own cases against people tied to Trump's post-2020 election efforts. All of the ongoing cases are currently bogged down in litigation.

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no lnx

lifezette

Trump Grants Sweeping Pardons to Dozens Targeted After 2020 Election [WATCH]

By LifeZette News Staff

November 10, 2025

President Donald Trump has issued a broad pardon proclamation extending clemency to dozens of allies who faced prosecution over efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The order, signed and released by the White House, declares the pardons part of an effort to correct what the president called a “grave national injustice” and move toward “national reconciliation.”

“This proclamation ends a grave national injustice perpetrated upon the American people following the 2020 presidential election and continues the process of national reconciliation,” the document reads.

The proclamation grants “a full, complete and unconditional pardon to all United States citizens for conduct relating to the advice, creation, organization, execution, submission, support, voting activities, participation in, or advocacy for or of any slate or proposed slate of presidential electors, whether or not recognized by any state or state official in connection with the 2020 presidential election, as well as for any conduct relating to their efforts to expose voting fraud and vulnerabilities in the 2020 presidential election.”

Among those named are several high-profile figures who became central to post-election investigations, including Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s former personal attorney and former mayor of New York; John Eastman, one of Trump’s lawyers involved in election-related legal strategies; and Tyler Bowyer, a senior member of Turning Point USA.

In total, the list includes more than 70 individuals. The names listed in the document include Mark Amick, Kathy Berden, Christina Bobb, Joseph Brannan, Carol Brunner, Mary Buestrin, Darryl Carlson, James “Ken” Carroll, Brad Carver, Robert Cheeley, Kenneth Chesebro, Hank Choate, Jeffrey Clark, Vikki Consiglio, Nancy Cottle, James DeGraffenreid, John Downey, Jenna Ellis, Boris Epshteyn, Amy Facchinello, Bill Feehan, Carolyn Fisher, Harrison Floyd, Clifford Frost, Kay Godwin, Edward Scott Grabins, Stanley Grot, John Haggard, Scott Hall, Misty Hampton, David G. Hanna, Mark Hennessy, Mari-Ann Henry, Durward James Hindle III, Andrew Hitt, Jake Hoffman, Burt Jones, Anthony T. Kern, Kathy Kiernen,

Timothy King, Trevian Kutti, James Lamon, Cathleen Latham, Jesse Law, Stephen Lee, Michele Lundgren, Meshawn Maddock, Michael McDonald, Mark Meadows, Shawn Meehan, Robert Montgomery, Daryl Moody, Samuel I. Moorhead, Loraine Pellegrino, Sidney Powell, James Renner, Eileen Rice, Mayra Rodriguez, Mike Roman, Rose Rook, Kelly Ruh, Greg Safsten, David Shafer, Marian Sheridan, Ray Stallings Smith III, Robert F. Spindell Jr., Shawn Still, Ken Thompson, Pam Travis, James Troupis, Kent Vanderwood, Kelli Ward, Michael Ward, and C.B. Yadav.

The proclamation notes that the pardon applies only to those whose conduct was directly related to post-election challenges or alternate elector efforts, as well as activities tied to investigating or exposing alleged voting irregularities.

In a statement posted to X, Bowyer expressed gratitude toward President Trump and others who supported those charged in connection with the post-election cases.

“I am very grateful for the support of the President and his pardon attorney Ed Martin, and the many who have looked out for us since this expensive injustice has taken place in the swing states,” he wrote.

“We were targeted to sideline many of us politically. It has nearly bankrupted and caused severe trauma to many good people on this list—this is why it is important to get to the bottom of what was carried out against good faith and active citizens who took to the courts to ask questions about the 2020 election.”

MORE NEWS: Schumer Loses Grip as Eight Democrats Join GOP to Reopen Government [WATCH]

While the proclamation offers comprehensive relief for those prosecuted or investigated, it explicitly excludes President Trump himself.

00:22 / 00:46

“This pardon does not apply to the President of the United States, Donald J. Trump,” the document states.

That clarification ensures that any ongoing or future legal proceedings involving the president personally are not affected by the order.

MORE NEWS: Billy Bob Thornton Tells Hollywood Elites to ‘Accept Your Little Award and Fk Off’ [WATCH]

The move, however, effectively brings to a close years of prosecutions, investigations, and civil actions targeting individuals tied to Trump’s post-election legal and political efforts.

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AN 11 25

President Donald Trump went on a Sunday night pardon spree, granting full clemency to at least 77 individuals involved in promoting alternate electors in battleground states after the 2020 election, including former Trump attorneys John Eastman and Rudy Giuliani and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, according to Axios.

Announced by U.S. Pardon Attorney Ed Martin, the pardons cover potential federal offenses but exclude Trump himself and do not affect ongoing state prosecutions in Georgia, Arizona, and Michigan.

Others who received pardons include attorneys Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell, attorney and Acting Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the Office of Management and Budget Jeffrey Clark, and attorney and former Trump strategic advisor Boris Epshteyn.

Legal experts describe the action as largely symbolic, given the absence of federal charges against the recipients, but critics excoriated the pardons on social media.

One wrote on X that this move means the country is "waving goodbye to democracy again."

Chef Courtney Brown wrote that"AmeriKKKa has lost its way! This is an absolute disgrace!"

"The fact that NO ONE will be held to account for conspiring to illegally keep Trump in office is one of the most distressing and infuriating consequences of the 2024 election," posted another critic on X.

An x user by the name of America First Democrat posted, "So basically no one who participated in efforts to illegally overturn the 2020 election can be held accountable? The lawlessness of this administration knows no bounds."

Retired Naval reservist and self-described "JFK Libertarian" David Rouse said, "This only reflects #Trump's total disdain for the #Constitution he swore to "protect, preserve, and defend". Pardoning his accomplices in an attempt to overthrow the 2020 fair election that he lost, makes a mockery of the #Rule_of_Law and endangers us all!"

Tech CEO Simon St-Onge wrote, "When people see injustices, criminals pardoned because they know the leader, they lose faith in the justice system, and take their own defence in to their own hands. That’s a premise for barbarism and violence, and war amongst citizens. We should never tolerate injustice, I pity America, the land of the free is no longer so. It will take years, to make it great again. The USA is alone now, with a few other countries lead by autocratic leaders, demented narcissistic men, like Trump and Putin, devoted to themselves, and themselves alone."

"It's about the political whims of Donald Trump," said MSNBC's justice and intelligence reporter Ken Dilanian.

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===

GMAIL LEFT HOOK 10 25

...When you have power and don’t plan on giving it up anytime soon, you can behave like a supervillain without any shame or subtlety.

I was planning on talking to Adam about the numerous scandals that are engulfing the Trump Administration, which reveal the corrupt, grifting nature of this white nationalist regime. The universe told us to hold our memecoin as we received breaking news that Trump pardoned Changpen Zhao, founder of crypto exchange Binance, who pleaded guilty to money laundering in 2023.The same Administration, however, is boasting of cracking down on an alleged gambling ring featuring high-profile NBA stars and coaches.

It’s all projection all the time with MAGA. As Trump and Stephen Miller dehumanize the majority as terrorists and criminals, the regime is perfectly fine pardoning criminals like Zhao and Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road, who created digital havens for drug and sex trafficking.

While ICE terrorizes US cities, shoots at unarmed priests, and assaults innocent Americans, Trump pardons Republicans convicted of fraud and theft, such as George Santos and Michael Grimm. Trump is also fine with releasing violent criminals, such as the insurrectionists who stormed the US Capitol on his behalf on January 6th. However, Republicans still won’t release the Epstein Files. Ghislaine Maxwell, Jeffrey Epstein’s associate, is receiving great perks at a minimum security camp in Texas, but Rep. Grijalva has yet to be sworn in by Speaker Mike Johnson. Meanwhile, Christopher Moynihan, one of the pardoned insurrectionists, was charged last week for attempting to assassinate Rep. Hakeem Jeffries.

It’s all upside down because a plurality of Americans decided to elect a cruel, selfish, compromised criminal and send him back to the White House, which he is currently destroying - literally. The entire East Wing of the White House has been demolished as Trump continues to build his $300 million ballroom.

It is the most perfect metaphor for Trump, and, tragically, all of it could have been avoided.

...

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AN 10 25

In an article for The Bulwark published Tuesday, Joe Perticone, the outlet's national political reporter, argued that President Donald Trump has perfected a system by which corrupt politicians and other criminals win clemency: unwavering loyalty and public praise of him.

Perticone began by noting Trump’s track record of granting pardonsor commutations disproportionately to indicted or convicted politicians who remained ardent supporters — men who, even from behind bars, continued to sing his praises.

On Sunday, Jan. 6 rioter Christopher Moynihan, who was pardoned by Trump in January, was arrested and now faces a felony charge of making a terroristic threat against House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-.N.Y.). Perticone cited Moynihan's case as one example in which excessive flattery may result in dodging criminal accountability.

In his Tuesday article, Perticone focused on the case of disgraced and expelled former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), whose sentence Trump commuted last week.

Santos immediately lauded Trump in media appearances, thanking him for “such an amazing will for second chances.”

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Under Trump’s first term, he pardoned or commuted sentences for numerous former Republican House members and governors; in his second, he has already extended clemency to Republicans like John Rowland and Michael Grimm, among others.

What all of them share, Perticone noted, is political fealty.

He then probed the tacit assumptions among Republicans that such pardons are simply an exercise of constitutional authority, beyond moral scrutiny.

According to the article, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) declined to express concerns about ethics, framing the matter as purely legal. Meanwhile, Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.), one of Santos’s critics, dismissed Santos as a “distraction” rather than a threat to accountability.

Perticone drew attention to how individuals seeking pardons now treat obeisance to Trump as a strategic necessity. He noted that even those who did not flatter him before incarceration have pivoted to effusive MAGA advocacy while in prison or awaiting trials.

He points to examples such as former Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who cast himself as a victim of a vengeful justice system and aligned rhetorically with Trump, and Louisiana rapper Boosie BadAzz (formerly Lil Boosie), who hired Trump boosters to lobby for his pardon.

Perticone used the phrase “clemency‑advocacy business" to describe how paid operatives dedicated to securing pardons serves as proof that the formula is being recognized and monetized. He further argued that while the pardon power is constitutionally broad, the way Trump deploys it is corrosive to the rule of law.

The Bulwark writer cited Democratic critiques warning that sweeping clemencies for political allies amount to undermining justice, privileging loyalty over accountability.

“Right now we have to see how this is playing into the destruction of the rule of law. I think this has made it clear that pardon power is too big and too broad and [does] not [have] enough checks," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told the reporter.

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an 10 25 ah

After the fatal shooting of Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk, President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other far-right MAGA Republicans claimed that the majority of political violence in the United States was coming from the left. But critics of the Trump administration, from Democrats to Never Trump conservatives like MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, were quick to cite numerous examples of far-right violence against Democrats — including a militia plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, an arson attack on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, an assault on Paul Pelosi (former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband) with a hammer and the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building.

Now, a MAGA supporter and January 6 rioter is facing criminal charges for allegedly threatening to murder House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York).

CBS News' Scott MacFarlane reports that on Sunday, October 19, Christopher Moynihan was arrested and "faces a felony charge of making a terroristic threat." Along with other January 6 rioters, Moynihan received a presidential pardon nine months ago.

"According to a court filing by prosecutors in the New York State criminal case, Moynihan wrote, 'Hakeem Jeffries makes a speech in a few days in NYC I cannot allow this terrorist to live,'" MacFarlane reports. "Moynihan also allegedly stated: 'Even if I am hated, he must be eliminated, I will kill him for the future.'"

Moynihan, according to MacFarlane, is scheduled to appear in court this Thursday, October 23.

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"Moynihan was found guilty in August 2022 of obstructing an official proceeding, and pleaded guilty to five misdemeanor charges," MacFarlane notes. "He was sentenced, in February 2023, to 21 months in prison. Prosecutors described Moynihan as among the first rioters to breach police barricades and enter the Capitol grounds on January 6, 2021."

The CBS News reporter adds, "Moynihan was also among a smaller group of riot defendants who were on the Senate floor during the siege. Prosecutors argued in Moynihan's sentencing memorandum: 'While inside, Moynihan rifled through a notebook on top of a Senator's desk, saying 'There's gotta be something in here we can f–– use against these scumbags.'"

*Read the full CBS News article at this link.

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santos complained of the polyster fashion yellow color, trump said he was in solitary but club fed?

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an 10 25

weekend news dump this was no kings

Continuing his pattern of pardoning allies and prosecuting adversaries, President Donald Trump on Friday commuted the prison term of former Republican Congressman George Santos, who was less than three months into a seven year sentence for wire fraud and aggravated identity theft.

“George Santos was somewhat of a ‘rogue,’ but there are many rogues throughout our Country that aren’t forced to serve seven years in prison,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social network.

Once again, Trump randomly attacked Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s (D-Conn.) admitted lie about taking part in the US invasion and occupation of Vietnam. Blumenthal was a Marine stationed stateside during the war, in which Trump—who has been derided as “Capt. Bone Spurs”—avoided serving.

“This is what a wannabe king does.”

“He never went to Vietnam, he never saw Vietnam, he never experienced the Battles there, or anywhere else,” Trump said of Blumenthal. “His War Hero status, and even minimal service in our Military, was totally and completely MADE UP.”

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“This is far worse than what George Santos did, and at least Santos had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN!” the president added. “George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated. Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY. Good luck George, have a great life!”

Santos was subsequently released from the Federal Correctional Institution in Fairton, New Jersey after 10:00 pm Friday.

According to a copy of the commutation posted on social media, Santos will also no longer have to pay $370,000 in court-ordered restitution to victims of his fraud. Trump’s action does not erase Santos’ conviction.

Santos, 37, resisted pressure to resign from Congress over lies about his education, employment, family, religion, residence, net worth, and more.

As The New York Times reported Friday:

Mr. Santos claimed that he was descended from Holocaust refugees. His mother, he said, had been in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. He claimed to be a college volleyball star. And Mr. Santos boasted of extensive Wall Street experience that allowed him to report loaning his campaign hundreds of thousands of dollars. None of that was true.

Between May and October 2023, Santos was indicted on 23 criminal counts including wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States.

In December 2023, House lawmakers voted 311-114 to remove the freshman lawmaker from office. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) was among the 112 Republicans and two Democrats who voted against expulsion. Santos became just the sixth lawmaker to ever be booted from the House.

In August 2024, Santos pleaded guilty to two felony counts of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. The following April, he was sentenced to 87 months behind bars and ordered to pay restitution and forfeiture totaling nearly $600,000.

Trump’s commutation of Santos’ sentence follows a series of high-profile acts of clemency. Most notorious among these was his blanket pardon earlier this year of more than 1,500 people charged in connection with the January 6, 2021 Capitol insurrection, for which the president—himself a 34-count convicted fraudster—was impeached for a historic second time. He was not convicted by the Senate either time.

Friday’s commutation also stands in stark contrast with the Trump administration’s recent indictments of political foes including former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and former National Security Adviser John Bolton.

Critics were quick to note this pattern, which Congressman Don Beyer (D-Va.) called “naked corruption.”

“George Santos pleaded guilty to identity theft and wire fraud, a small part of his lying and stealing that really hurt people,” Beyer wrote on social media. “Trump says it plainly: Crimes don’t count if you ‘vote Republican.’ Just like his pardons of those who violently attacked police.”

West Coast Trial Lawyers president Neama Rahmani said on X following Trump’s announcement: “It’s weeks away, but Trump is handing out pardons like Halloween candy. Disgraced former Rep. George Santos is the latest beneficiary, showing once again that flattering the president gets you everywhere.”

“Sneaking it in on a Friday night means it will get less press too,” Rahmani added. “I can’t wait for Santos’ first cameo appearance post-federal prison. Is Diddy the next recipient of Trump’s clemency?”

Congressman Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) also reacted to Trump’s commutation on X, writing, “This is what a wannabe king does.”

“Join us tomorrow at a No Kings rally near you,” Pocan added, referring to the more than 2,700 pro-democracy demonstrations set to take place Saturday from coast to coast and around the world.

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AN 5 25

At a swearing-in ceremony for Fox News' Jeanine Pirro — now an interim U.S. attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) District of Columbia office — on Wednesday, May 28, President Donald Trump said he is considering a federal pardon for the men prosecuted for a plan to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020.

Trump told attendees, "I did watch the trial. It looked to me like somewhat of a railroad job, I'll be honest with you. It looked to me like some people said some stupid things."

The next day on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade attacked Trump's possible pardons of Whitmer's would-be kidnappers as an VID

McQuade told "Morning Joe" hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski and their colleague Jonathan Lemire, "Number one, he said he watched the trial. He most certainly didn't watch the trial, because federal court trials are not televised. So perhaps he watched some coverage of the trial, some additional facts. He said that they said some stupid things — maybe so, but in addition, there was evidence presented in that case that they created a fake shoot house. That they trained on extricating the governor from her shoot house and separating her from her security detail. And they surveilled the underside of a bridge that connects her home with the police department in an effort to avoid capture."

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The MSNBC legal analyst continued, "So those additional facts were not known. The other thing that I think is important to remember here is the reason the motive that these men had that was presented at trial was that they wanted to retaliate against her for her COVID shutdown orders. During that time, you may recall, Gov. Whitmer was in a very public feud with President Trump, who posted online, 'Liberate Michigan.'"

According to federal prosecutors, the militia members planned to kidnap Whitmer, put her on "trial" for COVID-19 restrictions, and execute her if found guilty.

McQuade drew a parallel between a possible pardon of Whitmer's would-be kidnappers and Trump's pardon of the far-right extremists who attacked the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.

The former DOJ proseuctor told Scarborough, Brzezinski and Lemire, "These men, like those January 6 defendants, were acting in support of Donald Trump's political cause. And so, the idea that they would be pardoned or have their sentences commuted really is a part with the January 6 defendants and seems like another effort to normalize political violence so long as you are on the side of President Trump."

Scarborough, a Never Trump conservative and former GOP congressman, interjected, "And again, with one of the few Democratic leaders who has stood beside President Trump at public ceremonies, certainly would be, again, not only disturbing for legal reasons, but for political reasons. Very curious."

*Watch the full video below or at this link.

---

MMA

CBS joined Fox and Newsmax in ignoring Trump's pardon of donor's son 05/29/25 walczak

---

Trump Pardoned Tax Cheat After Mother Attended $1 ...}:

The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com › U.S. › Politics](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/us/politics/trump-pardon-paul-walczak-tax-crimes.html)

1 day ago — Trump Pardoned Tax Cheat After Mother Attended $1 Million Dinner. Paul Walczak's pardon application cited his mother's support for the ...

[### Trump Pardons Paul Walczak After Mother Attends ...

Rolling Stone

https://www.rollingstone.com › politics › politics-news](https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/trump-pardons-paul-walczak-mother-fundraiser-1235348794/)

23 hours ago — Donald Trump pardoned tax criminal Paul Walczak weeks after his mother attended a lavish fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago, The New York Times ...

[### Trump Pardoned Tax Cheat After Mom Attended $1M Mar- ...

The Daily Beast

https://www.thedailybeast.com › trump-pardoned-tax-ch...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-pardoned-tax-cheat-after-mom-attended-1m-mar-a-lago-dinner/)

1 day ago — His release from prison came three weeks after his Republican donor mother, Elizabeth Fago, attended a $1 million-per-head fundraising dinner, ...

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POLITICO

Amanda Friedman

05/28/2025

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he is considering pardons for the people involved in a plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2020.

Trump insinuated that the trial had not been handled correctly by the legal system while taking questions from reporters in the Oval Office, describing it as potentially being a “railroad job.”

“I will look at it — take a look at it,” he said when asked if he is considering pardons. “It’s been brought to my attention, I did watch the trial. It looked to me like somewhat of a railroad job, I’ll be honest with you. It looked to me like some people said some stupid things.”

“They were drinking and I think they said stupid things but I’ll take a look at that, and a lot of people are asking me that question from both sides actually,” he continued. “A lot of people think they got railroaded.”

The kidnapping plot against the Michigan Democrat rattled the final weeks of the 2020 election and marked an incident of anti-government extremism that prosecutors said was intended to ignite a civil war. The leaders, Barry Croft Jr. and Adam Fox, were convicted in 2022 of conspiring to abduct the Democratic governor from her vacation home.

Croft, a former truck driver from Delaware, also faced weapons charges and received a nearly 20-year prison sentence. Fox, from Grand Rapids, was sentenced to 16 years.

A spokesperson for Whitmer declined to comment on Trump’s remarks.

The president was not the first member of his administration to question the charges. Ed Martin, who was tapped to serve as the pardon attorney at the Justice Department after Trump pulled his nomination to be the top federal prosecutor for Washington, compared Croft’s and Fox’s cases to the January 6 pardons last week.

“In my opinion these are victims just like January 6,” Martin said during an interview on “The Breanna Morello Show,” referencing the roughly 1,600 people either pardoned by Trump for crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol or who saw their cases dropped.

Trump’s remarks also come as he builds a working relationship with Whitmer. The two have shared several cordial moments in recent months, with Whitmer defending her appearances alongside Trump as key to scoring major wins for her home state, while underscoring their sharp policy differences.

“This is one of those moments where as a public servant, you’re reminded your job is to put service above self, and that’s what it was all about,” she said in a recent “Pod Save America” interview.

*Zack Stanton contributed to this report.

---

OMFG

[Detroit Free Press

Donald Trump to consider pardoning convicted Whitmer kidnap plotters

At a press conference, Donald Trump said he will look at pardoning the men convicted of conspiring to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer...

16 minutes ago](https://www.freep.com/videos/news/2025/05/28/trump-pardon-convicted-whitmer-kidnap-plotters/83904043007/)

[

Newsweek

Trump Says He's Considering Pardons for Gretchen Whitmer Kidnap Plotters

Two men were found guilty of plotting to kidnap Whitmer by breaking into her vacation home.

37 minutes ago](https://www.newsweek.com/trump-says-hes-considering-pardons-gretchen-whitmer-kidnap-plotters-2078128)

[

The Hill

Trump says he will ‘look at’ pardon for Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping conspiracy

President Trump on Wednesday said he will take a look at whether to issue pardons for those convicted in the 2020 failed plot to kidnap...

2 hours ago](https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5321982-trump-considering-pardons-for-whitmer-plot/)

Bloomberg](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-05-28/trump-weighs-pardons-for-michigan-governor-kidnapping-plotters)

---

nbc

trump's pardons highlight Justice Department's pullback from public corruption cases

Former Virginia sheriff Scott Jenkins claimed he was being targeted because of his support for Donald Trump.

:{:{Scott Jenkins in Culpeper, Va., in 2020.}:

May 28, 2025,

By Ryan J. Reilly

WASHINGTON — The government's evidence against Scott Jenkins was compelling, including undercover video and other corroboration showing Jenkins, then the sheriff of Culpeper County, Virginia, accepting over $75,000 in exchange for giving law enforcement authority to local businessmen, as well as two undercover FBI special agents.

Jenkins’ co-defendants all pleaded guilty, and jurors didn't take long to convict Jenkins last year, deliberating for around two hours before they found him guilty on all counts. When Jenkins was sentenced to 10 years in prison in March, the acting U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia said he "violated his oath of office and the faith the citizens of Culpeper County placed in him when he engaged in a cash-for-badges scheme."

But on Monday, President Donald Trump announced he was pardoning Jenkins, calling him "a victim of an overzealous Biden Department of Justice" who "doesn’t deserve to spend a single day in jail." It's part of a broader pattern for Trump, who in the first few months of his second term has pardoned at least four supportive former public officials who were convicted of financial improprieties.

Trump, who faced two separate federal criminal cases that were dropped after he was re-elected in November, has long argued that he was a victim of the weaponization of the Justice Department and the FBI, and he has been sympathetic to those who make similar claims, particularly those who are politically aligned with him.

:{In February, Trump pardoned Rod Blagojevich, the Democratic former governor of Illinois, whose sentence he had commuted in 2020, after he was convicted on corruption charges related to bribery.:{ (Blagojevich attended the 2024 Republican convention in support of Trump.)}: Trump pardoned Republicanformer Tennessee state Sen. Brian Kelsey in March, just over two weeks into a 21-month sentence over a campaign finance-related fraud conviction.

(Fellow Tennessee Republicans implored Trump to pardon Kelsey, who thanked him upon his release from prison and said that “God used Donald Trump to save me.”) Last month, Trump pardoned Republican former Las Vegas City Council member Michele Fiore, who had been set to be sentenced this month after she was convicted on conspiracy and wire fraud charges related to misused fundraising. (Fiore had hitched her political career to Trump and benefited from his endorsement while she backed his false statements about voter fraud in the 2020 election.)}:

Those four figures and their pardons aren't the only evidence of a Justice Department de-emphasizing public corruption cases. In the early days of the administration, the Justice Department also dropped a campaign finance case against Republican former Rep. Jeff Fortenberry of Nebraska, who had been set to go on trial next month.

The Trump administration also moved to drop the corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams, which led several Justice Department officials to resign in protest.

The Adams and Jenkins cases, among others, are linked by the Justice Department's Public Integrity Section. The division, which focuses on bringing cases against public officials accused of breaking the law, has shrunk in both size and influence during the Trump administration. The FBI's Washington Field Office is shutting down a public corruption squad that was focused on federal corruption.

War in Ukraine Live updates: Trump responds to Elon Musk's criticism of deficit increase from GOP agenda bill

“It’s clear that this administration doesn’t believe that tamping down on public corruption is a priority,” said Stacey Young, a former Justice Department official who founded Justice Connection, a network of Justice Department alumni formed in response to the Trump administration's overhaul of the Justice Department. “Pardoning a sheriff who took cash for deputy badges is just the latest in a string of actions this president has taken to undermine any effort to hold officials accountable to the public they are sworn to serve.”

The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment.

'Make Virginia Great Again'

It's not clear how the Jenkins case first made its way on the White House's radar, but it found a backer in Ed Martin, the conservative activist whom Trump initially put in charge of the U.S. attorney's office in Washington before he recently named him the U.S. pardon attorney. Martin wrote on X that he was “thrilled” the Jenkins’ was the first pardon since he took the position: “Congratulations, Sheriff Jenkins: Do great things and make us proud.”

In a thread in which he thanked Trump for pardoning Jenkins, Martin — who is also director of the Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group — wrote, “No MAGA left behind.”

Last week, Martin met with White House “pardon czar” Alice Marie Johnson, whose life sentence for a drug conviction Trump commuted during his first term. Trump later gave Johnson a full pardon.

In an interview with Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump that aired on Fox News this month, she would review the cases of people who spent too much time behind bars, as well as “the victims of lawfare, the same way our president was.”

A Justice Department official said that Martin was eager to get involved in the Jenkins case after meetings with the White House and that he concurred with and supported Trump's decision to issue a pardon.

Jenkins had argued that he was targeted because of his conservative politics, including his positions on immigration, guns and Covid lockdowns. In his own sentencing memo, Jenkins’ lawyers said he "adamantly maintains his innocence."

When Jenkins was under investigation, he and other sheriffs discussed the possibility of "flying to a secret location to view the Hunter Biden laptop, and then bringing charges against Hunter Biden based on any crimes depicted on it," his lawyers wrote in the sentencing memo.

The government said Jenkins perjured himself at trial, falsely testifying that co-defendant Rick Rahim had given him a "business investment" because Jenkins had copyrighted the logo "Make Virginia Great Again" and that they were investing in red shirts and hats. Discussions about "Make America Great Again" shirts didn't happen until after Rahim had made payments to Jenkins, which were intended to help him get his firearms rights restored, prosecutors argued.

Last week, prosecutors asked a judge to sentence Rahim, who pleaded guilty, to 27 months in prison, saying Jenkins made Rahim a "Helicopter Pilot" in exchange for bribes and pushed his petition for restoration of gun rights even though Rahim didn't live in the county.

Prosecutors said recordings captured Jenkins laying out the scheme in clear terms after he became frustrated that Rahim was pushing for more favors.

“I appreciate what support you give me, but you didn’t do it for nothin’. You got a felony record, a clean slate to carry — not only carry a gun,” Jenkins said in a recorded conversation in 2022, according to a court filing. “We followed it up with swearing you in. Name another sheriff in the whole State of Virginia that would do that.”

An attorney for Jenkins didn’t respond to a request for comment, and a message left at a phone number registered to Jenkins got no response.

Meanwhile, more pardons for Trump supporters may be in the pipeline.

On Tuesday, Trump called two of the children of reality television couple Todd and Julie Chrisley and told them their parents would receive pardons for bank fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy charges. One of their daughters, reality star Savannah Chrisley, spoke on their behalf at the Republican National Convention last year and more recently appeared on a Fox News segment with Trump's daughter-in-law Lara Trump.

"When I saw, obviously, what the president was going through, what I was going through, it was eerily similar," Savannah Chrisley said in the interview.

Martin recently met with attorney Peter Ticktin, who presented pardon applications for members of the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, as first reported by Politico. While most Jan. 6 defendants got full pardons, Trump initially commuted the sentences of some of the members of the two far-right groups, ending their prison sentences but maintaining the convictions and the collateral consequences — like deprivation of certain rights — that go along with them.

“There’s a good deal of reason to be hopeful,” Ticktin, who went to the New York Military Academy with Trump, told NBC News. “No promises were made as to what would be done; that’s not the way it works. We present it and then we hope for the best."

Ryan J. Reilly

Ryan J. Reilly is a justice reporter for NBC News.

---

AN 5 25 SEE CLAREMONT ED FUCKING MARTIN LEAVE NO MAGA BEHIND

'Pathetic': Trump slammed for pardoning Virginia sheriff convicted of bribery charges

THE HILL

President Trump issued a full pardon Monday to a former Virginia sheriff who had been convicted of bribery, alleging that he was a victim of a “weaponized” Justice Department under the Biden administration.

Trump announced his pardon of Scott Jenkins, who was convicted in December of accepting more than $70,000 in bribes in exchange for appointing local businessmen as auxiliary deputy sheriffs in the office.

“Sheriff Scott Jenkins, his wife Patricia, and their family have been dragged through HELL by a Corrupt and Weaponized Biden DOJ,” Trump said in a Monday post on Truth Social announcing the pardon.

Jenkins, who served as the sheriff of Culpeper County in Northern Virginia for more than a decade until he lost his reelection bid in 2023, was convicted on one count of conspiracy, four counts of honest services mail and wire fraud, and seven counts of bribery concerning programs receiving public funds.

Prosecutors alleged that Jenkins accepted cash bribes and bribes in the form of campaign contributions from various individuals, including two who were undercover FBI agents. He offered them badges and credentials despite not being trained or vetted and not offering any services to the sheriff’s office, they argued.

South African President Defends 'Kill The Boer' Chant, Says He Will Not Arrest EFF Leaders | RISING

Jenkins was also accused of pressuring local officials to restore one of the individuals’ right to own a firearm despite their status as a convicted felon.

Three of the men, including the previously convicted felon, already pleaded guilty for their roles in the bribery scheme before Jenkins was found guilty.

Jenkins was sentenced to 10 years in prison in March.

“Scott Jenkins violated his oath of office and the faith the citizens of Culpeper County placed in him when he engaged in a cash-for-badges scheme,” acting United States Attorney Zachary T. Lee said in a release after the sentencing. “We hold our elected law enforcement officials to a higher standard of conduct and this case proves that when those officials use their authority for unjust personal enrichment, the Department of Justice will hold them accountable.”

But Trump argued that Jenkins was treated unfairly, alleging that the judge in the case, whom former President Biden appointed, refused to accept evidence that Jenkins offered to exonerate himself.

“This Sheriff is a victim of an overzealous Biden Department of Justice, and doesn’t deserve to spend a single day in jail,” he said. “He is a wonderful person, who was persecuted by the Radical Left ‘monsters,’ and ‘left for dead.’”

Trump’s pardon also came after a personal plea for clemency from Jenkins, who reportedly said last month during a webinar that he didn’t have the money to appeal the verdict and believed Trump would help if he knew the facts of the case and his side that he wasn’t able to share in front of the jury.

Trump has regularly argued without evidence that he and other conservatives have been the target of a politicized Justice Department during the Biden administration.

He has issued a wide range of pardons for controversial figures since returning to office, including most of those convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and Michele Fiore, a conservative commentator and former Las Vegas City Council member who was convicted on wire fraud.

The Justice Department under Trump has also launched investigations into several public officials, leading to accusations from Democrats that the president is targeting political opponents.

Tags bribery conspiracy Culpeper County Donald Trump Joe Biden mail and wire fraud Scott Jenkins Trump pardon

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bitmex pardon 4: 40

---

raw story

Criminal corporations are not people — but Trump just pardoned one anyway - Raw Story

In what could be a U.S. first, President Donald Trump last week pardoned a criminal corporation, a move that largely flew under the proverbial radar amid his pardon spree for white-collar criminals including at least one of his supporters.

On March 28, Trump pardoned HDR Global Trading, the owner and operator of the cryptocurrency exchange BitMEX; company co-founders Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed; and former business development chief Gregory Dwyer.

The company and the four men hads each pleaded guilty to one count of violating the Bank Secrecy Act "by willfully failing to establish, implement, and maintain an adequate" anti-money laundering program, as required by law. In January, the U.S. Department of Justice sentenced BitMEX to a fine of $100 million, while the executives were sentenced to criminal probation and ordered to pay civil fines.

While experts noted that Trump acted within his rights to pardon the corporation, there is no known precedent for a president taking such action.

IFrame Content

Noting the U.S. Supreme Court's highly controversial 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling—which affirmed corporate personhood and the dubious notion that unlimited outside spending on political campaigns is free speech—Stanford Law School professor Bernadette Meyler toldThe Intercept that "while we have seen the rise of a trend of treating corporations as persons in other areas of law, we haven't seen that so far in the area of pardoning."

Kimberly Wehle, a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and preeminent pardons expert, wrote for The Hill on Tuesday that the BitMEX pardons send the message that "companies involved in financial crimes don't have to worry about accountability under this president, as least when it comes to crypto, for reasons that he has no incentive to ever make known."

"BitMEX can continue its prior criminal practices with federal impunity, and maybe even rely on the pardon to thwart future investigations into related conduct by federal lawmakers or state prosecutors," Wehle added. "The biggest losers in this deal are, once again, the American people, including the more than 77 million who might finally be realizing that they voted for lawlessness last November."

"The biggest losers in this deal are, once again, the American people."

Brandon Garrett, a Duke University law professor specializing in corporate crime and punishment, told The Interceptthat the BitMEX pardons are part of a wider pattern of impunity under Trump, who "now seems to be systematically pardoning corporate malefactors left and right without respect, really, to any real serious consideration about the merits of the cases [or] the larger policy implications of issuing these pardons."

As the consumer advocacy watchdog Public Citizen recently noted, "The Trump administration has dropped, withdrawn, or halted investigations and enforcement actions against over 100 corporations in its first two months in office."

Beneficiaries include companies owned or led by Trump donors or allies, including private prison giant GEO Group; Zelle network banks JPMorgan and Bank of America; crypto firms Coinbase, Gemini, Kraken, OpenSea, Ripple, and Robinhood; and Elon Musk's SpaceX.

"Trump's corporate pardons show the president's true base is the billionaire executives and corporate elites lining up to indulge their greed at the trough of Trump's corruption," Public Citizen research director Rick Claypool said last week. "Trump's soft-on-corporate crime approach invites a corporate crime spree and potentially catastrophic abuses for America's consumers, workers, and communities."

Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman added that the Trump administration's "effective no-enforcement policy against corporations virtually guarantees more financial scams, more workplace discrimination, more poisoning of the air and water, more food contamination, more fraud, more disease, and more preventable death."

---

5 25 CHRIS M ~ B MORENO COP BILL B/C PARDON

---

RWW 05/19/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Andrew Prokop @ Vox: The ugly truth about Trump’s big, beautiful bill

Trump is promising tax cuts and a new golden age. Here’s what’s really inside it.

Sean Murphy @ The Associated Press: New standards for Oklahoma high school students promote misinformation about the 2020 election

Oklahoma high school students studying U.S. history learn about the Industrial Revolution, women’s suffrage and America’s expanding role in international affairs. Beginning next school year, they will add conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.

Teddy Wilson @ Radical Reports: Pardon Tracker: Pardoned Capitol Rioters Profiting From January 6th

Pardoned Capitol Rioters have 'worked to profit from their connection to the day’s chaos, recording podcasts, announcing runs for public office and advertising merchandise lines.'

Kipp Jones @ Mediaite: Trump Administration Agrees to Pay $5 Million to Family of Slain Jan. 6 Rioter Ashli Babbit

The Trump administration has agreed to pay millions to settle a wrongful death lawsuit brought by the family of Ashli Babbitt.

Jessica Piper and Holly Otterbein @ Politico: Why has Elon Musk disappeared from the spotlight?

The tech CEO isn’t exactly gone yet, but Republicans have stopped bringing him up.

Hemant Mehta @ Friendly Atheist: Trump admin drops $37.7M fine against Christian school that lied about tuition

Grand Canyon University misled students about the costs of its doctoral programs. Now it's off the hook.

---

REF

Many of the Capitol Rioters who received a pardon from President Donald Trump have been calling for retribution, and have promoted their calls for retribution within right-wing media. Also, the calls for retribution are “coming from both inside and outside the federal government, and the network of pardoned people pursuing it are moving rapidly toward their goals.”}:

Capitol Rioters who previously “felt unwelcome on mainstream platforms are taking on new identities as online influencers,” and more than four dozen pardoned Capitol Rioters have “worked to profit from their connection to the day’s chaos, recording podcasts, announcing runs for public office and advertising merchandise lines.”

Steven Cook, who pleaded guilty to assaulting law enforcement and was sentenced to 28-months in prison, believes the conspiracy theory that federal law enforcement agents were in the crowd and incited the violence during the Capitol Riot. During an interview, when asked if he would be willing to participate in similar acts of political violence in the future, Cook said: “Yes. Yes, I am.”

The Berrien Count Republican Party hosted two pardoned Capitol Rioters during an event at American Legion Post 568 in Stevensville, Michigan. The chairperson of the Berrien County GOP defended hosting the pardoned Capitol Rioters, and claimed that the rioters were “protesting for freedom.”

This week the trial began for Taylor Taranto, who was arrested in former President Barack Obama’s neighborhood, and the military veteran and Capitol Rioter is “charged with federal firearms offenses and a hoax bomb threat.”

A federal judge has rejected the Trump Administration’s attempts to apply the president’s pardons to a separate case, involving gun charges against a YouTuber from Maryland, and the Administration argued that “because his riot case and gun case stem from the same investigation, the firearm conviction should be pardoned, as well.”

A group of four current and former Seattle police officers have “asked the Supreme Court to protect their anonymity as they fight a public records request that would reveal information about their presence at a rally for President Donald Trump” prior to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

(*Image: Pardon Tracker Visualization*)

Trump’s Soviet Coup Against Reality [Foreign Policy in Focus]
The New Far-Right Coalition That’s Out to Destroy American Democracy [The New Republic]
Some Jan. 6., 2021, figures pardoned by President Trump bent on retribution [HateWatch]
'Retribution or bust': 'Secretary of Retribution' joins J6 leaders to demand mass arrests [Raw Story]
They stormed the Capitol. Now they’re selling merch. [The Washington Post]
Critics warn of weaponization of the DOJ despite administration calls to end it [NPR]
Trump's former VP Mike Pence receives JFK Courage Award for Jan. 6 actions [Axios]
Pence says January 6 attack’s failure ‘became a triumph of freedom’ as he receives JFK Profile in Courage Award [CNN]
FBI Director Kash Patel Erupts at Democratic Lawmaker Over Capitol Riot [Newsweek]
Trump's new pardon attorney says he will scrutinize pardons that Biden issued at the end of his term [The Washington Post]
FBI folds the public corruption squad that aided Jack Smith's Trump investigations [NBC News]
Trump’s D.C. U.S. attorney pick appeared on Russian state media over 150 times [The Washington Post]
Trump's pick for top DC prosecutor told AR-15-toting sect US institutions must fall [Raw Story]
What Ed Martin told the Senate about Jan. 6 — and what he said before [The Washington Post]
Sen. Thom Tillis splits from Trump on Washington’s top prosecutor, citing Jan. 6 [The News & Observer]
Ed Martin's judicial nomination may be at risk as Tillis says he'll vote against him [CBS News]
Key Republican says he won’t back Trump’s pick for top DC prosecutor because of Jan. 6 ties [Associated Press]
Nomination for Trump’s pick for DC’s top prosecutor in trouble amid key Republican push back [CNN]
Trump pulls nomination of Ed Martin, the DC prosecutor under fire for ties to Nazi sympathizer [Forward]
Ed Martin’s Derailed Nomination Shows Donald Trump’s Power Is Waning [Mother Jones]
Ex-January 6 prosecutors file complaint [CBS News]
Ousted top federal prosecutor in Washington facing ethics probe [Reuters]
Ex-Jan 6 Prosecutors Demand Ed Martin Investigation: His ‘Client Is Not President Trump,’ It’s The US [Talking Points Memo]
Trump says he'll replace loyalist Ed Martin as his nominee to be D.C.'s top prosecutor [NBC News]
Trump says he’ll announce new pick for DC top prosecutor as controversial Ed Martin nomination falters [CNN]
Despite his radicalism, Ed Martin lands on his feet with new Justice Department job [MSNBC]
Senate signals support for Jeanine Pirro as top DC prosecutor [Courthouse News Service]
Seattle cops who attended Jan. 6 Trump rally ask Supreme Court for anonymity [Courthouse News Service]
Trial begins in case of a Jan. 6 defendant with whom the Trump DOJ actually disagrees [MSNBC]
Judge rejects Trump administration’s attempt to apply Jan. 6 pardon to Baltimore County gun case [Union-Bulletin]
Federal judge rules Trump’s blanket Jan. 6 pardon doesn’t cover Maryland gun conviction [MSNBC]
Trial opens for Navy vet arrested near Obama’s DC home in 2023 [Associated Press]
US reaches agreement to settle lawsuit brought over Ashli Babbitt's shooting during Capitol riot [Associated Press]
Trump Justice Dept. to settle Babbitt family lawsuit in fatal Jan. 6 shooting [The Washington Post]
Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio says he met with Trump in Florida [Associated Press]
Former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio says he met with Trump [The Hill]
Trump Reportedly Told January 6 Militant and Hate Leader “I Love You” [The New Republic]
Omaha businesses caught in political controversy after group books meet-and-greet with January 6 rioter [NBC News]
Pardoned Maryland Jan. 6 participants find support after convictions [The Daily Record]
Jackson County GOP dinner featured Jan. 6 rioters as special guests [The Kansas City Star]
Disappointing apathy in Maryland and beyond, says Jan. 6 Officer Harry Dunn [Maryland Reporter]
‘It’s time’: Jeffries urges placement of Jan. 6 plaque during police week [Roll Call]
Maine lawmakers clash over proposal to declare Jan. 6 a ‘day to remember’ [Portland Press-Herald]
Sharply divided Maine House marks Jan. 6 riots as ‘day to remember’ [Bangor Daily News]
State lawmakers fiercely debate Jan 6. bill before advancing it in House [NBC News]
Chicago City Council Blocks Jan. 6 Rioters From City Jobs After Trump Pardon [PBS News]

Pardon Tracker is part of independent investigative journalism and data visualization project, investigating the pardons and commutations for individuals involved in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

---

RWW 05/09/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: Despite his radicalism, Ed Martin lands on his feet with new Justice Department job

After an indefensible tenure as an interim U.S. attorney, Ed Martin is receiving his reward: a powerful position in the Justice Department.

Charlie Nash @ Mediaite: Trump Appoints Fox News Host Jeanine Pirro as D.C. U.S. Attorney

President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that Fox News host Jeanine Pirro would be appointed as the interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.

Travis Gettys @ Raw Story: 'Her detention cannot stand': Judge orders release of student arrested by Trump admin

A federal judge has ordered the immediate release Turkish doctoral student who has been held at an immigration detention center for more than six weeks.

Corbin Bolies @ The Daily Beast: Vance Makes Bonkers Defense of Trump’s Insistence That Kids Need Fewer Dolls

JD Vance on Thursday defended Donald Trump’s insistence that children should have fewer dolls, claiming families will be happier once they know there are more U.S.-made weapons should their kids go to war.

Chuck Tanner and Devin Burghart @ IREHR: MAGA Schemes for a Trump Third Term

Far-right groups like the Third Term Project and Republicans for National Renewal are concocting a multitude of ways to keep Donald Trump in power.

---

TRUMP HAS PARDONED HALF OF ALL GOP POLS CONVIXTED? TYT

FIORE: MONEY FOR STATUE OF DEAD COPS

The jury found Fiore used the donated money for rent, bills at a “plastic-surgery business” and her daughter’s wedding — all paid with cash.

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wapo no lnx

Trump pardons ally who spent cash raised to honor slain officer

Former Las Vegas City Council member Michele Fiore, dubbed “Lady Trump” by pundits, was pardoned after being convicted of fraud. She faced up to 140 years in prison.

April 25, 2025

Michele Fiore participates in a debate in Henderson, Nevada, in April 2016. (John Locher/AP)

By Tobi Raji and Brianna Tucker

President Donald Trump has pardoned a former Republican Las Vegas City Council member convicted last year of using money meant to honor a slain police officer for plastic surgery, rent and her daughter’s wedding — one of several pardons the president has granted to his supporters since the start of his second term in office.

Michele Fiore — whom outlets and pundits dubbed “Lady Trump” for her gun-toting imagery and vociferous brand of conservatism — was found guilty in October on six counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. She faced up to 140 years in prison.

On Wednesday, Trump issued a “full and unconditional pardon” for the ex-Las Vegas official, according to court documents filed by Fiore’s attorneys Thursday. In the documents, Fiore’s legal team asked U.S. District Judge Jennifer A. Dorsey of the District of Nevada to vacate her sentencing, which had previously been set for May 14. Fiore’s attorneys attached a certificate of the pardon with Trump’s signature to the request.

“Michele Fiore, a former RNC Committeewoman and elected official from Nevada, made a name for herself through her outspoken and maverick personality,” a White House official said in a statement to The Washington Post. “A supporter of President Trump, she was also the first female Republican Majority Leader in the Nevada State Assembly. Due to her outspoken conservative views, she became a target and incurred government investigation and prosecution. She was convicted of wire fraud, but now she has received a pardon.”

Fiore’s legal team told The Post in a statement that Trump’s blanket pardon has given their client “a new light.”

“We are excited for Michele to move forward with her life and continue her path of service to the community she loves so much,” lawyer Paola M. Armeni said Friday.

Fiore in a social media statement accused federal prosecutors of unjustly targeting her and weaponizing the justice system against her.

“This act of mercy is not just a correction of a legal record — it is the restoration of a life, a reputation, and a mission long targeted for destruction,” she wrote. “To every patriot, every mother, every woman who has been falsely accused — let this moment be your reminder: We don’t break. We rise.”

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford, a Democrat, criticized Trump’s pardon, writing on X: “Donald Trump’s blatant disregard for law enforcement is sickening, and pardoning someone who stole from a police memorial fund is a disgrace.”

“As Nevada’s top cop, I believe there’s no room for reprieve when it comes to betraying the families of fallen officers,” Ford added.

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Fiore is the latest political ally to receive a full and unconditional pardon from the president. Since the start of his second administration, Trump has pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the now-defunct Silk Road online marketplace who had been sentenced to life in prison in 2015; and Rod Blagojevich, the disgraced former governor of Illinois who was convicted on multiple charges of corruption in 2011.

Trump also granted clemency to two of Hunter Biden’s ex-business associates: Devon Archer, who was convicted of securities fraud in 2018; and Jason Galanis, who was sentenced in 2017 to nearly two decades in prison for multiple fraud schemes. The pair helped Republicans during their failed impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden.

In one of the earliest acts of his presidency, Trump granted a blanket pardon to virtually all Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot defendants and commuted the sentences of the remaining 14.

Fiore served on the Las Vegas City Council from 2017 until 2022. Her fraud scheme began in July 2019 and lasted seven months, The Post previously reported.

In 2018, the city had broken ground on Alyn Beck Memorial Park, a site in honor of Alyn Beck, a 41-year-old Las Vegas police officer who was shot and killed in the line of duty in 2014. Fiore proposed installing a statue of Beck at the park’s entrance. A private real estate development company had already agreed to pay a sculptor to erect the statue, but Fiore began a fundraising campaign that solicited more than $70,000 from Nevadans, including Gov. Joe Lombardo (R), who was the sheriff of Clark County at the time.

Fiore had promised donors that “100% of the contributions” would go toward the statue, but none of the raised funds were actually used, prosecutors said. They said Fiore instead used the money to maintain her lavish lifestyle, laundering the money through front companies and relatives, and used some of the donations to write checks to her daughter, who then cashed them to pay for rent.

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MTA EMAIL 4 25

OpEdNews Op Eds 4/14/2025

Of Course Donald Trump Pardoned a Corporation

By Greg Coleridge

Article linked HERE

We at Move to Amend appreciate receiving emails and social media notices about the latest hideous corporate action or example of a corporation skirting public accountability. They simply add to our mounting evidence that corporations have too much political and economic power, and that the We the People Amendment is needed to unequivocally establish that the power and authority of people should be greater than the power of corporations.

More than usual communication was received recently when President Trump pardoned ButMEZ corporation, a cryptocurrency exchange that had pleaded guilty last year for violating the Bank Secrecy Act for doing business without establishing a legitimate anti-money laundering program. BitMEX wascriminally fined $100 million in connection with its guilty plea, which was in addition to $130 million in previously imposed civil penalties.

Trump issued full and unconditional pardons to four individuals connected to the company, but also to the BitMEX corporation. It was historic. Never had a President previously pardoned a corporation.

People who shared with us the news expressed shock, disgust, and anger. Our reaction was "Pardon us, but not surprising. Of course Trump would pardon a criminal corporation."

The POTUS pardon of the prosecuted corporation was predictable for two reasons.

First, it's consistent with his pro-corporate agenda. More than 100 investigations and actionsagainst corporations have been dropped, withdrawn or halted by the Trump administration in its first two months in office, according to Public Citizen. These include corporations connected to Trump allies or donors. Crypto corporations, which were mega MAGA political donors (actually more like political investors who are now cashing in) were among them. Helping cyptos also benefitsTrump and family members who are involved in various crypto schemes.

The second reason is more speculative, but very plausible given Trump's constant craving for attention and his tendency to avoid being outshone by rivals. Is it possible that, as head of the Executive Branch, Trump may simply be trying to lead the "corporate personhood" movement -- something the Judicial and Legislative Branches of the federal government launched or expanded?

If so, he faces stiff competition.

---

04/14/2025

Kyle Mantyla RWW

Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: Trump leans into the idea of sending American criminals to a Salvadoran prison

Trump has spent months talking about deporting American criminals. The White House has said it’s a real idea. Maybe we should take the threat seriously.

Hannah Allam @ ProPublica: American Rendition: Rümeysa Öztürk’s Journey From Ph.D. Scholar to Trump Target Languishing in Louisiana Cell

Rümeysa Öztürk’s arrest and detention reveal what President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign looks like on the street level.

Jonathan Mahler @ The New York Times Magazine: How the G.O.P. Fell in Love With Putin’s Russia

What explains the Trump administration’s radical reversal toward Moscow?

David Gilmour @ Mediaite: Trump Demands FCC Punish ‘CBS Fake News’ for ‘Out Of Control’ 60 Minutes: ‘They Should Pay a Big Price’

President Donald Trump launched a new attack on 60 Minutes, this time demanding regulatory retribution over recent segments on Ukraine and Greenland — calling on “highly respected” FCC chair Brendan Carr to “impose the maximum fines and punishment” possible on “out of control” network CBS.

Alex Galbraith @ Salon: "He's going to have a third term": Bannon tells Maher Trump is sticking around in 2028

Bannon's comments come after Trump shared he's "not joking" about an unconstitutional third-term.

Will Neal @ The Daily Beast: DOJ Wants to Give Capitol Rioters a Refund for Damage They Caused

Court documents filed this week suggest some insurrectionists could receive a check for their troubles.

Warren Throckmorton @ Telling Jefferson Lies: Mike Johnson's False Jefferson Prayer: The Rest of the Stor

On January 3, 2025, Louisiana Representative Mike Johnson was re-elected to be Speaker of the House. In his acceptance speech, he quoted a prayer that he said Thomas Jefferson said every day during his presidency and every day of his life thereafter. There is a problem with this story. The prayer was written 56 years after Jefferson died. Jefferson never said the prayer even one day of his life.

John Fea @ The Way of Improvement Leads Home: Expect to see more David Barton in the coming year

This past week David and Tim were invited to the White House as part of a team planning special faith focused events for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Melody Schreiber @ The New Republic: Measles Is Spreading, and RFK Jr. Is Praising Quacks

Last week, an 8-year-old girl became the second child and the third person to die of measles in the current outbreak. But it was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services, who dominated the news cycle.

Phil Williams @ News Channel 5: Men behind Tennessee's Christian nationalist settlement: 'This country belongs to Jesus,' not the Jews

Andrew Isker compares Jews to "foster children," who cannot be trusted with the family credit card. C.Jay Engel argues Jews "have largely operated at odds with the Old American way of life."

Christine Fernando @ The Associated Press: An emboldened anti-abortion faction wants women who have abortions to face criminal charges

As Kristan Hawkins, president of the national anti-abortion group Students for Life, tours college campuses, she has grown accustomed to counterprotests from abortion rights activists. But more recently, fellow abortion opponents, who call themselves abortion abolitionists, are showing up to her booths with signs, often screaming “baby killer” at her while she speaks with students. Hawkins has had to send alerts to donors asking them to help pay for increased security.

an 4 25

an no lnx

'Get your weapon!' Violent MAGA man launches run for Congress

Ryan Nichols' Facebook via U.S. Department of Justice

Jordan GreenApril 14, 2025

An East Texas man who broke into the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021, and stood on a window ledge holding a crowbar and a bullhorn while exhorting pro-Trump rioters to “get in the building,” wants to go back — this time, as a member of Congress.

Ryan Nichols, a Marine Corps veteran, announced his plan to run for the 1st congressional district seat in Texas, which is currently represented by Republican Nathaniel Moran, on Wednesday.

Nichols was sentenced to 63 months in prison after pleading guilty to assaulting law enforcement officers, before receiving a pardon from President Trump. He said during a press conference on Wednesday that he knows “what it feels like to have the full weight of the United States government on top of you.”

Nichols live-streamed himself marching towards the Capitol on a GoPro camera on Jan. 6, according to a filing by federal prosecutors, unleashing an expletive-laden rant against Vice President Mike Pence for his refusal to interfere with the certification of Joe Biden as president.

“I’m telling you if Pence caved, we’re gonna drag mother---ers through the streets," Nichols said. "You f---ing politicians are going to get f------ drug through the streets. Because we’re not going to have our f------ s--- stolen. We’re not going to have our election or our country stolen.”

According to the government, Nichols and his friend Alex Harkrider were outfitted with tactical gear. Nichols carried a crowbar while Harkrider carried a tactical tomahawk axe.

Later, during a pitched battle in front of the Capitol, Nichols hit law enforcement officers with two streams of chemical spray, according to the government. As detailed in a Department of Justice press release, Nichols entered the Capitol through a broken window and rummaged around a conference room.

Standing on a window ledge after emerging from the Capitol, Nichols reportedly held his crowbar in one hand and a bullhorn in the other, while shouting to other rioters: “Get in the building, this is your country, get in the building, we will not be told, ‘No.’” He also reportedly said, “If you have a weapon, you need to get your weapon!”

Nichols told reporters during his press conference that he expressed remorse when he stood before the judge to receive his sentence.

“I apologized to the judge that day,” he said. “I apologized to the officers who were there that day. I apologized to the members of Congress and to the people of Washington, D.C. Because ultimately they didn’t ask for all that to happen.”

NOW READ: The suffering of white Trump voters isn't going to change a thing

===

mma

Right-wing media figures rushed to defend President Donald Trump’s decision to issue pardons or commutations to over 1,500 people who participated in the January 6 insurrection at the United States Capitol — including those convicted of violence against police.

They offered a number of arguments to support their defense: They baselessly claimed legal efforts to hold participants accountable were “show trials” or unfair compared to legal repercussions for the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, said the pardons are justified because of former President Joe Biden’s pardons, and diminished the violence on January 6 by recasting those criminally charged as “ordinary patriots.”

Other right-wing figures defended the clemency by noting that Trump had campaigned on the issue, declaring, “Promises made, promises kept."

Right-wing media figures spent years urging pardons for January 6 participants, which Trump granted on the first day of his second term

- Trump issued pardons or commutations on the first day of his second term to over 1,500 participants in the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, including those convicted of violent offenses against law enforcement officers. Trump had stated ahead of his presidency that he intended to issue pardons to some January 6 participants “in the first hour” of his second term. The Associated Press, [1/21/25; The Guardian, 1/6/25]

* Right-wing media figures have spent years creating a revisionist history of January 6, claiming that Trump supporters were “set up” and casting attempts to hold participants accountable as politically motivated. Right-wing media figures, initially led by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, sought to downplay the extent of the day’s violence and substitute a revisionist counternarrative that declared January 6 participants as the victims of a false-flag operation perpetuated by the federal government. When participants were charged with crimes, right-wing figures suggested the prosecutions were evidence that “the major critics of the left have been targeted by lawfare” and referred to defendants as “political prisoners.” Media Matters, [5/21/24, 2/24/21, 1/3/24; The Associated Press, 1/4/24]

- Right-wing media also specifically pushed for pardons for January 6 participants for years. Right-wing media figures have been defending January 6 participants since at least February 2022, suggesting that Trump should “pardon every January 6ther," or at least “pardon those people who were nonviolent on January 6.” Media Matters, [1/20/25, 1/10/25]

- Prior to Trump’s issuance of the pardons, right-wing media lashed out against now-Vice President JD Vance, who told Fox News that violent January 6 defendants “obviously” should not be pardoned. Following Vance’s January 12 interview, where he suggested the pardons would be selective, right-wing media figures urged the president to “pardon everybody,” recycling claims that the Capitol riot was a “setup” by law enforcement. Media Matters, [1/28/25, 1/22/25]

## Right-wing media justified January 6 pardons by claiming that the government “showed mercy” or “nothing happened” to Black Lives Matter protestors in 2020

* Right-wing media figures have continued to baselessly claim that Black Lives Matter protesters were treated with leniency compared to January 6 participants even though news outlets have debunked the claim and reported that over 17,000 arrests were made in the first two weeks of the BLM protests. Additionally, a reportfrom the City University of New York Law School’s Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility Clinic determined that the Trump administration engaged in an “aggressive assertion of federal jurisdiction” over the protests and that many of the federal penalties were “clearly harsher” than applicable state law.

- Right-wing host Dan Bongino claimed that “the process used to target [J6ers] was clearly political,” arguing that “absolutely nothing happened” when BLM protestors allegedly attacked police at the White House. Bongino stated: “But there is zero doubt that when the White House was attacked by BLM and antifa and Secret Service agents and uniformed division officers I know personally were hurt and wounded, that absolutely nothing happened to these people at all. So you can have two simultaneous thoughts at the same time, and I want you to pay attention to this. You can and should say, ‘I am absolutely, resolutely against attacks on law enforcement for doing their job,’ period there. But I am also against a greater danger, which is a weaponized Justice Department that picks and chooses when they take this stuff seriously and targets political opponents for it. And that’s what happened here.” Rumble, *The Dan Bongino Show*, [1/22/25]

- Fox News host Laura Ingraham complained about outrage over January 6 pardons, saying, “Where was their demand for jail time and their outrage when the George Floyd rioters burned down American cities?” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [1/21/25]

- Defending the pardons, Fox host Sean Hannity falsely claimed that the government “never prosecuted” Black Lives Matter protestors for the 2020 protests. Hannity lamented that there were “574 riots in the summer of 2020, we had dozens of dead Americans, thousands of injured cops, billions in property damage, we have videotape evidence — they never prosecuted these people.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [1/22/25]

- Right-wing pundit Larry Elder claimed that “absolutely nothing happened” to BLM protesters who attacked cops. Elder: “In the summer of 2020, you got people who were battering police officers and absolutely nothing happened to them.” Newsmax, *Rob Schmitt Tonight*, [1/21/25]

- Fox host Jesse Watters praised the January 6 pardons while claiming that Democrats “showed mercy to BLM after they ransacked and firebombed cities.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [1/22/25]

- Fox & Friendsco-host Lawrence Jones claimed that “there were no charges” for the BLM protests. Jones added: “So, I don't want anybody targeting cops. But I think what ended up happening, according to some of the reports, and I can pretty much confirm it, is when there was some debate going on who to pardon and they kept going back and forth and he said, just pardon them all. I'm not going to do this. If this is your effort to delay me getting the J6ers pardoned, the people that were overcharged, which a lot of legal scholars agree, then I'm just going to pardon them all.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [1/23/25]

## Right-wing media justified the pardons by claiming that the January 6 trials were politically motivated and unfair and that the sentences were excessive

- Watters praised Trump for issuing a pardon for a man who received 20 years for “punching a cop at a rally that got out of control,” adding, “These guys got squeezed into pleas.”He said: “We don't think you should be able to punch a cop in the face and get away with it, but 20 years is a long time for punching a cop in the face. And these guys got squeezed into pleas.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [1/22/25]

- Fox host Will Cain claimed that investigations into January 6 participants were “an attempt to cook the books within the DOJ and the FBI to suggest that domestic terrorism was on the rise.” He also stated that, “Real people had their lives ruined. Real people sat and rotted in jail. And Donald Trump, today, for those real people, brought justice.” Fox News, *The Will Cain Show*, [1/21/25]

- During Fox News’ inauguration coverage, Ingraham defended the pardons by claiming “these people were never had the real chance to put on a proper defense” and “documents were destroyed.” Ingraham noted Trump had granted “1,600 pardons for J6ers who were arrested,” adding, “And a lot of them were sentenced to two, three, four, five years in jail. His point is, documents were destroyed, which they were, and these people were never had the real chance to put on a proper defense. That was really big.” Mediaite, [1/20/25]

- Ingraham also justified Trump pardoning participants because “a lot of them served years in jail already.” She added, “We know sex assaults of convicts are, you know, go to jail all across this country for a couple of years. Some of these people have been in jail for already four years.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [1/22/25]

- Former GOP congresswoman Michelle Bachmann said onFlashPointthat January 6 “was like a prayer meeting” and complained that there were “1,500 people who've been in jail serving time is far in excess of what murderers and rapists have to serve in jail.” Bachmann added, “People were preaching the gospel on the streets. It was like a family reunion. The happiest people you would ever see. There was no discontent on the Capitol Hill that day.” Victory Channel, *FlashPoint*, [1/21/25]

- Right-wing conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich wrote, “Not one J6’er got a real trial so Trump had to release them all.” He added, “Anyone who has a problem with this can talk to the judges and prosecutors who did Stalin era show trials.” Twitter/X, [1/21/25; Media Matters, 8/21/18]

- Right-wing figure Dinesh D’Souza, who has pushed election denial conspiracy theories, called the pardons in an X post “a just outcome” because the trials were “show trials.” He also claimed that “when the process is thoroughly corrupted, everyone is presumed innocent after the fact.” Twitter/X, [1/21/25; Media Matters, 5/4/22]

- Former Fox host Bill O’Reilly claimed that “there was prosecutorial misconduct directed at some people who got into this fracas and got punished far beyond their crime.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [1/24/25]

## Right-wing media figures compared Trump’s pardons to Biden’s preemptive pardons for potential targets of the Trump administration

Prior to exiting the White House, then-President Joe Biden issued pardons for Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley, members of the House January 6 committee, and several of his family members in an attempt to protect them against potential reprisals by the incoming Trump administration. Following Trump’s January 6 pardons, right-wing media figures have equated the pardons issued by Biden and Trump, ignoring that the Trump administration had publicly telegraphed its intent to target many of those pardoned by Biden.

- OnFox Noticias, co-host Julie Banderas questioned why the media is “so focused on the Jan. 6 pardons and not the criminal pardons granted by Joe Biden.” Fox Deportes, *Fox Noticias*, [1/22/25]

- Discussing the potential political fallout of Trump pardoning January 6 participants convicted of violence, Newsweek deputy opinion editor Batya Ungar-Sargon invoked Biden’s preemptive pardons. She said that “what Biden did in terms of pardoning was so utterly egregious and is going to become a massive albatross around the neck of his party in a way that these really aren't for Donald Trump.” The Free Press, *Honestly with Bari Weiss*, [1/24/25]

- Fox anchor Bret Baier likened Biden's preemptive pardons of his family to Trump's pardon of January 6 participants, saying, “What about that, the pardon back and forth between the two presidents?” Fox News, *Special Report with Bret Baier*, [1/21/25]

## Right-wing media figures glossed over violent offenses by January 6 participants, saying Trump pardoned nonviolent “ordinary patriots” who were set up by law enforcement

Right-wing media figures have justified Trump’s blanket January 6 pardons by glossing over pardons for those convicted of seditious conspiracy or violent crimes. Approximately 140 police officers were injured that day, and several armed individuals and extremist groups were present.

- Newsmax’s Greg Kelly excused the pardons as “Donald Trump pardon[ing] vulnerable, not very powerful, regular, ordinary patriots” and claimed that “to the extent he [Enrique Tarrio] did anything wrong, it was a setup, a total and complete setup.” Kelly claimed that Trump pardoned the vulnerable and powerless. He also argued that Tarrio — the leader of the Proud Boys who was convicted of seditious conspiracy — was “just a guy who was being a guy, exercising his constitutional rights.” Newsmax, *Greg Kelly Reports*, [1/20/25; NBC News, 1/22/25]

- Lawrence Jones suggested Trump pardoned people who “didn’t attack officers" or engage in “any actual violence,” failing to mention that several of the pardons went to those who did attack officers. While discussing Trump’s January 6 pardons, Jones alluded to the fact that both Trump and Vance previously implied the pardons would be for people who “didn’t attack officers, if there wasn’t any actual violence.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends First*, [1/21/25]

- Fox News legal editor Kerri Urbahn failed to note that violent offenders were also pardoned when she emphasized “incredibly harsh sentences and penalties for mostly, for most of them, relatively minor offenses." Instead, she highlighted what she implied was over sentencing of “relatively minor offenses like trespassing, misdemeanors, and the like” and called the pardons “great.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [1/21/25]

- Lara Logan, who has pushed conspiracy theories, responded to a post about Stewart Rhodes, leader of the Oath Keepers militia, receiving a pardon and wrote that he was “set-up” and “it was complete BS.” Twitter/X, [1/21/25; CBS News, 1/22/25; Media Matters, 3/28/22, 10/21/22]

## Right-wing media figures defended the clemency as a campaign promise Trump fulfilled: “Promises made, promises kept”

- Rumble host Donald Trump Jr. shared a video of Trump signing the pardons, commenting, “Promises Made, Promises Kept… And we are only just starting.”He also posted, “President Trump has just signed an executive order granting full pardons to about 1,500 J6 prisoners!” Twitter/X, [1/20/25]

- Pro-Trump troll Laura Loomer posted, “God bless the J6 patriots and President Trump for pardoning them! Promises made, promises kept!” Twitter/X, [1/20/25]

- OnOutnumbered, Fox News contributor Steve Hilton said, “The Trump pardon, whatever you think of them, it's the delivery of an election promise.” He added, “He said he would do this in pretty much every rally. He’s doing what he said. Biden said he would never do anything like this. It's the exact opposite. Trump is doing what he said. Biden is doing the opposite of what he said.” Fox News, *Outnumbered*, [1/21/25]

- Lawrence Jones celebrated the clemency: “Promises made, promises kept on day 1.” He said of Trump: “I think he made pretty clear and JD Vance kind of doubled down on it, if you didn't attack officers, if there wasn't actual violence, and you were caught up within the system, you were overcharged, you’ve done enough time, and he — promises made, promises kept on day 1.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [1/21/25]

### January 6 participants are touring right-wing media and calling for retribution following Trump’s pardon

01/24/25 12:57 PM EST

### After Trump sets January 6 rioters free, Fox News changes its tune on pardons for violent offenders

01/22/25 7:56 PM EST

### Right-wing media lashed out at JD Vance for saying violent January 6 defendants shouldn't be pardoned. Trump apparently listened to them.

01/28/25

---

HE HAS NAMED FBI? PROSECUTOR CALLED FOR RETALIATION?

GUK 2 25

In his first interview after his release from prison, Enrique Tarrio thanked Donald Trumpfor pardoning him for his role in planning the January 6 riot, saying he “literally gave me my life back”.

Now that he is out, the Proud Boys leader wants revenge, he told Alex Jones, the conspiracy theorist host of Info Wars.

“The people who did this, they need to feel the heat, they need to be put behind bars, and they need to be prosecuted,” Tarrio said.

:{:{“Success is going to be retribution,” he added. THEN SAYS THAT RULE DOES NOT APPLY TO HIM?!}:

“We gotta do everything in our power to make sure that the next four years sets us up for the next 100 years.”}:

In the days since the leaders of far-right militia groups were freedfrom prison, they and their organizations are regrouping and figuring out how to build back momentum now that Trump is back in office. They are emboldened by the mass pardons for the insurrectionists and are planning their next moves.

Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers, showed up at the US Capitol this week, dining at a Dunkin inside the Longworth House office building. The Associated Press reported that Rhodes “met with at least one lawmaker during his visit and chatted with others” while on Capitol Hill.

He gave interviews outside the DC jail, where he said he wanted prosecutors to be tried for their “crimes”. Rhodes was not pardoned – his sentence was commuted, and he was released early. He wants a full pardon.

Rhodes suggested January 6 should be remembered in history as “patriots day”. He has not expressed regret for his role in the riots, saying his members were entrapped and their responses to police force were understandable. “We were there to protect Trump supporters from Antifa,” he said in a video after his release.

When Rhodes was sentenced in 2023, the judge in his case said: “You are smart, you are charismatic and compelling and frankly that’s what makes you dangerous. The moment you are released, whenever that may be, you will be ready to take up arms against your government.”

Tarrio and Rhodes had some of the longest sentences given to January 6 defendants, at 22 years and 18 years, respectively. Both were charged with seditious conspiracy for their roles helping plan the attack. Members of both the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers infiltrated the Capitol on January 6, and some of them engaged in violence. The Oath Keepers “plotted for months to violently disrupt the peaceful transfer of power” and the Proud Boys “played a central role in setting the January 6 attack on our Capitol into motion”, attorneys for the government said during the cases against group members.

At the time of Tarrio’s sentencing, federal prosecutors said: “No organization put more boots on the ground at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 than the Proud Boys, and they were at the forefront of every major breach of the Capitol’s defenses, leading the on-the-ground efforts to storm the seat of government.”

The Global Project Against Hate and Extremism has tracked Proud Boys’ channels online since Trump’s pardons and seen the group “fantasizing about being ‘deputized as ICE under Trump’s second term’ to aid in Trump’s mass deportation plan” and encouraging members to report people who could be in the country illegally.

Tarrio, often referred to in the media as a “former” or “ex” leader of the Proud Boys, recently said that characterizing him as a former member was not accurate.

===

'Infamous and disgraceful conduct': Illinois gov issues directive against hiring Jan. 6 'rioters' an 1 25

===

ONE guy shot by cops, another arrested for guns?

battered small son

===

teen w uncle

an 25

One participant in the deadly January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol was still unable to avoid jail time despite getting a pardon from President Donald Trump.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Wednesday that Franklin County Judge Ryan Helfrich sentenced Emily Hernandez — who was one of the roughly 1,500 January 6 defendants Trump pardoned — to 17 years behind bars for a fatal drunk driving incident roughly a year after the Capitol siege. Hernandez had a blood alcohol content of 0.20% after she crashed into a Buick SUV while driving the wrong way on Interstate 44 on January 5, 2022. The fatal crash happened just days before Hernandez was scheduled to plead guilty to federal charges relating to her participation in the insurrection. That's nearly three times the legal limit of 0.08%.

Hernandez killed 32 year-old Victoria N. Wilson in the crash, and severely injured 36 year-old Ryan E. Wilson, who now walks with a cane. Judge Helfrich handed down a 10-year sentence for Victoria Wilson's death, and a seven-year sentence for injuring Ryan Wilson.

"What I did was ungodly and I will live with that shame for the rest of my life," Hernandez said at her Wednesday sentencing. "I am sorry for what I did and if I could take it all back, I would."

"Probation is not appropriate given the nature of what happened," Helfrich said, with the Post-Dispatch reporting that he handed down close to the maximum sentence.

Hernandez pleaded guilty in 2022 to one federal charge of entering and remaining in a restricted building, which is a misdemeanor offense. An archived version of her Department of Justice charging document (which has since been removed from the internet) shows that she was sentenced in April of 2022 to 30 days in jail, $500 in restitution and one year of supervised release, which includes 80 hours of community service.

According to the Post-Dispatch, Hernandez traveled to Washington D.C. with her uncle and a friend to watch Trump's speech at the Ellipse, and then marched with the crowd of thousands of his supporters to the U.S. Capitol. She was later photographed holding then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) nameplate from her office.

Click here to read the Post-Dispatch's full article (subscription required).

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an 12 5

President Donald Trump sent shockwaves through Washington when, on the first night of his second presidency, he issued across-the-board blanket pardons for more than 1500 of the defendants involved in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building — including some who violently assaulted police officers that day.

In a rural area of Texas, Trump supporter Jenny Cudd is making her home available to pardoned January 6 defendants. And CNN took a look at her efforts in a. vid]

Cudd herself is among the January 6 defendants, although she wasn't among the more violent offenders. The Texan was sentenced to two months of probation for illegally entering the Capitol Building. Video footage aired by CNN showed Cudd admitting, "We did break down Nancy Pelosi's office door."

One of the pardoned January 6 defendants who is staying on Cudd's property is Don Hazard. Sentenced to almost five years in prison, Hazard is a member of the far-right Patriot Boys of North Texas. And he openly called for retribution against prosecutors during a conversation with CNN's Donie O'Sullivan.

..., "I don't think any of us were fairly charged. None of us got a fair shake in court. Federal judges, prosecutors — I think they're all guilty of treason."

When O'Sullivan asked Hazard, "Do you think there should be retribution," the militia member responded, "Most definitely. I think so. I mean, most definitely, I think so."

Hazard noted that after he was released from federal prison, he visited a gun shop in Texas and was able to "check out some firearms and whatnot."

The militia member insists that he did nothing wrong when he invaded the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.

, "The only regrets that I have at all about what I did was just got outsmarted by the left. It was a total set up. It was a trap, and we walked right into it."

---

an 1 25

When President Donald Trump pardoned nearly 1,500 defendants charged and/or convicted over their participation in the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol last week, the MAGA leader was met with criticism even from former Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY).

"No one should excuse violence," the longtime senator told Semafor. "And particularly violence against police officers."

Now, Democrats are being urged to rally against the president's move, especially after Trump bragged about the pardons to a Las Vegas crowd of MAGA supporters on Saturday night.

"I've pardoned hundreds of political prisoners who had been politically persecuted by the Biden regime," Trump told the crowd. "Hundreds of people were persecuted, including Christians, pro-life activists, two Washington, DC police officers yesterday, whose lives were destroyed from chasing down a dangerous, illegal alien criminal."

The president added, "And, of course, I was very proud to pardon the J6 hostages."

Ex-MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan urged Democrats to take advantage of the pardons, which former U.S District Judge Shira Scheindlin called "legally authorized but constitutionally unpardonable."

"If Democrats can’t run on this, can’t use this to their advantage (the vast majority of Americans opposed this shocking and scandalous move!), then they should shut down as a political party and give up doing politics," Hasan wrote via X.

READ MORE:[Trump’s J6 pardons are 'high crime' and 'abuse of power': legal expert

===

MMA

January 6 participants are touring right-wing media and calling for retribution following Trump’s pardon

Some say those who prosecuted the crimes should be “put behind bars” and face “extreme accountability”

Written by Payton Armstrong & Jack Winstanley

Research contributions from Alex Kaplan

Published 01/24/25

January 6 participants who received pardons or commuted sentences from President Donald Trump are now demanding retribution, including by calling for prosecutors to “be imprisoned” and “put behind bars,” saying there needs to be “a prosecution for perjury” against U.S. Capitol Police officers Harry Dunn and David Lazarus, and declaring that “the next obvious step would be fire all prosecutors, all FBI agents who were involved in this witch hunt.” Some have also discussed “class action lawsuits” against investigators and prosecutors.

Trump pardoned or commuted the sentences of January 6 participants, and right-wing media cheered the move

Trump issued “full, complete and unconditional” pardons to January 6 participants, including “violent offenders,” and commuted the sentences of members of extremist groups who had been convicted of seditious conspiracy. According to The New York Times, “The pardons will also wipe the slate clean for violent offenders who went after the police on Jan. 6 with baseball bats, two-by-fours and bear spray and are serving prison terms, in some cases of more than a decade. … In a separate move, Mr. Trump commuted the prison sentences of five other Proud Boys, some of whom had been convicted at trial with Mr. [Enrique] Tarrio. He also commuted the sentences of Stewart Rhodes, the leader of the Oath Keepers militia, and eight of his subordinates. Altogether, the commutations erased more than 100 years of prison time for the 14 defendants, almost all of whom were convicted of seditious conspiracy.” The New York Times, [1/20/25]

Earlier this month, Vice President JD Vance toldFox News Sundaythat people who committed violence on January 6 should “obviously” not be pardoned. Other prominent Republicans, including some in Trump’s administration, previously advocated for people who attacked police officers to face consequences. Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) even tied her stance to Vance’s comments, saying, “I agree with JD.” The Associated Press, [1/12/25; Project Democracy, 1/13/25]|}:

- Right-wing media praised the move while glossing over pardons and commutations granted to those previously convicted of violent crimes or seditious conspiracy. On War Room, Steve Bannon celebrated “blanket” pardons. On Fox News, OutKick founder Clay Travis declared, “I love the pardon of the Jan 6 political prisoners.” Media Matters, [1/21/25; Real America's Voice, War Room, 1/21/25; Fox News, America's Newsroom, 1/21/25]

## January 6 participants called for retribution, prosecutions after pardons
### Enrique Tarrio

On Infowars, Tarrio, the newly pardoned and freed former leader of the Proud Boys, called for retribution: “The people who did this, they need to feel the heat. They need to be put behind bars.” Tarrio suggested that prosecutors “didn't care about the evidence. They cared about putting Trump supporters in prison,” adding, “Now it's our turn.” Tarrio also said that “they need to be imprisoned. We need to find and put them behind bars for what they did. They need to pay for what they did.” Infowars, *The Alex Jones Show*, [1/21/25]

- Tarrio had been serving a 22-year sentence after being convicted of seditious conspiracy. As reported by The New York Times, “While Mr. Tarrio was not in Washington that day, prosecutors say he helped prepare his compatriots for street fights and remained in touch with them while the mob — with the Proud Boys in the lead — overran the Capitol.” CBS News, [1/23/25; The New York Times, 1/22/25]

### Stewart Rhodes

On Infowars, newly freed Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, whose sentence Trump commuted, claimed that U.S. Capitol Police officers Harry Dunn and David Lazarus “lied on the stand and we caught them,” demanding that there be “a prosecution for perjury.” Infowars, *The Alex Jones Show*, [1/22/25]

- Rhodes had been serving an 18-year sentence after being convicted of seditious conspiracy.The Associated Press reported that “using dozens of encrypted messages, recordings and surveillance video, prosecutors made the case that Rhodes began shortly after the 2020 election to prepare an armed rebellion to stop the transfer of presidential power,” and “rallied his followers to fight to defend Trump, discussed the prospect of a ‘bloody’ civil war and warned the Oath Keepers may have to ‘rise up in insurrection’ to defeat Biden if Trump didn’t act.” The New York Times, [1/22/25; The Associated Press, 11/29/22]

### Brandon Straka

On Newsmax, Brandon Straka, who was newly pardoned, said he would “do anything I can to go after any of these people who did this to me and others” for “the big lie that was January 6.” Straka told Newsmax, “I am going to actively pursue any avenue available to me to try to get justice from what the government has done to me and any of these Big Tech companies or anyone else who participated in the big lie that was January 6.” Newsmax, *Newsline*, [1/21/25]

- Straka pleaded guilty in 2021 to disorderly conduct and was sentenced to three years of probation. In 2022, CNN reported that Straka “admitted to recording himself telling the mob to ‘go go go’ as they reached the Capitol and telling rioters who were wrestling a shield away from a US Capitol Police officer to ‘take it, take it.’” During the Newsmax appearance, Straka claimed that he was “forced” to make that statement as part of his plea deal and he “did not do any of these things. They were total lies.” KETV Omaha, [1/22/25; CNN, 1/24/22]

### Alex Sheppard

On Stew Peters’ show, January 6 participant Alex Sheppard celebrated his pardon and said, “The next obvious step would be fire all prosecutors, all FBI agents who were involved in this witch hunt.” He also agreed with Peters that those who “set up” January 6 and carried out the prosecutions must be “tried for a coup. … And when they're convicted, they need to face extreme accountability.” Sheppard said that the pardons were “an important first step” and noted that “there's a lot of talk about class action lawsuits going on right now.” He went on to say that he “would rather we have some sort of situation where we just take the pensions of all these people who went after us, judges included,” suggesting that “the people who have been locked up for four years straight” deserve “reparations.” Rumble, *The Stew Peters Show*, [1/21/25]

- According to the U.S. attorney’s office for D.C., Sheppard “was among the first rioters to enter the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and joined others in overrunning multiple police lines established to stop the mob’s spread.” Sheppard was sentenced to 19 months in prison and 24 months of supervised release on five offenses including a felony, and reportedly “got an early release after the U.S. Supreme Court took up a case challenging the Department of Justice’s use of obstruction charges.” U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Columbia, [9/5/23; Ohio Capitol Journal, 1/22/25]

### Edward “Jake” Lang

OnProphets and Patriots, a newly pardoned Jake Lang said that God is “a God of justice” and touted an organization he founded to get “accountability,” adding he and other January 6 participants are “at home right now with a pencil and paper writing down the names” of individuals they want to subject to lawsuits.Lang said that “make accountability great again is the new MAGA movement because now we’re in a position of, you know, power, political power with the Republican Party and Donald Trump taking back all three branches of government.” He said that “we’ve orchestrated a $50 billion lawsuit on behalf of the Jan 6ers” against the Department of Justice and laid out his plans to name individuals in lawsuits: “We named, obviously, the D.O.J., but there are many prosecutors, many FBI agents, many jailers of ours, Federal Bureau of Prisons, there were so many agencies that colluded. ... We are going to be naming individuals and agencies — Joint Terrorism Task Force, U.S. Attorneys Office — so this is going to be like reading like a scroll of people that were involved. And right now that's one of our main things that we're doing. I’ve got Jan 6ers at home right now with a pencil and paper writing down the names of the prison guards, of the U.S. marshals, of the prosecutors.” ElijahStreams, *Prophets and Patriots*, [1/23/25]

- Lang was in jail awaiting trial for 11 charges relating to his activity on January 6.As reported by The New York Times, “In social media posts by other rioters, Mr. Lang could be seen swinging a baseball bat at police officers and thrusting a riot shield in their direction, according to the court filings.” While in prison, Lang organized the J6 Pardon Coalition, a petition effort lobbying Trump to pardon and end all ongoing investigations into January 6 participants. Lang also attempted to create a militia organization, dubbed the North American Patriot and Liberty Militia, with right-wing media figures while in prison. The New York Times, [1/22/25; Southern Poverty Law Center, 1/17/25; Media Matters, 6/7/24]

===

RWW

01/22/2025

Kyle Mantyla

Michele Bachmann defends Trump pardoning violent insurrectionists by insisting there was no violence: "It was like a prayer meeting on Jan. 6 in DC."

===

mma

After Trump sets January 6 rioters free, Fox News changes its tune on pardons for violent offenders

During a stretch of Fox programming full of backtracking and excuses for Trump’s pardons, Laura Ingraham hosted two pardoned rioters to rewrite their stories

Written by Alicia Sadowski, Jane Lee, Isabella Corrao & Helena Hind

Published 01/22/25

President Donald Trump has issued pardons or commuted the sentences of all January 6 offenders, violent and nonviolent, flouting the advice of Fox hosts who previously urged him to grant a narrower pardon. With this day one action, Trump has freed over 1,500 offenders, including “violent offenders who went after the police” and “some of the most notorious participants in the attack,” individuals convicted of conspiracy, a rioter who carried a firearm, and a rioter who faced a long list of assault charges.

Fox News hosts maintained for years that violent offenders should not be pardoned

In the immediate aftermath of January 6, Fox News personalities spoke out against the insurrection, with some privately begging the administration to stop the Capitol attack. Even after Trump changed his tune on January 6 offenders and began suggesting pardons for them, Fox News maintained that those who had physically attacked law enforcement should not be among the pardoned.

- Host Sean Hannity declared: “Those who truly support President Trump, those that believe they are part of the conservative movement in this country, you do not — we do not support those that commit acts of violence.” He continued, “They — people — we don't believe should be vandalizing our nation's Ccapitol, attacking the brave men and women that keep us safe in law enforcement. They don't storm the Capitol, they don’t place pipe bombs at the RNC or anywhere else. And all of today's perpetrators must be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law." Fox News, *Hannity*, [1/6/21]

- Fox host Laura Ingraham called “those who breached the Capitol Hill security … criminals.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [1/6/21]

- Fox host Jesse Watters asserted: “You’re allowed, as a member of the public, to go into the people's house, but you have to go through the front door and you have to pass through a metal detector. You can't smash windows, spray police with chemical agents, assault police officers, loot, and vandalize.” Fox News, *The Five*, [1/7/21]

- In May 2023, :{:{Watters warned Trump “to be careful.”: “You can't pardon anybody that committed an act of violence.”}: Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [5/11/23]

- In December 2024, Hannity declared that “the people that are responsible for acting in ways that were absolutely irresponsible and law-breaking, they’ve got to be held accountable.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [12/3/24]

- Watters mused, “If I were president, I don’t think I would pardon January sixers who were slugging cops.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [12/12/24]

### Fox News’ programming praised Trump for granting the pardons and ignored the pardons for violent offenders

Even though these Fox hosts argued against pardoning violent offenders from January 6 as recently as December, since Monday, Fox hosts have clearly and at times explicitly supported Trump’s decision to pardon all offenders.

- Host Will Cain called Donald Trump pardoning 1,500 January 6 offenders “justice."Fox News, *The Will Cain Show*, [1/21/25]

- Host Laura Ingraham defended pardoning violent January 6 defendants: “From Trump’s apparent point of view here, I guess it’s been four years since January 6 and he wants to put this entire episode behind us. Clearly there were a small minority who engaged in violence, but the overwhelming majority were charged with misdemeanors, with trespassing and parading in the Capitol. Plus were defendants given their due process rights, is another argument." Fox News,*The Ingraham Angle*, [1/21/25]

- Fox & Friendsco-host Lawrence Jones suggested Trump pardoned people who “didn’t attack officers," or engage in “any actual violence,” failing to mention that many of the pardons went to those who did attack officers. While discussing Trump’s pardon of January 6 rioters, Jones alluded to the fact that both Trump and Vance previously implied the pardons would be for people who “didn’t attack officers, if there wasn’t any actual violence.” Jones went on to say, “Promises made, promises kept.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends First,*[1/21/25]

- Fox News legal editor Kerri Urbahn emphasized “incredibly harsh sentences and penalties for … most of the relatively minor offenses" and failed to note that violent offenders were also pardoned. Instead, she highlighted what she implied was oversentencing of “relatively minor offenses like trespassing, misdemeanors.” Fox News, Fox & Friends, [1/21/25]

### After privately saying January 6 is “hurting all of us,” Ingraham gave a warm welcome to two people issued pardons by Trump for their actions

On her Fox News show, Ingraham hosted two people who were issued pardons by Trump and allowed them to rewrite their offenses. During the attack on January 6, Ingraham texted then-Trump chief of staff Mark Meadows, imploring him to get Trump to take action, writing: “Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.” Four years later, she’s hosting participants and defending Trump’s blanket pardons.

Video

From the January 21, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Ingraham Angle

Beyond praising Trump for issuing the pardons, Ingraham hosted Brandon Straka and Isabella DeLuca.Straka — founder of the #WalkAway movement that encourages liberals to leave the Democratic Party — had been a Fox News guest prior to the events of January 6, and appeared on Ingraham’s own show days after the insurrection to gripe about alleged conservative social media censorship. DeLuca is a conservative influencer who has worked with Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point, USA. Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [1/21/25; Media Matters, 10/12/18, 1/25/21, 3/19/24; The New York Post, 1/21/25]

- Straka claimed that his case was “a lie from the very beginning,” and that the FBI had “created this story” to target Straka because of his activism. Straka pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge in September 2021 and signed a court document stating that it was “true and accurate" that he encouraged rioters to take a Capitol police officer’s shield.Straka has since tried to walk the statement back, saying that “I took a misdemeanor plea deal rather than choosing to go to trial” even though “I did not do those things,” in order to avoid jail time. According to the criminal complaint, in a video Straka recorded, he can be heard yelling “go, go” to encourage others to storm the building and to “take the shield.” Ingraham suggested that “a lot of people signed a lot of admissions of guilt because of the same kind of situation, they didn’t want to go to jail for 30 years." DOJ, [1/20/21; NBC News, 7/29/22; NPR, 8/4/22]

- DeLuca claimed she was charged for solely “touching a table.” According to the criminal complaint, DeLuca can be seen in images and video “removing, and aiding and abetting other rioters in removing, a table” from a Capitol office that was later used to assault Capitol police officers. NBC News, [3/18/24; The Associated Press, 3/18/24; The New York Times, 3/18/24]

LARGE STEEL SCREW

- Ingraham praised them for sharing their stories, concluding that “people have to really understand what happens with these prosecutors and how these cases go down. Because this could happen again unless this is prevented from happening again.” Fox News, *The Ingraham Angle*, [1/21/25]

---

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Fox News stars have spent the months since President Donald Trump’s election assuring their audiences that Trump’s long-stated promise to pardon what he termed the “J6 hostages” would be limited only to nonviolent offenders who participated in storming the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. But on his first day in office, Trump pardoned or commuted to time served every person convicted in connection to their actions that day, including those who violently assaulted law enforcement and participated in seditious conspiracies.

Trump’s Tuesday night grant of clemency “to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the attack” includes pardons for “for violent offenders who went after the police on Jan. 6 with baseball bats, two-by-fours and bear spray and are serving prison terms, in some cases of more than a decade,” The New York Times noted. He also pardoned or commuted the sentences of several leaders of the Proud Boys and Oathkeepers who had been convicted of seditious conspiracy.

This is precisely what Fox hosts and loyal Trump propagandists Sean Hannity and Jesse Watters explicitly said should not happen.

Numerous Fox personalities condemned the Trumpist violence at the Capitol in its immediate aftermath and called for the perpetrators to face consequences, even as they avoided assigning Trump culpability for encouraging the mob to come to D.C. and inciting it with lies about the 2020 election being stolen from him.

“Those who truly support President Trump … we do not support those that commit acts of violence,” Hannity said on his show that night, adding that people should not “be vandalizing our nation's Capitol, attacking the brave men and women that keep us safe in law enforcement,” and concluding that “all of today's perpetrators must be arrested and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”

“I want to speak to the people that think it wasn't that big of a deal,” Watters said on The Five the next day. “Yes, you’re allowed, as a member of the public, to go into the people's house, but you have to go through the front door and you have to pass through a metal detector. You can't smash windows, spray police with chemical agents, assault police officers, loot, and vandalize.”

Over time, as Trumpists led by former Fox host Tucker Carlson challenged the initial consensus around the events of January 6 with a conspiratorial counternarrative that the rioters had been victims, the right came to excuse or downplay their crimes. But as Trump floated pardons for January 6 convicts, Hannity and Watters continued to maintain that violent offenders would not and should not receive clemency.

Asked by a listener on his December 3 radio broadcast about Trump potentially pardoning all January 6 convicts, including violent offenders, Hannity commented that some had received excessive sentences “for trespassing.” But he highlighted “the few people that were involved in violence against police, or whatever,” and said that “the people that are responsible for acting in ways that were absolutely irresponsible and law-breaking, they’ve got to be held accountable.”

“Donald Trump, he has said those people that did not commit acts of violence on January 6, is he's going to pardon them,” Hannity added two days later. “Why were they sentenced to 5 years in jail? Doesn't it seem, like, a little excessive?”

Watters has likewise repeatedly said that presidential pardons should be limited to nonviolent January 6 offenders. “If I were president, I don’t think I would pardon January 6ers who were slugging cops,” he told his Fox audience last December. In May 2023, he similarly advised Trump “to be careful here. You can't pardon anybody that committed an act of violence.”

How can Trump’s loyal propagandists square the circle between their own explicit statements that Trump should not pardon people convicted of attacking police officers and the reality that he did just that? One option appears to be simply lying about what he did.

“He made it clear, and JD Vance kind of doubled down on it — if you didn't attack officers, if there wasn't any actual violence and you were caught up within the system, you were overcharged, you’ve done enough time,” Fox & Friends co-host Lawrence Jones said on Wednesday morning. “And promises made, promises kept on Day 1.”

### The right’s propaganda machine gets its Jan. 6 pardons

01/20/25 7:59 PM EST

### Fox personalities now claim that January 6 prosecutions are political. At the time, many condemned the attack: “Deplorable, reprehensible, outright criminal”

05/21/24 9:11 AM EDT

### Fox hosts were privately begging the Trump administration to stop the January 6 insurrection while publicly downplaying and deflecting responsibility

12/17/21

===

mma matt g

President Donald Trump’s January 6 pardons mark the culmination of the MAGA media’s yearslong campaign to remove the stain from his supporters’ violent assault on the U.S. Capitol — and for their own culpability in that attempted coup.

On the first day of his second term, Trump is apparently giving clemency to every participant in the January 6, 2021 insurrection. Speaking to reporters while signing executive orders in the Oval Office, he said he would be signing full pardons for “approximately 1,500 people” while providing six commutations. He appears to be wiping the slate clean for all of what he has ludicrously termed the “J6 hostages,” including hundreds convicted of violent assaults on law enforcement. Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was convicted of crimes including seditious conspiracy for his role in the attack and sentenced to 22 years in prison, is getting out tonight.

The world watched four years ago as thousands of Trumpists broke through ranks of law enforcement, stormed into the Capitol, and sent into hiding the members of Congress who had assembled to certify the electoral vote. That mob — summoned to Washington, D.C., by Trump and incited by his lies and those of the right-wing media that his reelection had been stolen — was the final salvo in a multifaceted plot by Trump and his allies to keep him in office following his defeat at the ballot box.

A broad, bipartisan consensus formed in real time that Trump was responsible for a travesty. And the right-wing media and tech elite agreed, denouncingTrump and calling for consequences, while Rupert Murdoch proposed cutting him off from the support of his media empire.

But while Fox News stars publicly described the assailants in the immediate aftermath as “criminals” who should be “arrested and prosecuted” and do “jail time,” they also validated the mob’s concerns — and only in private did they point the finger at the president himself.

That initial reticence was a signal that the January 6 consensus was fragile — and indeed, as nearly 1,600 participants faced charges over the months and years that followed, Trump’s allies at Fox and elsewhere in the right-wing press went to work dismantling the idea that they had done anything wrong.

A coterie of Trumpists led by Tucker Carlson sought to downplay the extent of the day’s horrors and substitute a revisionist counternarrative that melded decontextualized video from the day with naked conspiracy-mongering to declare the insurrectionists the victims of a false-flag operation perpetuated by the federal government.

That twisted take drew initial resistance from more responsible members of the right-wing media, but over time, it became dominant on the right. Evidence of the day’s depravities and Trump’s culpability for them were hidden from right-wing audiences, Republicans who sought to expose them were purged, and efforts to hold Trump legally accountable met with bitter denunciations.

The right’s pro-insurrection turn was most beneficial to Trump, helping him rise to the GOP presidential nomination and back to the presidency four years after his coup attempt. But as he described the mob’s participants as “hostages” and floated pardons for their deeds, right-wing personalities who had once denounced the insurrectionists began describing them as the victims of politicized prosecutions and calling for clemency.

And now they’ve gotten their way, rewarding those who tried to tear down American democracy — and making it more likely that such a horror will again be visited upon us some day soon. And the same propaganda machine that was able to turn a nightmare that unfolded in front of all of our eyes into a story of Trumpist victims is gearing up for four more years of lies on Trump’s behalf.

===

maga mike gop pretzel flips jdv, deflect

Johnson flip-flops on Trump Jan. 6 rioter pardons — then orders probe into committee

===

mma

Ben Shapiro on January 6: “If you assaulted a cop, it seems to me you should go to jail for whatever reason you assaulted the cop”

01/21/25 11:50 AM EST](https://www.mediamatters.org/january-6-insurrection/ben-shapiro-january-6-if-you-assaulted-cop-it-seems-me-you-should-go-jail

CNN's pro-Trump contributor flails to respond to January 6 pardons for violent offenders

01/21/25 11:42 AM EST

OutKick's Clay Travis: “I love the pardon of the Jan 6 political prisoners”

01/21/25 11:31 AM EST

Steve Bannon and Tom Fitton say Trump should halt Biden's pardons and court martial Gen. Milley

01/21/25 12:09 PM EST

Newsmax's Greg Kelly: “Donald Trump pardoned vulnerable, not very powerful, regular, ordinary patriots. And it's awesome.”

01/21/25

### Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes on January 6 rioters who assaulted police officers: “It's frustrating to see anyone say, ‘Well these people, they assaulted police officers'”

01/22/25 4:34 PM EST

### Matt Walsh: Bishop Mariann Budde “is exhibit A for why women should not be pastors, priests, or bishops”

01/22/25

### White nationalist Stew Peters and January 6 participant call for retribution against those who “set up” and prosecuted rioters

01/22/25

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'Blood, feces and terror': Judge Chutkan unleashes on Trump in response to Jan. 6 pardons

===

mma

According to the Ohio Capital Journal:

“Alex Sheppard of Powell, Ohio was sentenced to 19 months in prison for his participation in the riot, but got an early release after the U.S. Supreme Court took up a case challenging the Department of Justice’s use of obstruction charges.”

Video

Citation

From the January 21, 2025, edition of The Stew Peters Show, streamed on Rumble

STEW PETERS (HOST): For more in this and more insight on the immediate reaction of the January 6ers and their families, we're now joined by Alex Sheppard, who he himself is a January 6 patriot. So a big weight off of your shoulders today, I imagine.

ALEX SHEPPARD: Yeah. Thank you for having me on, Stew. Like you said, glory to God, glory to everyone who kept pushing for this. There were a lot of people in Trump's ear, JD Vance included, it sounded like, that really didn't want the violent offenders included in this. Now, I was, you know — I was nonviolent. But even a lot of the quote-unquote, "violent people," you know, were nonviolent, and they hit them with all these charges. They took these terrible plea deals. And so it's what we've been pushing for. It's what we've been pushing for. A lot of people didn't think it was going to happen. They thought maybe he'd pardon some people, but not all. Trump came through and he delivered. And really, today is just a day of celebration.

...

PETERS: I mean, I think that it needs to go further. I think it needs to be blanket. I think that every single person that was charged needs to be pardoned. I think that clemency needs to be granted where it's appropriate. I think that sentences need to be commuted of course. Everybody needs to be taken care of in this. This needs to be a full sweeping, all out, "we're pardoning this." No, these are patriots who just went to Washington, D.C., to petition the government to redress their grievances. I mean, this is one of the most existential rights of the American people. One of the most important things that we have in our power is to be able to petition our government, to voice our concerns. They work for us. And this was a kill box that was set up from day one.

And there are foreign fingerprints all over this thing. And I think that we need to get to the bottom of who exactly it was that was responsible for this. You saw Biden on his way out pardoning the entire J6 Committee — all of his family, by the way, and rat-faced Tony Fauci on his way out as well. Preemptive pardons? I mean, this is criminal activity. These people need to be exposed. Whoever was behind this and set up January 6 from the beginning needs to be put on trial in the United States, tried for criminal treason, tried for crimes against humanity, tried for a coup, and they need to be convicted. And when they're convicted, they need to face extreme accountability. He can't just let this go. You agree?

SHEPPARD: One hundred percent. Like I said, this was an important first step. The next obvious step would be fire all prosecutors, all FBI agents who were involved in this witch hunt. Fire them. And, you know, there's a lot of talk about class action lawsuits going on right now. I would rather we have some sort of situation where we just take the pensions of all these people who went after us, judges included. These judges are the worst in D.C. You got to take their pensions and give them to us and give the most money to the people who have been locked up for four years straight.

And we need — we need reparations. We need restitution. We did not get a jury of our peers in D.C. I talked about it on this show several times. I'm striking DOJ lawyers from my jury pool. The judge wouldn't strike them for cause because they're on a different floor of the DOJ building than the people prosecuting me. So, yeah, we need extreme accountability. We need investigations. We need prosecutions. We need firings. And, you know, this was a huge first step. So I think it's looking pretty promising. We obviously got to continue to push for it just like we did with these. But it is looking very good for our country right now.

### “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexander celebrates Trump's January 6 pardons: “I would storm the Capitol again for Donald Trump. I would start a militia for Donald Trump.”

01/21/25

### Right-wing media gloss over Trump’s pardons for violent January 6 rioters

01/21/25

### Fox stars told their audiences that Trump should not pardon violent J6 offenders. He just did it.

01/21/25

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SILK ROAD DRUG SELLER? hired hits on 5?!

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an 12 5

On Monday night, January 20, Trump issued broad, across the board pardons for roughly 1,500 January 6 rioters — and he made no distinction between those who were violent and those who weren't.

One of the many defendants who was pardoned was Daniel Ball, who, according to Politico's Kyle Cheney, has been arrested again. In a Wednesday morning, January 22 post on X, formerly Twitter, Cheney reported, "JUST IN: A day after his Jan. 6 case was dismissed, Daniel BALL was arrested for pending federal gun charges — the first public arrest warrant filed in Washington, D.C. during the second Trump term."

Ball was arrested in May 2023 on a long list of felony charges.

According to the Merrick Garland-era U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), those charges included " assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers with a deadly or dangerous weapon; using fire or an explosive to commit any felony; obstruction of law enforcement during a civil disorder; entering or remaining on restricted grounds without lawful authority to do so while carrying or using a deadly or dangerous weapon; knowingly engaging in any act of physical violence while carrying or using a deadly or dangerous weapon; disorderly or disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds while carrying or using a deadly or dangerous weapon; and misdemeanor offenses of disorderly conduct in a Capitol building; acts of physical violence in the Capitol grounds or buildings; and stealing government property."

But Trump's across-the-board pardon on January 20 wiped all of those charges out — only for Ball to be arrested on gun charges the same week.

During a Fox News appearance eight days before President Donald Trump's inauguration, now-Vice President JD Vance argued that Trump should pardon some but not all of the January 6, 2021 rioters. Vance, during the interview, said he opposed pardoning the more violent defendants but favored pardoning those who didn't commit acts of violence that day.

mma

On the first day of his second term, Trump is apparently giving clemency to every participant in the January 6, 2021 insurrection. Speaking to reporters while signing executive orders in the Oval Office, he said he would be signing full pardons for “approximately 1,500 people” while providing six commutations. He appears to be wiping the slate clean for all of what he has ludicrously termed the “J6 hostages,” including hundreds convicted of violent assaults on law enforcement. Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio, who was convicted of crimes including seditious conspiracy for his role in the attack and sentenced to 22 years in prison, is getting out tonight.

A broad, bipartisan consensus formed in real time that Trump was responsible for a travesty. And the right-wing media and tech elite agreed, denouncingTrump and calling for consequences, while Rupert Murdoch proposed cutting him off from the support of his media empire.

That initial reticence was a signal that the January 6 consensus was fragile — and indeed, as nearly 1,600 participants faced charges over the months and years that followed, Trump’s allies at Fox and elsewhere in the right-wing press went to work dismantling the idea that they had done anything wrong.

A coterie of Trumpists led by Tucker Carlson sought to downplay the extent of the day’s horrors and substitute a revisionist counternarrative that melded decontextualized video from the day with naked conspiracy-mongering to declare the insurrectionists the victims of a false-flag operation perpetuated by the federal government.

### They did it and will do it again – if no one stops them

07/22/22 11:12 AM EDT

### January 6 and the people who knew better

01/06/25 2:12 PM EST

### The Fox News coup

01/06/21

===

Biden commute peltier

===

an 1 25

The national Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), which endorsed President Donald Trump in the 2024 election, isn't interested in discussing the 47th president's mass pardons of insurrectionists who attacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

HuffPost White House correspondent S.V. Dáte reached out to the FOP after Trump announced he was pardoning roughly 1,500 people charged and convicted in relation to the deadly siege of the Capitol, in which roughly 140 police officers were injured while battling rioters. Those injured during the insurrection included both members of the U.S. Capitol Police Department along with Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department officers.

"We don't have a statement about that," the FOP told Dáte, who tweeted that he specifically asked the union its thoughts on Trump "releasing HUNDREDS of violent felons who assaulted cops."

Trump's pardons included both those convicted of lower-level offenses like unlawful parading, and those convicted of seditious conspiracy (the most serious charge). The rioters who have been released from prison include high-profile defendants like Guy Reffitt, who brought a gun to the Capitol, and who was turned in by his own son.

Some of the officers who were attacked and testified publicly in the trials against insurrectionists received preemptive pardons from former President Joe Biden hours before Trump was sworn in. Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, who provided testimony to the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, was among those Biden pardoned. He recently shared a screenshot of his call log with former Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, which showed automated alerts from the Department of Justice letting him know that defendants he testified against have since been released from prison.

"The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense," Biden stated after issuing the pardons. "Our nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our country."

Click here to read Dáte's tweet.

===

During the final hours of his presidency — with President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration only hours away — Joe Biden announced his last-minute preemptive pardons, making it clear that he was determined to shield those he pardoned from frivolous prosecutions under the new administration.

The pardons included Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID); Gen. Mark Milley, ex-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and former members of the January 6 Select Committee, including ex-Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) and ex-Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois).

Biden, in his announcement, stated, "Our nation relies on dedicated, selfless public servants every day. They are the lifeblood of our democracy." In certain cases, some have even been threatened with criminal prosecutions, including General Mark A. Milley, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and members and staff of the Select Committee to investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol…. These public servants have served our nation with honor and distinction and do not deserve to be the targets of unjustified and politically motivated prosecutions."

The outgoing president emphatically added that "the issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense."

On X, formerly Twitter, far-right Trump supporters were quick to attack Biden for the pardons, from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) to Fox News' Laura Ingraham.

Greene tweeted, "Pardoned because they are guilty of CRIMES. Never forget what they did and who the Democrats are. The mask is completely OFF."

Ingraham posted, "With the Fauci and Milley pardons, Biden shows that he is the one who will violate any norm. Good riddance to him, his puppet masters and all those who enabled The Lie. ("Biden's as sharp as ever.") A new dawn is here!"

Infowars host Alex Jones remarked, "Biden issues 11th hour pardons of globalist crime syndicate members! The DEEP STATE is running scared!"

Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk wrote, "Biden just preemptively pardoned Fauci, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Mark Milley and all staff of the J6 Committee. They know at noon everything changes. This is a provocation. Shock and awe time. High noon is almost here."

Kylie Jane Kremer, executive director of Women for America First, tweeted: "F**K YOU to the Deep State & the Staffers who are lying & pretending Joe Biden is pardoning anyone. Joe Biden DOESN'T HAVE THE MENTAL CAPACITY TO PARDON ANYONE! An investigation needs to be opened on these treasonous pigs who just pardoned the J6 Committee, Milley, & Fauci TODAY."

But other X users have applauded the preemptive pardons.

The conservative Republicans Against Trump posted a statement from Milley.

The ex-Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman stated, "After forty-three years of faithful service in uniform to our Nation, protecting and defending the Constitution, I do not wish to spend whatever remaining time the Lord grants me fighting those who unjustly might seek retribution for perceived slights. I do not want to put my family, my friends, and those with whom I served through the resulting distraction, expense, and anxiety."

CNN's Dana Bash tweeted that Fauci said he is "very appreciative" of the preemptive pardon he received and added, "As (Biden) said, we did nothing wrong, but the baseless accusations and threats are real for me and my family."

MeidasTouch's Ron Filipkowski argued, "I personally am not a fan of the preemptive pardons for many reasons, but I will say the manic, unhinged and furious reactions of MAGA Republicans, which include calling for state court prosecutions and MORE congressional investigations, proves Biden's point on why he did it."

KrassenCast's Ed Krassenstein tweeted, "If you’re upset about Biden pardoning individuals Trump is likely to target with a weaponized justice system, let’s not forget what happened during Trump’s first term. Trump literally used his pardon power to reward people for trying to obstruct a criminal investigation into himself. Trump pardoned Michael Flynn, who was convicted of lying to the FBI during its investigation into TRUMP."

Krassenstein continued, "He pardoned Paul Manafort, who was convicted of witness tampering and obstructing the DOJ's investigation into Trump. And he pardoned Steve Bannon, who was charged with defrauding Trump’s own supporters through a fundraising scheme."

Liberal firebrand and former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann posted, "Breaking: Biden preemptively pardons Liz Cheney, Fauci, Milley, J6 officers Good. Screws Trump, overshadows his inauguration, ruins his day, protects American heroes."

Olbermann also tweeted, "Should pardon millions including all media. Should pardon Megyn Kelly for once pissing Trump off. Pardon everybody It ain't Sun Tzu here but when your opponent goes farcical, out farce him."

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an 1123

Trump issued a long list of pardons and commutations to right-wing allies when he was in office. One of them came in 2019, when Trump granted a commutation to Ted Suhl — the Arkansas-based owner of the Lord's Ranch who had been convicted on federal bribery charges in 2016.

The Lord's Ranch, a youth treatment center, closed after Suhl's conviction. Now, Suhl is, according to the Associated Press (AP), facing a lawsuit from former Lord's Ranch residents who allege they suffered "systematic and widespread" sexual abuse there.

"The lawsuit against Suhl and others claims the unnamed residents were victims of repeated sexual abuse and rape by an employee of the facility, describing the abuse in graphic detail," AP reports. "The employee, who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, had not been charged by police with abuse."

The lawsuit alleges, "Children at the Lord's lived in constant fear, knowing that they were alone in a remote, unfamiliar environment far from home and at the complete mercy of a sadistic staff. For many children, survival meant compliance with the physical and sexual abuse."

Suhl was sentenced to seven years in federal prison after his conviction, but he was released three years later after Trump commuted his sentence to time served. Trump, however, didn't grand Suhl a full pardon.

*Read The Associated Press' full report at this link.

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20 hard rt held mccarthy hostage

United States Congressman Scott Perry (R-Pennsylvania) claimed on Sunday's edition of This Week that there is nothing remiss about him serving on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's (R-California) proposed committee to investigate the Justice Department's probes of the January 6th, 2021 Capitol insurrection, despite the fact that he was a central player in former President Donald Trump's corrupt scheme to remain in power after he lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.

According to the now-disbanded House Select Committee that amassed evidence of a vast conspiracy behind the January 6th Capitol attack, Perry was the brains behind a plot to replace then-Attorney General Bill Barr with Jeffrey Clark, who was the acting assistant attorney general for the civil division at DOJ during the Trump presidency. The plan was to fire Barr and install Clark in exchange for his cooperation in the ploy to have fraudulent electors from key swing states – such as Pennsylvania – award the Electoral College votes that Biden won to Trump. This ruse was based on Trump's false insistence that widespread voter fraud cost him the election. There is no evidence that this was the case, yet it remained the foundation of Trump's efforts to overturn the election and thwart the peaceful transfer of power.

In August 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation seized Perry's cell phone. White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson told the Select Committee that Perry purportedly sought a presidential pardon from Trump, although he denied having done so.

Regardless, however, these facts prompted ABC News moderator George Stephanopoulos to grill Perry on the ethics of his participating in congressional investigations of the agencies with which he is entangled.

"The speaker has also reportedly said that he's going to appoint a church-style committee to investigate the investigations. Since you’re part of the investigation by the Justice Department, will you – will you pledge not to serve on that committee?" Stephanopoulos asked the GOP lawmaker.

Perry objected to the question itself:

Well, why should I be limited – why should anybody be limited just because someone has made an accusation? Everybody in America is innocent until proven otherwise. And I would say this, the American people are really, really tired of the persecution and the instruments of federal power being used against them. We're talking aboutparents that go to school board meetings for the schools that they pay for with their taxes and having the temerity to question the curriculum, and then they're put on, you know, the red-flagged, or they’re flagged by the Department of Justice and the FBI for attending a meeting. That's not what America is supposed to be about. That sounds like some tin horn third-world dictatorship. Sure, we're going to investigate and we need to. We need to make sure that these agencies aren't running amuck and aren’t out of control which clearly they are.

Stephanopoulos pressed Perry a second time:

Doesn't that pose a conflict to you since you’re also part of the investigation?

Again, Perry deflected:

So, should everybody in Congress that disagrees with somebody be barred from doing the oversight and investigative powers that Congress has? That's our charge. And again, that's appropriate for every single member regardless of what accusations are made. I get accused of all kinds of things every single day, as does every member that serves in the public eye. But that doesn't stop you from doing your job. It is our duty and it is my duty.

Watch below or at this link.

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mariana Alfaro @ The Washington Post: Trump vows pardons, government apology to Capitol rioters if he’s elected.

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https://www.justsecurity.org/77681/mark-meadows-timeline-the-chief-of-staff-and-schemes-to-overturn-2020-election/

Nine highlights from the Timeline below:

1. :{:{Meadows and Giuliani created a “parallel track” to raise election fraud claims}:

2. Trump campaign staff followed up on “Meadows’ theory” that tens of thousands of “illegal aliens” voted in Arizona

3. Meadows helped introduce President Trump to DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, who was plotting to oust the acting attorney general and use the Justice Department to overturn election results in Georgia

4. Meadows expressed upset, along with Trump, in response to Attorney General Barr’s having told the Associated Press there was no election fraud that could have affected the outcome in the election

5. Meadows made a surprise visit to Georgia where he met with the Secretary of State’s lead elections investigator. Trump called her the next day on Meadow’s suggestion and in the call urged her to find fraud in Fulton County

6. Meadows arranged and participated in the call in which Trump asked Georgia Secretary of State Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes”; and during the call Meadows asked the Georgia officials to share voting data even after they told him they could not because it was protected by law

7. In several communications with the Justice Department—in violation of White House and DOJ contacts policies—Meadows pressured the Department to investigate baseless allegations of election fraud

8. Then-Acting Secretary of Defense’s chief of staff Kash Patel says he spoke to Meadows “nonstop” on Jan. 6

9. In his final days in office, Trump hoped to issue a preemptive pardon for Meadows, Giuliani and possibly himself....}:

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an 8 22

https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/fbi-matt-gaetz-stone/

A former official for the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) recently compared members of TrumpWorld to the mafia.

During an appearance on MSNBC, Frank Figliuzzi, who worked as an assistant director in the FBI's counterintelligence division, shared his opinion of The Washington Post's recent report offering details about a "hot-mic conversation" that took place between Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and longtime Trump ally, Roger Stone.

The report highlighted a 2019 recording whereGaetz "repeatedly assured Stone that 'the boss' would likely grant him clemency if he were convicted." Figliuzzi also recalled how Stone said he was hoping the Florida lawmaker and "dozens of others" would help him circumvent his legal woes.

"It's a much larger conspiracy than I think even those of us who followed it every day could have imagined," Figliuzzi said.

The former FBI official also insists that the conversations between Gaetz and Stone appear to echo a "we're all in this together" ideology and sheds light on how members of TrumpWorld function. According to Figliuzzi, it's similar to the mafia mentality.

"You know, La Cosa Nostra, the Italian Mafia, translates as, 'This Thing of Ours,'" he said. "That's all I keep hearing here: 'We're all in this together.'"

He also noted that the mob wiretaps he'd previously heard sound relatively similar to the conversations between Gaetz and Stone. "And they're part of a criminal enterprise," he added. "It's a criminal organization. They know it. They know they're screwed with regard to legality, and they know the only way out is for the boss to get them out of it."

Business Insider also highlighted other sections of hot-mic conversation that alluded to mafia-style rhetoric.

At one point, Stone "was also heard telling Gaetz that he might have to "appeal to the big man" because most jurors surveyed for his trial despised him." The news outlet added that Gaetz "was then heard agreeing with Stone, saying Stone was 'fucked' where the trial was concerned. The congressman added, however, that he believed Stone wouldn't go to prison because the 'big guy' would not let that happen."

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an 7 22

it not quite clear what, exactly, former President Donald Trump was doing and privately saying inside the White House during the five long, violent hours when more than 2,000 rioters invaded the U.S. Capitol building on Jan. 6, 2021.

It’s a key timeline that the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol is set to explore on July 21, 2022 during its latest – and possibly last – public hearing.

At the heart of the issue is Trump’s precise engagement, if any, with the rioters and several fringe nationalist militia groups, including the Proud Boys, Three Percenters and Oath Keepers, that stormed the Capitol.

Amy Cooter, a senior lecturer in sociology at Vanderbilt University, embedded with militia groups, mostly in Michigan, from 2008 through 2012. Knowing who these groups are – and how they have changed over time – makes it easier to understand the Jan. 6 attacks, Cooter said.

“Fifteen years ago, people thought of these groups as being niche, crazy people. That’s not really what I saw in my fieldwork – I saw people who were just more willing to be open about their political perspectives than maybe more mainstream Republicans were at the time. It seemed to me, both then and now, that their concerns resonate with a broad swath of the population,” Cooter said in a recent interview.

We asked Cooter to explain what drives these groups and their complicated relationship with Trump and the government.

What is your understanding of how Trump is seen by these nationalist groups?

Traditionally, militia groups have been very opposed to the federal government, regardless of whether we’re talking about Democrats or Republicans. However, with Trump, they really found sort of a mouthpiece. Not all of them truly liked him, but they really want somebody who speaks out against immigration and has a nationalistic and isolationist perspective. Trump gave them a sense of legitimacy. But there didn’t seem to be too many formal connections, as far as we know.

How does leadership and hierarchy work within these groups?

Many of these groups present themselves as top-down organizations with centralized leadership and then different state-level structures. But the degree to which that is reality varies enormously, especially with the Three Percenters but also with the Oath Keepers.

There are groups that kind of fit the stereotypical top-down model that make it easy to activate them for action. There are other groups who maybe were completely oblivious to this Jan. 6 plan.

What do you mean by activate? That sounds similar to language Trump used during a presidential debate in September 2020, to “stand back and stand by.”

Militias always see themselves as prepared for action. Usually, this means they’re prepared to defend themselves and their communities in the event of a natural disaster, or some kind of invasion. But as we saw leading up to Jan. 6, some of these groups were clearly planning more than just a defensive stance.

What was Trump getting from these groups, and what were they getting from Trump?

They get from Trump this idea that someone finally represents their interests, someone finally sees the state of the nation as they do, even though not all of them completely agree with him. They see it as an opportunity to push things in the direction that they would prefer.

I don’t think it’s much of an exaggeration to say that Trump sees an opportunity for a private armyfrom them. In 2018, he pardoned the Bundy ranchers, who were arrested for arson on federal land. Not a lot of people paid attention to this, but that was a signal to these groups that he had their back and would expect them to have his back in the future.

I think that Jan. 6 is really kind of proof of that, that he has activated people who in some cases do have military or police experience.

How have you seen these groups evolve over time, since you began researching them?

Before Trump, there had been very clear-cut tensions between different groups. That boundary has broken down substantially, and most groups have been pushed more toward an extreme than used to be true – in no small part because of how Trump and others in his administration legitimized the core fears that different groups had about being invaded.

Since Jan. 6, the groups as a whole have declined in size. Many of these people were really surprised at how Jan. 6 played out and were quite embarrassed –or they were appalled that it didn’t go far enough.

Now, many people have taken a step back even from these groups altogether. But the folks that have stuck around continue to be quite radical, and probably even more radical than they were before. Especially thinking about what is going to happen with the midterm elections, we are going to see a lot of invigoration.

Amy Cooter, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Vanderbilt University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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ref

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-oregon-standoff-trump/trump-pardons-oregon-ranchers-who-inspired-refuge-standoff-idUSKBN1K021Q

no lnx pix

U.S. NEWS

JULY 10, 2018 UPDATED 4 YEARS AGO

Trump pardons Oregon ranchers who inspired refuge standoff

By Jonathan Allen

(Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday pardoned two imprisoned Oregon ranchers whose sentencing on arson convictions sparked the 2016 occupation of a wildlife refuge, part of a long-simmering dispute over federal land policies in the U.S. West.

The armed standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Oregon followed a judge’s ruling that sent Dwight Hammond and his son, Steven, back to prison to serve more time after their initial release. Police shot one of the occupiers dead during the 41-day midwinter protest.

The takeover was another flare-up in a decades-old conflict over federal control of millions of acres of public land in the Western United States. In Oregon, about half of all land is controlled by the federal government.

The leaders of the Malheur standoff, including activists Ammon and Ryan Bundy, were cleared of federal charges for their role in the protest in October 2016.

Ammon Bundy on Tuesday called the pardon “long overdue.”

“We went up there to prevent the atrocity from happening to begin with, and if people would have listened to us, the Hammonds wouldn’t have to have gone through this suffering,” Bundy said in a telephone interview.

The pardons are the latest in a series by Trump that have raised questions about whether he is using the presidential power to reward political supporters.

Trump in late May pardoned Dinesh D’Souza,a conservative pundit convicted of campaign finance crimes.Last August he pardoned former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who campaigned for Trump before being convicted in a case regarding racial profiling.

“LAWLESS EXTREMISTS”

Dwight Hammond, 76, and Steven, 49, were convicted in 2012 for setting a fire that spread onto public land after years of disputes with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

The Hammonds said they were using standard brush-control and land-management techniques, but the government said that in at least one instance they were trying to hide evidence of their slaughtering a herd of deer.

A U.S. flag covers a sign at the entrance of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns, Oregon, January 3, 2016. REUTERS/Jim Urquhart

The Hammonds were set to return by airplane to Oregon on Wednesday morning, the Bundy family said in an email. The pair walked out of a federal prison in California about 6-1/2 hours after the pardon was announced, the Oregonian newspaper reported.

Some conservation groups were dismayed at the pardon.

Jennifer Rokala, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, called the Hammonds “lawless extremists.”

“Pardoning the Hammonds sends a dangerous message to America’s park rangers, wildland firefighters, law enforcement officers, and public lands managers,” Rokala said in a statement.

The two men were initially sentenced to less than the legal minimum five-year prison sentence by a judge who thought the minimum too harsh and later released the two, Dwight Hammond after three months and Steven Hammond after a year.

After the government’s appeal in 2016, a different federal judge ordered the pair back to prison to serve the full five years, sparking protests and the refuge occupation.

In a statement on Tuesday, the White House said the decision sentencing the Hammonds to five years in prison was “unjust” and said that the fire had burned only “a small portion” of public land.

“The evidence at trial regarding the Hammonds’ responsibility for the fire was conflicting, and the jury acquitted them on most of the charges,” the statement said.

As of 2018, Dwight Hammond had served about three years in prison and Steven Hammond had served four, according to the White House.

Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Additional reporting by Gina Cherelus; Editing by Frank McGurty and Leslie Adler

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an 6 25/22

Trump told Congressional cronies how to get pardons for aiding his bogus election scheme, GOP Rep. says

Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene are panic-tweeting after revelations they sought pardons

Conservative insider denounces Republicans who wanted Trump to provide pardons for their involvement in his election scheme

Mo Brooks texts email to CBS containing instructions from Donald Trump on how to request pardons

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perry denied, then proved? 3 more denied?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/23/5-takeaways-jan-6-hearing-trumps-doj-plot/

wapo

June 23, 2022

In the Jan. 6 committee hearing on June 23, witnesses described how President Donald Trump pressured the Justice Department to investigate election fraud. (Video: JM Rieger/The Washington Post, Photo: Bill O'Leary/The Washington Post)

The Jan. 6 committee on Thursday held its fifth major hearing, this one focused on President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign on the Justice Department to help him overturn the election.

The plot was spearheaded within the department by an official named Jeffrey Clark, whose home federal agents searched Wednesday in a significant development that reflects the increasing legal jeopardy faced by Trump’s allies and perhaps Trump himself. Trump at one point considered installing Clark as acting attorney general to further the plot — which prompted mass resignation threats....

The Jan. 6 committee on Thursday held its fifth major hearing, this one focused on President Donald Trump’s pressure campaign on the Justice Department to help him overturn the election.

Timeline: Trump's pressure on the Justice Department to overturn the election

Below, some takeaways from the hearing.

The pardon picture, filled out

In a video presented on June 23, Trump White House officials said that at least five House Republicans asked President Donald Trump for pardons. (Video: The Washington Post, Photo: Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post)

The committee has repeatedly previewed evidence that certain key players in Trump’s plot soughtpardons. Last week, one of them was revealed to be Trump lawyer John Eastman, who asked to be put on “the pardon list.” The implication from that email was that there was indeed a list that seemingly might have other names.

The committee built out its own list Thursday, adding several House Republicans to it. Here are the names and the evidence:

Reps. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) — In a Jan. 11 email from Brooks, he said he and Gaetz were suggesting pardons for everyone who objected to the election results in Arizona and Pennsylvania. White House lawyer Eric Herschmann also said he believed that Gaetz had requested a pardon. White House aide John McEntee said Gaetz told him he asked for one from White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to Meadows, also testified to the effort by Brooks and Gaetz, saying that Gaetz had been seeking a pardon “since early December” and that he reached out to her personally.

Days after the Capitol attack and the final attempt to overturn the election, Members of Congress requested pardons.

Five days after the attack on the Capitol, Representative Mo Brooks requested pardons for himself, Representative Gaetz, and others. pic.twitter.com/f0xLm5SKtT

— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) June 23, 2022

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) — Hutchinson testified that he requested a pardon.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) — Hutchinson testified that he requested a pardon.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — Hutchinson said that she had heard that Greene had asked the White House counsel’s office for a pardon from deputy counsel Pat Philbin but that Greene hadn’t asked her personally.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) — Hutchinson testified that he requested a pardon.

Perry has flatly denied seeking a pardon, calling it “a shameless, soulless lie,” but Hutchinson said he talked to her directly about it.

Hutchinson also said that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), whom House Republicans tried to put on the committee before Democrats objected, talked with the White House about congressional pardons but that she was unaware of him asking for one.

What John Eastman and ‘the pardon list’ means

Asking for a pardon doesn’t equal admitting guilt,[but in applying you must tell what you did? negates exec priv] and Eastman in particular argued that his request was meant as a precaution. But given how far-fetched this plot was and how often those involved were told their plot was illegal, that fact that people were trying to cover their backsides on the way out is important.

And crucially, some of these requests came even before the plot failed on Jan. 6.

---

1/6 hearing bombshell

Reacting to a revelation from Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) that several Republican Party lawmakers reportedly went hat in hand to Donald Trump and asked for pardons related to attempts to throw out the results of the 2020 presidential election, former Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA) predicted they could be in big trouble.

In the midst of the first publicly televised Jan. 6 House committee hearing on the Capitol insurrection, the Wyoming Republican suggested that Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) was one of those lawmakers, telling the national TV audience, "Rep. Scott Perry … has refused to testify here. As you will see, Representative Perry contacted the White House in the weeks after Jan. 6 to seek a presidential pardon. Multiple other Republican congressmen also sought presidential pardons for their roles in attempting to overturn the 2020 election”

Asked about the accusation by CNN host Jim Sciutto, the former Republican lawmaker went off on a rant about some of his former associates.

"Another significant revelation from the Vice-Chair Liz Cheney yesterday is that several GOP lawmakers sought pardons from then-president Trump after January 6th, presuming, it seems, they had criminal exposure here," host Sciutto asked as CNN identified the four lawmakers as Perry along with Reps. Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar of Arizona, and Mo Brooks of Alabama. "What is your reaction? You're a former sitting Republican member of Congress, to hear that some of your former colleagues were looking for a pardon, felt they needed a pardon."

"It is clear to me they have a guilty mind, they think they may have done things that were illegal and potentially criminal and that's why they sought a preemptive pardon. That's simply astounding to me, one of the member's district was adjacent to mine, Scott Perry, and we all know he had made many outreaches to Jeffrey Clark at the DOJ and it is clear to me, again, that I just can't fathom that a member of Congress would ever seek a pardon, just -- it is really quite a stunning action."

"It really speaks to the idea of criminality that -- those are the only people who seek pardons and the fact that they -- that the actions that they took before or during the events of that day, they know that they -- they did something wrong," he continued. "So wrong that they sought a pardon. I can't imagine any -- most of my colleagues would ever have thought for a second to seek a pardon for anything. So it is clear to me that they know they're on the wrong side of this, and that's why they're trying not to participate in these hearings because they're exposed."

Watch below:

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721

Conrad Black, who was pardoned of fraud and obstruction of justice convictions by Trump earlier this year, wrote at Claremont Institute...

The Hill serves up what may just be the most absurd headline in media history

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philly inq

https://www.mcall.com/news/pennsylvania/mc-nws-pa-republicans-jan-6-help-trump-20221222-ccq7ly5w2rfergjbcnwdatya3a-story.html

hundreds of pages of deposition transcripts released Wednesday by the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack offered new insights into the roles Pennsylvania Republicans played in aiding President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The committee is expected to issue the full report on its investigation on Thursday. But the newly released transcripts were filled with new details including that Mike Roman, a Philadelphia native and one of Trump’s top election advisers, helped spearhead the effort to send pro-Trump electors to Washington as Congress met to certify the election results that day.

They also revealed a previously undisclosed attempt by state Sen. Doug Mastriano to access certain voting machines days before Jan. 6 as well as references to a plan floated by the White House to sue Pennsylvania directly in the U.S. Supreme Court over its administration of the 2020 vote. The documents also shed new light on the role a congressional staffer for U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly played behind the scenes.

Here are some of the highlights from the committee’s interviews:

Mike Roman: A key Trump campaign operative’s role in the false electors scheme

Roman, a longtime Philadelphia Republican political operative, appeared to play a key role in organizing false electors in swing states such as Pennsylvania as part of a plot to overturn the election.

A former Philadelphia ward leader and senior adviser to the Trump campaign, Roman was designated by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani as “the lead for executing the voting” by the fake electors Dec. 14, 2020, according to an email the committee cited in an interview transcript released Wednesday.

The interview transcript suggests the pro-Trump electors in Pennsylvania were concerned about possible legal exposure if they signed official certificates purporting to be the legitimate electors.

In the interview, investigators referenced a Dec. 12, 2020, email sent to Roman from Trump campaign lawyer Kenneth Chesebro.

“Mike, here is my suggested language for dealing with the concern raised in the PA conference call about electors possibly facing legal exposure, parenthesis, at the hands of a partisan AG, close parenthesis, if they seem to certify that they are currently the valid electors,” the transcript says.

Investigators also asked Roman whether he knew if Mastriano, the state senator who ran as the GOP’s candidate for Pennsylvania governor this year, had expressed concerns about the elector plan. Roman pleaded the Fifth.

The transcript suggests Roman also played a role in organizing the delivery of Wisconsin Republicans’ fake elector certificate to Congress on Jan. 6. A person investigators identified as Michael Brown texted associates that he “should probably buy Roman a tie for sending me on this one. Hasn’t been done since 1876 ... ”

That’s an apparent reference to the disputed presidential election that year.

Roman refused to say whether he’d instructed Brown to deliver the document, the transcript says.

The interview transcript also references a briefing of Pennsylvania lawmakers in November 2020 about purported election fraud. On Nov. 8, 2020, Roman shared with an associate a screenshot of a message he’d obtained that said: “Maybe the Trump campaign should get some actual evidence of fraud and file in court. They’ve been horrible in their court filings. We just got a report from their legal team. They told us on caucus they have zero evidence.”

Roman declined to tell investigators who sent him the message or to discuss the briefing of Pennsylvania lawmakers, apparently delivered by Kentucky’s secretary of state.

U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly: Staffer’s behind-the-scenes involvement in false electors effort

Committee investigators repeatedly asked Roman during his deposition what he knew about behind-the-scenes efforts to undermine the election by a longtime top aide to U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly, a Butler County Republican and a top Trump ally in the House.

Between Nov. 21 and Dec. 4, 2020, Roman exchanged 25 messages with Kelly’s then-chief-of-staff, Matt Stroia, according to questioning in the deposition transcripts. Those included exchanges that suggested Stroia may have played a more active and earlier role in the efforts by Trump and his allies than was previously known.

His name had previously surfaced in the committee’s work in connection with efforts to deliver the slates of pro-Trump electors to Pence on Jan. 6.

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson has said his office passed along the lists to Pence but that it was Kelly’s office that provided it to him. And while Kelly initially denied Johnson’s claims as “patently false,” the congressman’s office later acknowledged an “internal investigation” found Stroia had been in contact with Johnson’s staff.

But Roman’s deposition before the Jan. 6 Committee suggests Stroia may also have played a role in organizing a raucous Nov. 25 state Senate hearing in Gettysburg, during which Mastriano and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis pushed unfounded claims of fraud in the Pennsylvania election. Trump called in from Washington to voice his support.

“I hope it turns out like we envisioned,” Stroia wrote to Roman three days before the hearing in a message quoted in the deposition transcripts.

During his interview with the Jan. 6 Committee, Roman pleaded the Fifth and refused to answer questions about it or discuss whether he or Stroia had any involvement in organizing the Gettysburg hearing.

But other messages cited in Roman’s deposition show Stroia was in direct contact with Giuliani, who spearheaded Trump’s election challenges in the state. In one exchange with Roman, Stroia said he’d directed the president’s lawyer to talk to Roman instead.

“Do you know why Mr. Giuliani would have been calling Mike Kelly’s chief of staff ... about presidential election issues rather than you, who was acting as director of election day operations for the campaign?” committee staffers asked. He added: “I told him that you will know everything I do.”

Asked to explain, Roman again pleaded the Fifth.

Doug Mastriano and Jenna Ellis: The state senator and Trump lawyer sought access to Pennsylvania voting machines

The committee’s interview with Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis also shed light on Mastriano’s postelection activities.

“We made good headway convincing [hopefully] two counties with Dominion machines in Pennsylvania,” Mastriano wrote in a Dec. 28 email to Ellis, according to the transcript.

In another email, Mastriano makes reference to efforts to gain access to “ballot images.” Ellis declined to tell investigators why Mastriano was interested in that.

In a Dec. 29 email, Mastriano told Ellis that he’d emailed Trump himself with a letter related to “securing voluntary access for Dominion forensics.”

Fulton County later gave a third-party firm access to its Dominion voting machines, facilitated by Mastriano and state Sen. Judy Ward, R-Blair, for a supposed “audit” of the votes. That prompted the state to decertify those voting machines and force the county to obtain new ones. It wasn’t immediately clear which other counties Mastriano and other Trump allies sought to hand over access to voting machines.

Elliswas also questioned about her contacts with Pennsylvania House Speaker Bryan Cutler and Jake Corman and Kim Ward, the GOP leaders of the State Senate. She declined to answer questions, however, on any efforts she and Giuliani had made to pressure them to set aside the state’s election results.

Cutler previously told the committee that Giuliani and Ellis called him daily during the run-up to Congress’ certification of the election, looking to push a baseless theory that state legislatures could set aside election results based on unsupported suspicions of fraud and appoint a new slate of Electoral College delegates instead.

Cutler said he largely avoided those calls, thinking they were inappropriate and had his attorneys respond, asking Giuliani and Ellis to stop contacting him.

Jeffrey Clark: A White House plan to sue Pennsylvania in the U.S. Supreme Court

In December 2020, Trump had White House lawyers draft a complaint to sue Pennsylvania in the U.S. Supreme Court over the administration of its election, according to committee questioning in the deposition of former Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Clark.

Clark, a Philadelphia native, has emerged as a central focus for the committee due to his role in a drama in which Trump briefly considered appointing him attorney general in the waning days of his administration.

Clark had been introduced to the president by U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, a York County Republican and key ally of the president in Congress. And according to earlier testimony before the committee, Clark expressed a willingness to use the Justice Department to pressure state legislatures in battleground states to overturn their election results despite no evidence of significant fraud.

On Monday, the Jan. 6 Committee referred him to the Justice Department for potential criminal prosecution.

During two contentious deposition interviews with the committee in November 2021 and February 2022, Clark refused to answer almost any questions about his relationship to Perry, his conversations with Trump, or the ideas he floated on how the Justice Department could help contest the election. He repeatedly invoked executive privilege — the doctrine that allows presidents and their staff to resist some legislative oversight — as well as his Fifth Amendmentright against self-incrimination.

He also balked at answering questions about the draft complaint that a White House assistant sent to top officials at the Justice Department on Dec. 29, 2020, for a suit against Pennsylvania. Correspondence referenced in the deposition of Ellis, the Trump lawyer, also referenced a Trump campaign plan to ask the Supreme Court to order new elections in as many as eight states to “ensure electoral integrity.” Those suits were never filed.

Instead, the Trump campaign filed a brief in support of a long-shot lawsuit filed at the Supreme Court by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, seeking to overturn Pennsylvania’s election. The justices declined to hear the case.

For his part, Clark during his deposition — in one of his only substantive exchanges with committee members — lamented the current partisan state of politics in Washington, recalling his own upbringing in a primarily white, working-class neighborhood near the foot of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge.

“My dad was a truck driver who never graduated from high school,” he said. “He was a lifelong Democrat and a Catholic. My mom was a lifelong Republican and a Protestant. I wound up as a blend of the two, a Catholic conservative Republican.”

His lawyer Harry MacDougald was more acerbic. He called the Jan. 6 committee’s questioning “railroading” and accused members of indulging in a “paranoid fantasy.”

“It is not enough in Washington to merely disagree with someone about policy questions,” he said. “Instead, they must be destroyed. Those who disagree with Mr. Clark seek his destruction by any means available.”

The QAnon Hummer Duo: Coordination among right-wing extremist groups

Deposition transcripts were also released Wednesday for two Virginia men who made headlines in Philadelphia when they showed up outside the 2020 vote count at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in a Hummer filled with guns and emblazoned with QAnon stickers.

But the transcripts show neither Joshua Macias, president of the organization Veterans for Trump, nor his bodyguard, Antonio LaMotta, were forthcoming in their interviews with committee investigators. Both men asserted their Fifth Amendmentrights again and again, citing their ongoing prosecution in Philadelphia for weapons violations and attempted election interference.

(They were both later convicted on the weapons counts in October, but acquitted on the election related charges. LaMotta has since been federally charged with illegally entering the Capitol on Jan. 6.)

The committee’s investigators attempted to quiz both men on their contacts with other right-wing extremist groups like the Proud Boys, the Oath Keepers and the Three Percenters — the leaders of which Macias and LaMotta were shown in videos to have interacted with Jan. 5.

One video played during an earlier committee hearing showed Macias meeting with Enrique Tarrio, then-president of the Proud Boys, and Stewart Rhodes, head of the Oath Keepers, in a Washington parking garage the day before the Capitol attack. Committee members have previously cited the video to suggest some coordination among extremist groups in the run-up to Jan. 6.

But when asked in his deposition how he came to be in the garage, Macias remained tight lipped.

“I walked,” he responded.

Investigators asked him why. “I was asked to,” he said.

By whom? “Someone said, ‘Hey come here,” Macias replied.

He refused to say what they discussed in that meeting.

As for whether he considered himself a QAnon adherent, Macias responded: “I do not ascribe to people’s beliefs. I have my own belief system.”

Philadelphia Inquirer staff writers Jonathan Lai and Jonathan Tamari contributed to this article.

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https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/15/jan-6-trump-operative-false-electors-00046175

Trump campaign operative who delivered Jan. 6 false elector lists is identified

Mike Roman passed the names to a House GOP aide in a bid to get them to then-Vice President Mike Pence, people familiar with the episode told POLITICO.

By KYLE CHENEY and NICHOLAS WU

07/15/2022

A little-known Donald Trump campaign operative delivered lists of false electors to Capitol Hill in a bid to get them to Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021, according to two people familiar with the episode.

Mike Roman, then Trump’s 2020 director of Election Day operations, delivered those false elector certificates — signed by pro-Trump activists in Michigan and Wisconsin — to Rep. Mike Kelly’s (R-Pa.) chief of staff at the time, both people told POLITICO. Kelly was a Trump ally in the effort to overturn the 2020 election, and his then-top aide received the documents from Roman before deputizing a colleague to disseminate copies on Capitol Hill, according to both people.

Roman’s role in the effort to deliver those slates of electors directly to Pence has not previously been reported. The onetime Trump White House researcher [bad code] ...

The origin of the false elector lists, which never got to Pence before he presided over certification of Joe Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, has become an enduring subplot in the select panel’s investigation of the Capitol attack designed to disrupt that day. After the committee revealed the role of a top aide to Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) in the episode during a hearing last month, Johnson said the false elector lists came from Kelly — who has repeatedly denied any involvement by his office in their distribution.[vid?]

"They have changed their story, from denying their involvement outright to now not denying their former chief of staff’s involvement,” said Alexa Henning, a Johnson spokesperson. “Congressman Kelly should be issuing Senator Johnson an apology for participating in the perpetration of false stories regarding Senator Johnson’s minimal involvement in this matter.”

Kelly has recently touted the results of an “internal investigation” that identified Matt Stroia, his chief of staff at the time, as the intermediary for the lists. That inquiry found that the lists were never passed from Stroia, now a Pfizer lobbyist, to Johnson’s office. Kelly’s office, in response to a request for comment,said Stroia had a previous relationship with members of the Trump team and got contacted by someone linked to that team on Jan. 6.

“Matthew got the information,” Kelly’s current chief of staff, Tim Butler, said in an interview. “There was another staffer here in the office who was asked to physically walk it over. And it’s just those two individuals that were involved.”

Neither of those two individuals worked in Kelly’s office any longer, Butler said. Kelly’s office declined to identify the other staffer involved.

Neither Roman nor Stroia returned requests for comment for this story.

Both people who confirmed Roman’s involvement in the transmission of the elector lists spoke on condition of anonymity amid the select panel’s ongoing investigation into the runup to the attack and Trump’s role in it.

[INSURRECTION FALLOUT

‘His own choices’: Select panel says Trump — not his advisers — set Jan. 6 in motion

BY KYLE CHENEY AND NICHOLAS WU

The Jan. 6 committee’s mention of his office’s role put Johnson, facing a tough reelection race this fall, on the back foot. He later told a home-state radio host: “My office’s entire involvement in this thing lasted 70 minutes. My involvement was probably seconds, maybe a minute or two.”

Roman’s involvement, however, clarifies another piece of the puzzle behind Trump’s effort to seize a second term he didn’t win. Trump, relying on a band of fringe attorneys, spent much of December 2020 leaning on Republican state legislatures in a handful of states to ignore the results and deliver pro-Trump electors to Congress.

Under Trump’s plan, Pence — required by the Constitution to preside over the counting of electoral votes on Jan. 6, 2021 — would cite the “alternate” and illegitimate electors to block Biden’s victory or delay the count altogether. Ultimately, no state legislature agreed to Trump’s plan, but the former president’s campaign still assembled activists to sign false documents claiming to be genuine presidential electors and delivered them to Congress.

The plan fell apart when Pence refused to go along, contending that doing so would violate multiple provisions of federal law and insisting he had no power to do anything other than introduce certified electoral votes. Pence, who had huddled with advisers and the Senate parliamentarian to flesh out his position, had decided well before Jan. 6 that he would not attempt to overturn Biden’s victory.

But that didn’t stop the Trump campaign from attempting to place some of the false slates directly into Pence’s hands on Jan. 6.

The Justice Department is in talks with the select committee about evidence specifically related to the false electors effort, Jan. 6 panel chair Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said this week.

DOJ has in recent weeks subpoenaed a slew of Trump allies who acted as false electors, including several state GOP chairs. It has also subpoenaed state-level operatives working on Trump’s campaign.

In addition, FBI agents recently seized the phone of attorney John Eastman, a top strategist for Trump’s effort who worked closely on the plan to appoint false electors. Eastman is fighting in a New Mexico federal court to get his phone back but was dealt a setback Friday evening when a judge denied his motion for a restraining order.

When subpoenaing Roman, who is from Pennsylvania, the select committee cited records reflecting his push to convince Republican state legislatures to appoint pro-Trump slates of presidential electors as part of a strategy to boost the losing campaign.

“[T]he Select Committee is in possession of communications reflecting your involvement in a coordinated strategy to contact Republican members of state legislatures in certain states that former President Trump had lost and urge them to “reclaim” their authority by sending an alternate slate of electors that would support former President Trump,” Thompson wrote in a letter accompanying the subpoena.

Burgess Everett contributed to this report.

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