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I made a mistake (IMO) when I merged the thread dedicated to this topic into the omnibus Trump/Musk catch-all. I think there is something valuable/important about seeing these stories collected together.
GIFT LINK
—> Trump Allies Seek Pardons From an Emboldened White House
“…The new administration has a team of appointees focusing on the process early in Mr. Trump’s term, with a particular focus on clemency grants that underscore the president’s own grievances about what he sees as the political weaponization of the justice system.
… Mr. Trump’s use of clemency in his first term “was all about cronyism and partisanship and helping out his friends and his political advisers,” said Rachel E. Barkow, a professor at New York University School of Law who has studied the use of presidential clemency.
“The potential for corruption is higher” this time around, she said. “Because they’re starting early, they have figured out how they want to set it up so that people have a pipeline to get to them.”
… Both Mr. Trump and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. were criticized for ignoring the screening and guidelines of the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney in their clemency grants. Clemency experts objected to Mr. Biden’s far-reaching pardons of his son Hunter and other family members, and to Mr. Trump’s sweeping grant of clemency to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
…
According to people familiar with the matter, Mr. Trump’s White House had marginalized the pardon attorney’s office, shifting control of much of the clemency operation to the White House Counsel’s Office.
On Friday evening, Elizabeth G. Oyer, who had been the U.S. pardon attorney since being appointed in 2022 during the Biden administration, said on social media that she had been fired from the post by Todd Blanche, the newly confirmed deputy attorney general.
Even before her firing, a senior White House official said in an interview that “the White House Counsel’s Office is the one handling all clemency petitions.” …”
GIFT LINK
—> Trump Allies Seek Pardons From an Emboldened White House“…The new administration has a team of appointees focusing on the process early in Mr. Trump’s term, with a particular focus on clemency grants that underscore the president’s own grievances about what he sees as the political weaponization of the justice system.
… Mr. Trump’s use of clemency in his first term “was all about cronyism and partisanship and helping out his friends and his political advisers,” said Rachel E. Barkow, a professor at New York University School of Law who has studied the use of presidential clemency.
“The potential for corruption is higher” this time around, she said. “Because they’re starting early, they have figured out how they want to set it up so that people have a pipeline to get to them.”
… Both Mr. Trump and former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. were criticized for ignoring the screening and guidelines of the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney in their clemency grants. Clemency experts objected to Mr. Biden’s far-reaching pardons of his son Hunter and other family members, and to Mr. Trump’s sweeping grant of clemency to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
…
According to people familiar with the matter, Mr. Trump’s White House had marginalized the pardon attorney’s office, shifting control of much of the clemency operation to the White House Counsel’s Office.
On Friday evening, Elizabeth G. Oyer, who had been the U.S. pardon attorney since being appointed in 2022 during the Biden administration, said on social media that she had been fired from the post by Todd Blanche, the newly confirmed deputy attorney general.
Even before her firing, a senior White House official said in an interview that “the White House Counsel’s Office is the one handling all clemency petitions.” …”
