US President Donald Trump on Wednesday pardoned more than two dozen people, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law.
The actions bring to nearly 50 the number of people whom the president has granted clemency in the past week.
The pardons of Manafort and Stone, who months earlier had his sentence commuted by Trump, were particularly notable, underscoring the president’s opposition to US Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
He has now pardoned four people convicted in that investigation, including former White House national security adviser Michael Flynn and campaign adviser George Papadopoulos.
“The pardons from this President are what you would expect to get if you gave the pardon power to a mob boss,” Andrew Weissmann, a Mueller team member who helped prosecute Manafort, wrote on Twitter.
Manafort, who led Trump’s campaign during a pivotal period in 2016 before being ousted, was among the first people charged as part of Mueller’s investigation.
He was later sentenced to more than seven years in prison for financial crimes related to his political consulting work in Ukraine, but was released to home confinement last spring because of COVID-19 concerns in the federal prison system.
Although the charges against Manafort did not concern the central thrust of Mueller’s mandate — whether the Trump campaign and Russia colluded to tip the election — he was nonetheless a pivotal figure in the investigation.
Mueller never charged Manafort or any other Trump associate with conspiring with Russia.
Manafort, in a series of Twitter posts, thanked Trump, saying that history would show that the president had accomplished more than any of his predecessors.
“You truly did ‘Make America Great Again.’ God Bless you & your family. I wish you a Merry Christmas & many good wishes for the coming years,” he wrote.
Trump did not pardon Manafort’s deputy, Rick Gates, who was sentenced last year to 45 days in prison after extensively cooperating with prosecutors, or former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty to campaign finance crimes related to his efforts to buy the silence of women who said they had sexual relationships with Trump.
Both were also convicted in the Mueller probe.
US Representative Adam Schiff wrote on Twitter that “during the Mueller investigation, Trump’s lawyer floated a pardon to Manafort. Manafort withdrew his cooperation with prosecutors, lied, was convicted and then Trump praised him for not ‘ratting.’ Trump’s pardon now completes the corrupt scheme.”
New York City prosecutors have been seeking to have the state’s highest court revive state mortgage fraud charges against Manafort after a lower court dismissed them on double-jeopardy grounds.
A spokesman for New York District Attorney Cy Vance said that the pardon “underscores the urgent need to hold Mr Manafort accountable for his crimes against the people of New York.”
Stone was convicted of lying to the US Congress about his efforts to gain inside information about the release by WikiLeaks of hacked Democratic Party e-mails during the 2016 campaign.
In a statement on Wednesday, Stone thanked Trump and said that he had been subjected to a “Soviet-style show trial on politically motivated charges”
Kushner is the father of Trump’s son-in-law, White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, and a wealthy real-estate executive who pleaded guilty years ago to tax evasion and making illegal campaign donations.
Trump and the elder Kushner knew each other from real-estate circles and their children were married in 2009.
Prosecutors allege that after Charles Kushner discovered that his brother-in-law was cooperating with authorities, he hatched a revenge and intimidation scheme.
They say he hired a prostitute to lure his brother-in-law, then arranged to have a secret recording of the encounter in a New Jersey motel room sent to his own sister, the man’s wife.
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has called it “one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes” he ever prosecuted as US attorney.
Trump’s list of 29 recipients included people whose pleas for forgiveness have been promoted by people supporting the president throughout his term in office, among them former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi, Newsmax chief executive officer Christopher Ruddy and US Senator Rand Paul.
One recipient was Topeka Sam, whose case was promoted by Alice Johnson, a criminal justice advocate whom Trump pardoned and who appeared in a Super Bowl advert for him and at the Republican National Convention.
“Ms Sam’s life is a story of redemption,” the White House said in its release, praising her for helping other women in need.
Others granted clemency included a former county commissioner in Florida who was convicted of taking gifts from people doing business with the county and a community leader in Kentucky who was convicted of federal drug offenses.
Separately, Trump gave national security awards to several top advisers for their role in helping broker agreements aimed at normalizing relations between Israel and four countries in the Arab world.
Trump awarded the National Security Medal to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin, US National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien, Jared Kushner, Middle East envoy Avi Berkowitz, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and US Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates John Rakolta.
“Thanks to the efforts of these individuals, the region will never be the same as it finally moves beyond the conflicts of the past,” the White House said in a statement.
Additional reporting by AFP and Reuters
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