All aboard the Trump clemency train
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By any measure, Trump has been on a clemency binge: On the
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The Trump pardons are a direct contradiction of the Crouch thesis, which speaks of 'the tendency of recent presidents to avoid risk by simply pardoning less.' Last month, the president
Fans wait for reality television star Todd Chrisley outside the Federal Prison Camp in Pensacola, Fla., on May 28. Todd and Julie Chrisley, convicted of fraud and tax evasion in 2022, were recently pardoned by President Trump.
Dan Anderson/Associated Press
Just last month, Trump
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'This Sheriff is a victim of an overzealous Biden Department of Justice, and doesn't deserve to spend a single day in jail. He is a wonderful person, who was persecuted by the Radical Left 'monsters,' and 'left for dead,'' Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. 'He will
The next clemency recipients also could include the two men convicted of
Pardons, especially high-profile ones, ordinarily come in the last hours of a presidential administration. Trump, who has upended all expectations of the presidency, defied that norm as well. But he has extended his breach of custom by raising questions about his predecessor's pardons, suggesting that some of Biden's acts of clemency were
Biden has denied the claim, and in any case there is no provision for
A number of the subjects of Trump pardons are either names well known or notorious, but the conductor of the Trump clemency train is an otherwise obscure character named Ed Martin, a dedicated
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Martin, who compared the Jan. 6 riots to Mardi Gras, is contemplating granting clemency to
The pardons of former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger (convicted on felony charges growing out of the Reagan-era Iran-Contra affair) by George H.W. Bush and of Marc Rich (a fugitive convicted for tax fraud and illegal dealings with Iran) by Bill Clinton were subjects of Washington fascination and general public repugnance for weeks. One of the many wonders of the age is how the Trump pardons have essentially vanished from conversation, lost in the maelstrom of the president's flurry of executive declarations and deportations, insults and imprecations. They have faded from view almost as completely as the criminal charges they erased.
This column first appeared in
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David Shribman is a nationally syndicated columnist. He can be reached at
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