Revisiting Trump's Pardons

FPOTUS freed loyalists, cronies, fraudsters, corrupt Republican politicians, and co-conspirators.

On January 19, 2021, the last full day of his presidency, Donald John Trump issued a flurry of pardons. Among the beneficiaries was Ken Kurson, a writer, editor, political consultant, and former punk musician.

As pardon material, Kurson was an unusual choice. Typically, individuals who receive pardons distinguish themselves by putting their life of crime behind them, by expressing remorse, by giving back to the community, by visibly changing their lives for the better. These are supposed to be redemption stories. There’s usually some well-placed senator, governor, or House representative lobbying for the pardon. Sometimes they’ve already served a big chunk of their prison term; sometimes they’ve already been out of jail for years.

Kurson was none of those things. He was under indictment for cyberstalking and harassment. The arrest warrant summarizes the nasty, vindictive behavior:

FBI Special Agents obtained information indicating that KURSON had used the mail, interactive computer services, electronic communication services, electronic communication systems of interstate commerce and other facilities of interstate commerce to stalk and harass Individual No. 1, Individual No. 2 and Individual No. 3 (collectively, the “Victims”) between approximately November 2015 and December 2015. . . . [D]uring this time period, KURSON was engaged in divorce proceedings and blamed Individual No. 1, among others, for the dissolution of his marriage. As a result, beginning in or about November 2015, KURSON threatened to ruin Individual No. 1’s reputation and engaged in a pattern of stalking and harassment against Individual No. 1.

(You can read more about the unpleasant details of the case here.)

There was no respected elder statesman sponsoring the push to Free Kurson. His case hadn’t even gone to trial when he scored the pardon, so his victims were denied their day in court. And he was unlikely to get off. The FBI had him dead to rights.

But Kurson had an ace in the hole: he was close friends with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. Kushner had hired Kurson to head the New York Observer, the venerable and beloved Gotham periodical he bought and ruined. (From his own website: “At the Observer, Kurson personally broke dozens of stories, including unearthing audio of Hillary Clinton proposing to rig the 2006 Palestinian Elections [and] a campaign by Samsung to undermine activist investor Elliott Management [note: Paul Fucking Singer!!!] that resulted in Congressional inquiry and a change in Samsung policy. . . .)

Kurson was also tight with Rudy Giuliani, with whom he’d co-authored a book, and whose ill-fated 2008 presidential campaign he worked on. And he’d authored a speech for FPOTUS. In fact, it was Trump’s decision to nominate him for a seat on the board of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the subsequent FBI investigation that followed, that dredged all this up—kind of like what happened to Bernie Kerik, another beneficiary of a Trump pardon, after Bush II sought to nominate him to head Homeland Security.

This means that Kurson was 1) in with Trump, the ultimate arbiter of who got a pardon; 2) BFFs with Kushner, the West Winger in charge of “trying to get as many pardons done” as possible before the end of Trump’s term; and 3) close to Giuliani, who, if the allegations in the lawsuit filed by his former employee Noelle Dunphy are to be believed, was, at the time, acting as a shadow broker for presidential pardons. The price was $2 million a pop:

132. [Giuliani] also asked Ms. Dunphy if she knew anyone in need of a pardon, telling her that he was selling pardons for $2 million, which he and President Trump would split. He told Ms. Dunphy that she could refer individuals seeking pardons to him, so long as they did not go through “the normal channels” of the Office of the Pardon Attorney, because correspondence going to that office would be subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act.

This is like John leaning on his friendship with Paul and his close working relationship with Ringo to score a pardon from George. Of course Kurson got his Get Out of Jail Free card, just like Kerik did. Charles Kushner, Jared’s felon old man, got one, too.

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Given what we know about Trump’s penchant for monetizing anything of value—his endorsement, his TV shows, the Washington hotel he illegally owned while in the White House, his then-teenage daughter’s modeling career with fashion designers with a yen for sexual abuse—as well as the specificity of Giuliani’s instructions, there is little reason to believe Rudy was lying. Put it this way: If we found out that Trump really was selling pardons, would anyone be surprised? Nothing would be more on brand.

Two and a half years later, and in light of Dunphy’s bombshell allegation, it is instructive to look back on the Trump pardons: who got them, what they did to run afoul of the law, and, in the case of his pardoned co-conspirators, what they’ve been busy doing since winning their freedom.

Let’s start with who Trump chose not to pardon. His personal attorney Michael Cohen, who flipped on him, was not pardoned. Jeffrey Epstein was only in custody for six weeks before his death, so he never got a pardon. Ghislaine Maxwell was the beneficiary of a Trump well-wish, but not a pardon. Julian Assange was not pardoned. Edward Snowden was not pardoned. Yevgeny Prigozhin was not pardoned. Semion Mogilevich was not pardoned. There are some lines, apparently, that even Trump dared not cross.

We should also acknowledge, in the interest of fairness, that some of his pardons were completely justified. I question Trump’s motives for pardoning the boxer Jack Johnson or the women’s rights leader Susan B. Anthony, but it’s for the good that they were formally pardoned. Michael Tedesco was already pardoned by President Obama, but a clerical error didn’t absolve him of all his crimes; Trump fixed that. And: free Lil Wayne!

But the individuals Trump did pardon, in the main, fall into several categories: corrupt members of Congress, most of them Republicans; GOP political operatives; wealthy folks he or his family knew well, or who donated big bucks to his campaign; war criminals; garrulous, bootlicking sycophants; and co-conspirators in his various illicit enterprises, especially related to the 2016 election.

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Corrupt Members of Congress

Among the scum Trump pardoned were seven former GOP Congressman: Chris Collins of New York (insider trading, lying to the FBI); Duncan Hunter of California (conspiracy, wire fraud, campaign finance violations); Texas’s Steve Stockman (money laundering, misuse of campaign contributions); Rick Renzi of Arizona (corruption); North Carolina’s Robin Hayes (lying to the FBI); Mark Siljander of Michigan (obstruction of justice, acting as an unregistered foreign agent; indicted for money laundering); and perhaps the most brazenly corrupt of all, Duke Cunningham of California (bribery, fraud, tax evasion).

By issuing the pardons to this motley gaggle of politician crooks, Trump was communicating that it’s ok to run financial scams—and break the law in other ways, too—as long as you’re a pro-Trump Republican. Hold that thought in your head, and then recall that in late 2020/early 2021, six MAGA Republicans—some of Trump’s closest House allies—requested pardons from FPOTUS: Mo Brooks, Matt Gaetz, Andy Biggs, Louie Gohmert, Scott Perry, and the bête noire of polite society, Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Why would they make such a request? And why would Trump not honor it?

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GOP Political Operatives

On the list of Trump pardons are a number of Republican political operatives who had run afoul of the law:

• Elliott Broidy, a deputy RNC finance chairman during the Trump campaign, pleaded guilty to working as unregistered foreign agent; he had “sought to lobby the highest levels of the U.S. government to drop one of the largest fraud and money laundering prosecutions ever brought”—involving 1MDB—“and to deport a critic of the Chinese Communist Party, all the while concealing the foreign interests whose bidding he was doing,” according to a senior DOJ official.

• Paul Erickson, famous for being the cuckolded boyfriend of Russian operative Maria Butina, was convicted of wire fraud and money laundering, bilking investors of over a million bucks.

• Jesse Benton, a longtime aide to both Ron and Rand Paul—and the husband of the former’s granddaughter—was convicted of “conspiring to solicit and cause an illegal campaign contribution by a foreign national, effecting a conduit contribution, and causing false records to be filed with the FEC,” per the DOJ. He took money from Russia and diverted what he didn’t take for himself to Trump.

• Ed Henry, state chair of Trump’s campaign in Alabama and a former lawmaker, was convicted of healthcare fraud.

• Dinesh D’Souza, the rightwing pundit best known for his Big Lie propaganda film 2000 Mules, was convicted of campaign finance fraud.

All of these dudes got pardoned.

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Co-Conspirators

Trump was loyal to those who showed him loyalty, gamely pardoning those convicted co-conspirators who did not turn on him:

Paul Manafort, among many other treasonous things, gave election data to a Russian intelligence officer who specialized in election fuckery. He left prison early because of covid, and then got a full pardon. He’s been pretty quiet since. So has George Papadopoulos.

But not Steve Bannon. He’s a fount of disinformation via his War Zone podcast. After the pardon, he was convicted of contempt of Congress, although we’re still waiting for him to see the inside of a jail cell.

Had they not secured pardons from Trump—they didn’t have to sweat it out until the last possible moment; their pardons were prioritized—Roger Stone and Mike Flynn may have been in prison in January 2021, instead of in the thick of the insurrection activity. Pardoning Roger Stone is like fertilizing a tumor. Pardoning General Flynn is like freeing General Zod. No good can possibly come of it.

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And I haven’t even mentioned Sheriff Joe Arpaio, or Trump’s well-heeled pal Conrad Black, or the art dealer Helly Nahmad, who ran an illegal gambling operation at Trump Tower.

Taken together, these are the sorts of people a president of Russia or Belarus or Uzbekistan might pardon. The takeaway is obvious: if you go to bat for Trump, don’t worry about prison; he’s got your back. How can Waltine Nauta look at all the Trump pardonees and not rest assured that his employer and protector will pardon him, too, if Trump winds up getting another term? Should FPOTUS become POTUS, I expect a firehose of pardons for the worst of the worst, including anyone convicted of crimes related to January 6.

The Constitution is vague on the subject, but presidential pardons are intended to correct errors or to show mercy, not to reward sycophants for their loyalty, and certainly not to obstruct justice. (The Founders kind of assumed the president would not be a mob boss.)

One last note about Ken Kurson: he wasn’t able to avoid further legal troubles. Just seven months after scoring his pardon from Trump, he was arrested again. He subsequently pleaded guilty to two misdemeanors related to his cyberstalking.

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Photo credit: President Donald J. Trump, joined by First Lady Melania Trump, pardons “Corn” as the 2020 National Thanksgiving Turkey Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2020, during the annual pardoning of the National Thanksgiving Turkey in the Rose Garden of the White House. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead.)