Time Is Running Out to Get a Pardon From Trump
He’s granted them based on impulse and personal connections, which some petitioners see as an eleventh-hour opportunity.
A banner outside federal court in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 20, 2020.
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/BloombergThe week before Christmas, President Donald Trump issued a series of pardons and commutations, many of them for his personal associates and political loyalists: his son-in-law’s father, Charles Kushner; former operatives Roger Stone and Paul Manafort; and two former GOP congressmen. Hardly any of the 49 people who received clemency were vetted by the U.S. Department of Justice’s pardon office.
Trump has largely wrested the clemency process from the Justice Department, turning it into a lobbying bonanza that has outraged Democrats. But he has also given hope to people like Hershy Marton.