Actually, it’s injustice for sale. Pay the fee and Trump will sign.
How to Fast Track a Presidential Pardon
The Wall Street Journal looks Inside the New Fast Track to a Presidential Pardon
President Trump had just awarded a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom for Charlie Kirk in October when his son ushered friends toward the Oval Office.
As a string ensemble played in the background, Donald Trump Jr. walked up with lobbyist Ches McDowell to chat with the president. Trump Jr. at one point pulled McDowell forward to shake the president’s hand, according to a livestream broadcast. After they went inside, McDowell took the president aside to discuss a pressing issue, according to people familiar with the matter: One of his clients was seeking a pardon.
The client was Changpeng Zhao, founder of the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance. That afternoon, the president agreed to sign Zhao’s pardon, the people said.
Zhao was one of the beneficiaries of a new, informal path to presidential pardons that has become a feature of Trump’s second term, which allows some clemency applicants with deep pockets or politically connected lobbyists to circumvent the traditional pardon process.
The president formally signed the pardon for Zhao a week later, setting off an uproar in Washington. Democrats—pointing to steps Binance has taken that boosted the cryptocurrency company that Trump Jr. co-founded along with his father and brothers, World Liberty Financial—said the move amounted to brazen corruption. Several Republicans, including Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Trump donor Joe Lonsdale, said they were alarmed by it. Trump ally Laura Loomer called it a “terrible Pardon idea.”
For Binance, it was the culmination of a nearly yearlong effort to pursue clemency for its founder. It had paid lobbyists around $800,000 to lobby for a pardon, U.S. policy changes and other matters, according to federal records. It also approached other lobbyists about a pardon, offering success fees of as much as $5 million if they could help secure one, according to people familiar with the outreach. The company pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money-laundering rules and paid a $4.3 billion fine, and Zhao served a four-month prison sentence on a related charge. A pardon could make it easier for the company to return to the U.S. market.
The clemency for Zhao was one in a series of pardons in recent months that have surprised even some of the president’s closest advisers. This month alone, Trump pardoned a former Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernández, who had been convicted of conspiring with cartels to ship 400 tons of cocaine to the U.S.; a Texas Democrat, Henry Cuellar, charged with taking nearly $600,000 in foreign bribes; and a sports executive, Tim Leiweke, who had been indicted by Trump’s own Justice Department.
Trump pardoned Hernández so quickly that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and other senior officials had no advance notice—and even Roger Stone, a longtime Trump ally who had been pushing for the pardon, told people he was stunned by Trump’s speed. Stone said he wasn’t paid for his advocacy, which he said came after he had reviewed the case.
Trump had asked aides for months if Cuellar would flip to the Republican Party if he pardoned him, according to people familiar with the conversations.
Trump has spawned a pardon-shopping industry where lobbyists say their going rate is $1 million. Pardon-seekers have offered some lobbyists close to the president success fees of as much as $6 million if they can close the deal, according to people familiar with the offers.
Conservative operatives Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, who themselves pleaded guilty to felony telecommunications fraud in 2022, were paid $960,000 in the second quarter to lobby for a pardon for a former nursing-home operator who pleaded guilty to defrauding the government of $38 million. Trump pardoned the man, Joseph Schwartz, last month.
Binance paid McDowell $450,000 in the third quarter, during which he was registered to lobby for only 10 days. He said he wasn’t paid a success fee.
In an interview on CBS’s “60 Minutes” that month, Trump was asked about the Zhao pardon and the appearance of pay-for-play. “I know nothing about it because I’m too busy,” Trump replied. “I can only tell you this. My sons are into it. I’m glad they are, because it’s probably a great industry, crypto.” World Liberty’s website says the company is about 40% owned by a Trump family entity.
Merry Christmas
The GOP would be beside themselves if all this broad and deep graft occurer under a democratic President.
Not if they were getting their cut, like in the defense budget.
NOW you tell us. And all I got my conniving convicted fraudster uncle for Christmas was a pair of socks (hand made in England, mind you) when for only $999,980 more I could have changed his life (not to mention the lives of his future victims).
Well, we have 3 more years to ante up.
No big deal..Biden gave em away for free.
From a non US citizen point of view, the whole Presidential pardon thing makes a mockery of your “justice” system and the supposed separation of 3 branches etc.
Staggering corruption, the equal of any banana republic.
Both sides have corrupt for a long as the eye can see.
The pardon corruption did not start with Trump and won’t end with Trump.
Yes. but Trump ran on the Biden corruption issue-just like Epstein and no wars. If you still supported Trump before yesterday, I hope Santa came by and gave you a brain.
If only he’d told us who he was before the election.
He did, MAGA suffers from low comprehension… and even lower moral standards.
Epstein = MAGA = Trump
Welcome to the matrix.
Vintage taco. How much of this $1 million payment for criminal freedom finds its way into taco’s pockets, either directly or indirectly?
Corruption pure and simple. America First sold down the river.
Good time to refresh this wisdom:
“For whether it be one thing or another, this much is true — either the Constitution has authorized this form of government or it has been powerless to prevent it. Either way, it is unfit to exist.” — Lysander Spooner, c. 1840
This isn’t about money? What’s a man gonna do with money with very little time left alive? This is total madness how so many chase money like they’re immortal when they have already so much. Money is a man made drug, only time & innocence are the most valuable asset in this world. How stupid can you be.
Pigs. Nothing more.
The more you have, the more you want more…..It’s a psychiatric illness.
It’s an addiction that psychopaths have.
Sometimes the pardon relates to votes rather than $. There are no specific promises made by either side but the implication is there.
So as long as one commits a crime that earns them greater than $1 million the rest is easy profit, it’s called lawlessness. The US will be gone within 5 years.
It’s quite reasonable, even for a working man like myself. What devilry shall I get up to?
The US were gone the moment that Pres. Washington led the charge against tax evaders.
Y’all just don’t understand the 5-D chess.
Are there supposed to be checkers a Pokémon cards on the board?
In the last days of the Roman Empire, the whims of a madman like Nero were a symbol of how far it had fallen. The American Empire is now falling as a madman controls the levers of power in his descent into madness and senility. How ironic that those who wanted America to regain its firmer glory now sow the seeds of its complete destruction.
Biden used the auto-pen. Trump is the auto-pen.
Draining the swamp. Into baby bottles.
Have you noticed he no longer talks about the swamp? Since he is now the Swamp Monster, he won’t drain it, he depends on it.
Yep. Worst President ever.
Now. Back to what is really important today. Family and friends.
Merry Christmas to all!
Ditto.
Enjoy it cut if it’s not your last, it maybe your last but one. Christmas? Don’t make me laugh.
this is DEMOCRACY in FREE WORLD.
You like me. You choose me.
Don’t complain.
Donald is and always has been purely transactional. He does not rely on the usual decision-making process, which for most people incorporates an inherent values-based “good vs. evil” approach. Additionally, he does not strive for a win-win outcome in a negotiation; he sees it as a win-lose competition. Without involving a values-based right-or-wrong calculation, all that remains is a transaction and how much can be gained at the expense of the person on the other side.
Trump is the complete representation of the kind of people who voted for him. We need a conservative party in the US.
You are right! There is nothing “conservative” about Donald Trump. He is no more than a “hired gun” for various factions within the Republican Party.
That’s a lot of money; almost ten months worth of labor for Hunter Biden working hard for Burisma…..
what is your point?
Are you saying that Hunter is more guilty than Trump?
Was Hunter Biden ever President?
This is your president pardoning dangerous criminals who have been convicted in a court of law. These pardons are likely in exchange for money or favours. Meanwhile Trump is killing people without due process.
This is the path to greatness?
The US is being invaded by a dictator and he ain’t from Russia or China.
That’s it? That is all you have to offer? Whataboutism?
Ah, so whataboutism is your game. What about Jr, Eric, and Kushner? What about the hundred million dollar deals between the DoD and contractors where Jr sits on the boards. Or the company that’s never had a government before now? Or the deals Kushner makes in the name of peace? Gotta keep people from fighting each other somehow and that comes at price. Hmm… oh yea and meme coins. How much was made in fees alone? None refundable fees. Was it 7 figures, 8, 9? How much are people funneling to him that’s untraceable? You know if the Arabs can afford a $400M plane, there’s a lot more where that came from. This president will probably leave office gaining more money than all of the combined assets of the entire Congress.
“Show me a man that gets rich by politics and I’ll show you crook” Harry S Truman
Spot on. The problem is systemic.
Did Blago get a discount?
Would that even cover the cost of a typical, “Hookers and Blow” Hunter Biden weekend?
This is the best defense you could come up with for Trump?
pretty weak…
Like a have always said, we have the best government money can buy. BTW, Happy Holidays.