Trump criticized Biden for his use of pardons. Who’s worse?
$1 Million for a Pardon
The New York Times reports Trump Pardoned Tax Cheat After Mother Attended $1 Million Dinner
That’s a free link. Spare me the sap about the source. If you think it is factually incorrect, comment away.
Paul Walczak’s pardon application cited his mother’s support for the president, including raising millions of dollars and a connection to a plot to publicize a Biden family diary.
As Paul Walczak awaited sentencing early this year, his best hope for avoiding prison time rested with the newly inaugurated president.
Mr. Walczak, a former nursing home executive who had pleaded guilty to tax crimes days after the 2024 election, submitted a pardon application to President Trump around Inauguration Day. The application focused not solely on Mr. Walczak’s offenses but also on the political activity of his mother, Elizabeth Fago.
Ms. Fago had raised millions of dollars for Mr. Trump’s campaigns and those of other Republicans, the application said. It also highlighted her connections to an effort to sabotage Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s 2020 campaign by publicizing the addiction diary of his daughter Ashley Biden — an episode that drew law enforcement scrutiny.
Still, weeks went by and no pardon was forthcoming, even as Mr. Trump issued clemency grants to hundreds of other allies.
Then, Ms. Fago was invited to a $1-million-per-person fund-raising dinner last month that promised face-to-face access to Mr. Trump at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla.
Less than three weeks after she attended the dinner, Mr. Trump signed a full and unconditional pardon.
It came just in the nick of time for Mr. Walczak, sparing him from having to pay nearly $4.4 million in restitution and from reporting to prison for an 18-month sentence that had been handed down just 12 days earlier. A judge had justified the incarceration by declaring that there “is not a get-out-of-jail-free card” for the rich.
A $2 Million Yacht
Mr. Walczak, 55, joined his mother’s nursing home business after dropping out of college, eventually becoming chief executive. After she sold the company in 2007, they invested $18 million in a new nursing home venture based in South Florida, where they lived a luxurious lifestyle.
By 2011, prosecutors said, Mr. Walczak had stopped paying employment taxes.
Between 2016 and 2019, they said, he withheld more than $10 million from the paychecks of the nurses, doctors and others who worked at his facilities under the pretext of using it for their Social Security, Medicare and federal income taxes. Instead, he used some of the money to buy a $2 million yacht and to pay for travel and purchases at high-end retailers, including Bergdorf Goodman and Cartier, prosecutors said.
He was charged in February 2023 with 13 counts of tax crimes.
By the time he pleaded guilty to two of the counts and agreed to pay the restitution on Nov. 15, 2024, Mr. Trump had been elected for a second term in the White House.
The family had reason to believe the incoming president might look fondly on a pardon application.
Ms. Fago, 74, had helped host at least three fund-raisers for Mr. Trump’s campaigns. She and her son Joey Fago (Mr. Walczak’s half brother) and his wife attended V.I.P. events at Mr. Trump’s 2017 and 2025 inaugurations, according to social media posts, including one in which she was shown posing with Mr. Trump.
After Mr. Walczak was pardoned in the tax case, he celebrated with his mother and family while wearing a red Trump-style hat reading “Make Paul Great Again,” according to a social media post capturing the celebration.
Pardons for Sale
There is more damaging material in the article if you are interested.
The details suggest the case is ironclad.
This pardon is worse than anything Biden did. It puts justice for sale. Rather, injustice for sale.
There “is not a get-out-of-jail-free card” for the rich. But it isn’t free. The current price is $1 million plus fundraisers for Trump.
If Biden put justice on sale, there would have been immediate calls for impeachment. Instead we have silence.
Trump’s Attacks on Law Firms Correctly Smacked Again by the Courts
On May 24, I commented Trump’s Attacks on Law Firms Correctly Smacked Again by the Courts
Trump took aim at Paul Weiss just for representing someone.
Illegal and unconstitutional extortion is what we have here. Trump collected a cool $40 million for it.
Justice is on sale and the price is $40 million.
Weaponization Irony
Without a doubt Biden illegally weaponized the Justice Department against Trump.
So did New York State in it’s preposterous tax case against Trump.
I defended Trump numerous times over this weaponization. In response I was accused of being “Extreme Right”. What a hoot. [I have also been accused many times of being extreme Left. An on 4 occasions both in the same day].
The weaponization backfired. It is one of the reasons Trump won.
Revenge
Trump’s response is even worse. He is targeting law firms just for defending someone.
The cult foolishly cheers.
The reparation for a law firm that displeases Trump is a cool $40 million.
The get-out-of-jail card for an individual is $1 million.
Even if you adore [Trump/Biden], for whatever reason, you are a big problem if you refuse to criticize clear violations of the constitution and ethics no matter who is in the White House.
That’s not it at all. Trump and His Family are.rich beyond imagination to most. They have everything they need, but want to be sure they can keep what they have earned.
Heck, Trump will have given to charity, by not taking a salary for 8 Years as President, more then probably every Democrat currently in office today has given in total for their entire lives!
He is like anyone else that has worked their butts off all their life, and would like to not have it taken away, like the last President and many before him!
He is trying to do the same for America, and save it from the massive Give away Crowd, that has been in control, other than him, over the past years. Stop giving Taxpayer’s Money and Land Etc. Away!!!
MIsh, why is this surprising? Precedent was set years ago. Did you forget Marc Rich’s pardon by Bill Clinton. At the time he was living in Switzerland. His pardon was lobbied by his wife(?). He was also the biggest individual tax cheat per the IRS.
See Pelosi , Shummer , Shiff , Fienstein and many more they have become what they condem , fabulously wealthy but Dems can’t figure out how they did it . They have a legion of followers who actually believe the garbage they spew .
Even if true and it may be , without balance it means little . So how much were the pardons worth for the autopen pardons that were blanket pardons for people who had not been charged with anything ? How much does it cost to have a senator congressman in your pocket ? How much was the pardons for Hunter worth ?
When you see people like Warren , Saunders , Shummer , Mcconnell , Burr , Shiff and they all are worth 10s of millions of dollars off a public servant salary of 400k it is the undeniable truth of the scale of corruption . Pelosi worth 200 million ! Sorry Mish but the horses left the barn along time ago and you didn’t even notice. Really surprised this would bother you .
Just more of the FAFO. Trump and his voters are mentally ill. If we are lucky Trump will be impeached in 2027, if we make it that long as a Democratic Republic. If we are even more fortunate Trump will expire before then, maybe next week.
If u tax luxury goods the crooks will have no reasons to speculate in creepto, buy fancy houses, expensive cars or a yacht. These smiling idiots are trying to impress their family and friends. To move from point A to B u don’t need a Ferrari. a Porsche or a yacht.
Biden and family made money and corrupt using his POTUS status.
Trump and family are making money and corrupt using his POTUS status.
DOGE is blind. Totally missed these corruption.
Without cleaning these highest visible corruption how they’re going to clean corruption in USA.
Excellent Post and right to the point! IF Trump is “For Sale” then we have a way bigger problem than “Favors” Not to mention the possible legality of it all?
I have zero issues with some favors being exchanged. That refers to a Legal Exchange. America was literally built on exchanges of Favors, but they were more like “Hey I’m an electrician and your a plumber, let’s help each other out with Labor and zero charges” That’s literally how it was done, and is still being done today. Ask anyone that has bought a fixer upper (I know a few) and this exchange of talents if you will is nearly mandatory, unless you’re extremely well rounded and licensed for it all. Far too costly and way too time consuming otherwise.
so don old is now in the church business? you pay for forgiveness and adore him you get benefits. impeach this geriatric benjamin obsessed clown.
Don’t tax the rich. Tax their expensive toys. Impose tariffs on pharma, mechanical and industrial machinery and medical products. Impose tariffs on luxury goods from from France, Italy, Germany and Japan. Deflate billionaire’s apt which cost a $100M. The top 10% have more wealth than the bottom 90%. Instead of frivolous spending the upper 10% will invest in the US economy. The middle class, protected by tariffs, will thrive. Their rising income and spending will keep consumption high.
In the light of day; not at the last minute. This is how pardons should be done. In the Mish world, the pardonable would be punished unduly for optics and wealth. Mish stop being a pharisee because you look heartless. Listen Understand Verify and, take decisive action and let the chips fall.
OK, some mangled metaphors: the US system, as you outlined, as a bipartisan matter, has grown erratic and untrustworthy. Each side has ample basis for finger-pointing, while the whole process drifts toward failure, actually, jerks in big moves toward failure(s). This affects (infects) its institutions at deep levels. The federalized fish rots from the head. The oscillation in 4 year cycles has set in, but may grow even more unstable in a faster track with crumbling across smaller institutional fault lines. We’re not sure which structural piece may break, and when. Officials with lots of guns and force are looking back toward HQ for the next brilliant edict. Attack these perceived enemies, release those convicts. Willy nilly.
We can only hope that our society does not, like SpaceX’s latest failed launch just did, as SpaceX cutely puts it, go into a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” In other rapid unscheduled disassembly risk news, Netanyahu reportedly has threatened to undo Trump’s Iran deal with a strike on Iran, and Russia’s economy is deeply geared for continued war in Ukraine. So much “winning.” The markets in full Stockholm syndrome buy the dip on news Trump will again retreat from his own threats, his own imposed and declared “emergency.” All we need now is more internal institutional instability, right? Unfortunately, the people on the bridge of the ship of state have their own murk-filled fishbowls on their heads. They are caught in weird new-media feedback loops of lurid tabloid illusion and reality-TV signalling. This soup does not look very palatable for anyone (who does not have a multi-billionaire lifeboat). As even the well-placed learned in late Rome, it can be a lifeboat to nowhere.
Now would be the perfect time for you to watch the nine eleven event.
Right freaking now!
Then come on back to this SAFE SPACE blogo-rama and pontificate, again….
Wait, what?
Yeah, that’s right, I thought you’d be humbled back into space where maybe this point is time in world history is ordinary.
Sleep well comrades…
As I’ve posted before, once fully functional GAI is released, which is in the next 8-15 years, it is inevitable that it will become our ruler. We will then either be enslaved, eliminated or taken care of with everything free.
Here’s a sad list worth pondering.
So 6 people don’t think it important to remind everyone that the USA has a long history of crooked politicians?
It’s clear that the checks and balances in the Constitution of the US are inadequate to protect the country from a rogue President when one of the checks (Congress in this case) refuses to act on behalf of the people.
I hope someone is taking notes when the opportunity for Constitution v2.0 comes around.
Meanwhile, the Dems (or their PACS) should be sketching out ads connecting the worst of Trump’s corruption to specific Republicans up for reelection over the next 16 months.
Each president’s skirting of the law enables the next president to kick their transgressions up a notch. This bullshit has gotten progressively worse over the years to the point that it’s now done out in the open and no one that can do anything about it seems to give a shit. Many supporters of whomever is in office will make excuses or simply ignore that their guy is doing the exact same thing or worse than the previous president (whom they hated). It’s all about winning and punishing the other side now.
America has fully devolved into a banana republic.
SMH….this will not end well.
Excellent post Mish. Instant 1 star Mishelin™ rating.
Too bad you banned Bayleaf, this was his comment from the link below regarding Biden’s pardon of his son: “Joe’s pardon of his son exemplifies his corrupt character. These democrats are truly of a despicable and dishonest kind. They have to live with that, but I don’t think they care.”
I’m sure if Bayleaf were around, he/she would be bashing Trump right now! /s
Or how about another banned MAGA clown Midnight: “Bzzz, nothing Trump has done is even remotely equivocal. If you had read the whole thread you’d realize that. The differences were enumerated more than once. Don’t be lazy.”
And then there is banned JayW with this nugget of wisdom: “The entire Biden presidency has been one big fat lie. Nobody should be surprised by this. Times are a changing though.”
Yes, they are a changing, how’s that working out JayW? Same circus different clowns?
And rinky stingpiece: “This should be carved in stone, under a statue of the Bidens, for posterity, so that whatever administrative processes they enact to slither away from accountability, that history remembers them accurately for what they are.”
And conspiracy theorist TexasTim: “This is all about the Ukraine coverup. That’s why its specifically for the last 10 years for anything he may or may not have done.”
What’s the conspiracy now Tim?
The silence is deafening on Trump’s cash for pardons from the “keepers of justice” in this blog. Lol.
https://mishtalk.com/politics/president-biden-a-hypocrite-and-a-liar-pardons-his-son-hunter/
Got exit strategy?
I’m not a conspiracy theorist. It’s absolutely clear why Biden set his pardon at 10 years. It was to cover the time in Ukraine. Otherwise why not backdate to the day he was born or 20 years etc.
This pardon by Trump is a joke the same as Biden’s was for Hunter. I don’t see why anyone should be pardoned *before* they serve at least some of their sentence. Hunter wasn’t even allowed to be charged. This guy isn’t even going to serve any time at all.
I also don’t see why the pardon absolves him of paying back the 4 million, as it should just absolve the jail time, not the restitution part. Otherwise, if someone had pardoned Madoff before he died, would he have been absolved of paying back billions???
To the victor belong the spoils.
Democrat or Republican, it matters not.
Big Picture:
There are many indications that the world economy is hitting a turning point because of rising population and diminishing returns with respect to resource extraction. For example:
[a] Debt levels are very high in the US and other countries. A rising debt level can temporarily be used to pull an economy forward without adequate energy supplies because it indirectly gives workers and businesses more spendable income. This income can be used to work around the lack of inexpensive energy products of the preferred types in a variety of different ways:
What we are finding now is that these new approaches tend to encounter bottlenecks of their own. For example, oil supply is sufficiently constrained that the current level of international trade no longer seems to be feasible. Also, wind and solar don’t directly replace oil; electricity based on wind turbines and solar panels can lead to blackouts. Furthermore, diminishing returns with respect to oil and other resources tends to get worse over time, leading to a need for ever more workarounds.
If at some point, extraction becomes more constrained and workarounds fail to provide adequate relief, added debt will lead to inflation rather than to hoped-for economic growth.
Higher inflation is the issue that many advanced economies have been struggling with recently. This is an indication that the world has hit limits to growth.
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2025/05/27/economic-contraction-coming-right-up/
I am not clear why anyone would bother investing …. it’s all going to ZERO.
Follow my lead – bucket list
Currently on a 10 week trip through the Aussie outback in a 4×4 rig…
The more long term problem is ‘why be honest, why pay my fair share’. Part of what made America is that at some level we had faith in the system and believed most people played by the rules so 90% of us did. (I will agree that the breakdown has been slowly coming but we are now on steroids) Four years of this and who will play by the rules. The long term damage is going to change who we are as a society.
Why be honest and fair, because the Scripture says:
“So how will it be when We assemble them for a Day about which there is no doubt? And each soul will be compensated [in full for] what it earned, and they will not be wronged.”
In dog-eat-dog America if you are not with one faction or another aren’t you just a delightful entrée for the local cannibals? Rich and free or poor and in prison: is that really a choice? Politics hasn’t changed since the Akkadian Empire, only now the delusions about it are published at the speed of light.
Yes, the new survival model is predatory. The game is zero-sum. The rug-pull starts at the population’s former lower 50 percent (on extinction list, see infrastructure like fed-supported hospital systems crumbling soon), then the former middle class is on the menu. The model is like private equity roll-ups on steroids. I think we might become some combo of declining Britain and 21st century Russia. Gated fortified communities with plenty of concertina wire.
Punishment is a good enough deterrent for me.
It is bizarre that we are even talking about this. I have to say, that people follow the acts of leaders. I thought this country was in trouble already. What happens next?
Read the Roman Times.
These antics are all end stage empire stuff. A big warning sign that the end is near is the fact that politicians aren’t bothering to hide their graft anymore. Not with gifts of jumbo jets, cash for pardons, stock market manipulations, etc.
If you’re not cashing in on it, good luck to you being a peasant.
“Without a doubt Biden illegally weaponized the Justice Department against Trump.”
Mish, I am sure you are not taking Trump’s word on this…
What leads you to this conclusion? I am genuinely curious.
This summarizes my take:
”Biden’s Justice Department, under Attorney General Merrick Garland, waited almost two years to appoint a special counsel, Jack Smith, to investigate Trump – prodded not by Biden but by the findings of the bipartisan House Jan. 6 investigation.”
https://zeteo.com/p/trump-republicans-weaponization-biden-doj
They waited til Trump announced he was running. They didn’t wait because they were good guys or because they’d been slowly building a case. They only sic’d the courts on him because he’d become a candidate.
Anyone who say Biden was worse or Trump is worse is really missing the point, ya now living in a country so corrupt it’s a banana republic. It’s like debating who will hit the tarmac first after everyone jumped off a building. It was always gonna happen, this trajectory has been obvious for decades, the US is rotten to the core & when she falls no one will miss it.
Yes, but there is a trajectory. It is getting brazenly against rules now, by new leaps. Not pretending to follow protocols or limits at all. The world is forever corrupt to some degree, there is always cheating but there is such a thing as a tolerable or survivable degree. We are just now testing the limits.
pardoned or not geez these are creepy people
https://archive.is/1X649
We can be rest assured that trump doesn’t do anything from the kindness of his heart. The price for the pardon is “undisclosed.”
Isn’t it ironic that trump won the presidency as a result of voter distaste for biden. Now, given trump’s escapades thus far, these same individuals are saying that perhaps biden wasn’t so bad after all.
An interesting change of events……….
Not irony, stupidity. Trump has a history of corruption, immorality, lies & grifting. That’s if sheeple believe voting actually matters, which it doesn’t, they are all in it together & play the sheeple, like sheeple.
No way back from this. How can anyone think this is right?
No way back from auto-pen either. How was that OK?
Is Trump going to be as senile as Biden?
He might, or perhaps not. But his actions are certainly worse than Biden’s were (and i was no fan). And, Biden was not on the ballot in the end. I think it’s safe to say that on the whole Harris would have been less bad than Trump has been so far.
It wasn’t
It’s all scummy. No excuse. But “pre-emptively” pardoning his kid for 14 years (and likely a LOT more $$) sounds worse to me, sorry. Not to mention Fauci who arguably killed millions with his Covid lies and obfuscation ALSO getting “preemptive” pardons. WAY worse, buddy
Oh, please a Hunter reference?!? Trump’s family and kids have collected 100x the money under far more criminal acts. Even before Trump came back, Hunter got some $14 million while Jared got what, $1,000 million? Since then LOL
Hunter “selling access” to the presidency is a JOKE watching whats going on now.
YP, I think you’ll find that Jared “got” a billion $ in the same way a mutual fund “got” your money.
I assume the price depends on the crime. That’s how I’d do it anyway.
That’s how it worked in third-world countries where I traveled some, in days of yore. Officials there work on tips. I heard a guy caught “his” female counterpart in bed with another fellow, and killed the fellow. The official discussion then becomes, who are they, how connected, and what crime. In that case the killer’s price of freedom was reportedly $40,000. Another guy won a case stateside against his bank, which happened to be connected in that other country. That other country arranged issuance of a trumped up (sorry, pun) filing of criminal charges, and warrant for the guy’s arrest. That took some schmoozing over. We used to laugh about it being there, and not here. But now it is here? We are becoming like every country we criticized and ridiculed.