Pardon puffery

I read on MS-NOW (formerly MSNBC – wonder how many million $ that one letter change cost? Right now the current high is DoD to DoW at an estimate $125,000,000. In fairness,  though, Defense is six letters and War is three, so it is a 9 letter change. But by the same standard, it’s now My Source for News, Opinion and the World. Still a Ferrari per letter.) Anyway, Rachel Madcow is squealing about Presidential Pardons. She looks on them as a sort of Oval Office Simony (for those who didn’t pay attention in school, that is the practice of selling ecclesiastical favors.)

The question became unavoidable after the Republican started rewarding generous donors with clemency, culminating in a Wall Street Journal report, published shortly before Christmas, that described a dynamic that 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.”

In late 2024, while [Julio Herrera Velutini, a Venezuelan-Italian banker] was facing felony bribery and other charges in the case, his daughter, Isabela Herrera, donated $2.5 million to MAGA Inc., a super PAC devoted to Mr. Trump and run by his allies.

In May, her father’s lawyer, Christopher M. Kise, who had served on Mr. Trump’s legal defense team, negotiated an unusually lenient deal with the Justice Department. Under the deal, which was authorized by a top Trump appointee, Mr. Herrera agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor campaign finance charge, disappointing career prosecutors who had pushed for a harsher sentence.

The Times’ Peter Baker summarized the circumstances this way: “Her father faced bribery charges. She donated $2.5 million to a pro-Trump Super PAC. Trump’s Justice Department gave her father a lenient deal, overruling prosecutors. She gave another $1 million. Now Trump has pardoned her dad.”

How shameful that a President should appear to be corrupt, right? Well, George W. agreed:

The Times’ Thomas Edsall recently noted that in late 2008, George W. Bush pardoned Isaac Robert Toussie, a developer in Brooklyn who had pleaded guilty to mail fraud and making false statements to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. One day later, the then-Republican president revoked the pardon — because Toussie’s father had contributed $28,500 to the Republican Party, and Bush concluded the circumstances “might create an appearance of impropriety.” MS NOW

Have to admit, some of the pardons in the past year have seemed questionable – my favorites being pardoning a drug dealer the same week as blowing a Venezuelan boat out of the water for carrying – yep, drugs. One thing you can definitely say, our President is not one afflicted by consistency.

My take: Eliminate most Presidential pardons. They have turned into a joke, and that even the allegation that they are pay-to-play sure sounds like a reason to reform the process.

Oh, and while she is whining about the pardons besmirching the Presidential honor (or whatever you want to call it)it should be noted that if you Google Presidential pardons, the all time leader isn’t Donald Trump (he did less than 250 his first term). Nope, the top of the individual leaderboard  –  Joe Biden with 4,245. (However, note Andrew Johnson pardoned 7,000 former Rebels, and the REAL leader should be the late Jimmy Carter, who pardoned over 200,000 draft dodgers.  POTUS.com)

Category: 2024 Election, None, Politics