Trump pardons Papadopoulos and former Republican members of Congress in raft of clemency grants
George Papadopoulos, a former campaign aide who admitted lying to the FBI, as well as two former Republican members of Congress who were early supporters of the president.
The names were among 15 pardons and five commutations announced Tuesday as Trump’s final days in the White House drew to a close, and they drew swift criticism from Democrats and others who said they undermined the rule of law.
A federal judge sentenced Papadopoulos in 2018 for lying to federal agents about conversations in which he was told that the Russian government had obtained “dirt” on Hillary Clinton, an exchange that was a precursor to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s decision to open an investigation into the Trump campaign.
Papadopoulos, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for Congress in California earlierthis year, was the first former Trump aide to be sentenced in special counsel Robert Mueller’s subsequent investigation of Russian election interference. He is the third Trump aide convicted in the Russia investigation to receive clemency.
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Trump also granted pardons to former Reps. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., and Chris Collins, R-NY. Hunter pleaded guilty to misusing campaign funds in 2019. Collins pleaded guilty to charges of conspiring to commit securities fraud and making false statements to the FBI and is currently serving a 26-month sentence, the White House said.
calling a recently approved bipartisan COVID economic stimulus measure a “disgrace” and suggesting that lawmakers should rework the $900 billion measure, months in the making.
Rolling back Mueller probe
The Papadopoulos pardon is yet another move by the president to roll back the nearly two-year investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
The president granted a pardon to Alex van der Zwaan as well on Tuesday. The Dutch attorney pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his work with two of Trump’s former campaign aides.
In November, Trump granted a controversial pardon to former national security adviser Michael Flynn, a retired Army general who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials. In October, he commuted lengthy prison sentences of five people, including four serving time for drug offenses.
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Earlier this year, he also commuted the sentence of longtime adviser Roger Stone just days before he was set to report to prison after he was convicted of lying to Congress and obstructing the Russia inquiry led by special counsel Robert Mueller.
Blackwater guards pardoned
Trump also pardoned four Blackwater security guards imprisoned for a mass shooting that killed 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians and wounded 17 others in 2007. The shooting heightened tensions between Baghdad and Washington and raised questions about the government’s use of private contractors during the Iraq war.
Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard were all former armed service members working as private security guards for Blackwater, now known as Academi, when their convoy traveled to a crowded traffic circle in downtown Baghdad as part of the effort to evacuate a U.S. diplomat on Sept. 16, 2007. Their Raven 23 security team was under contract by the State Department.
Details of the shooting remain in dispute, but at some point, the guards opened fire with machine guns and grenade launchers. They say the shooting started only after a white Kia sedan lurched out of stopped traffic and approached their four armored vehicles. The men had received intelligence reports that a white Kia might be used as a car bomb, so they feared they were under attack. No evidence of a bomb was ever found.
A federal jury convicted Slatten for the second time on a murder charge in 2018 amid allegations that he fired the shot that instigated the shooting. He was later sentenced to life in prison. A federal appeals court had overturned an earlier conviction and ordered that Slatten receive a new trial because he had not been allowed to introduce evidence raising doubts about whether he fired the opening shots.
Slough, Liberty and Heard also were convicted of manslaughter and firearms charges and sentenced to 30 years in prison. But a federal appeals court ruled in 2017 that they should be resentenced because their convictions included one count of committing a felony while armed with a military weapon. A federal judge cut their sentences in half last year.
More clemency possible
Trump is far from the first president to grant pardons with political ramifications. In his final days in office, President Bill Clinton pardoned financier Marc Rich, brother Roger Clinton and Whitewater business partner Susan McDougal. President George H.W. Bush pardoned aides caught up in the Iran-contra scandal of the mid-1980s. President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon a month after Nixon resigned as president.
But experts say Trump has departed from the norm by serving up a stream of controversial clemencies since the beginning of his term. The president granted his first pardon, in 2017, to former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio. The politically polarizing figure, who didn’t meet the Justice Department’s guidelines for a pardon, was convicted after defying a judge’s order to release inmates suspected of immigration offenses.
Prior to Tuesday’s announcement, Trump had granted 29 pardons, which overturn federal convictions, and issued 16 commutations, cutting short sentences.
Fox News personality Sean Hannity, a Trump ally, raised the prospect of Trump granting himself a preemptive pardon earlier this month. And Trump discussed whether to grant preemptive pardons to his children and lawyer Rudy Giuliani, The New York Times reported. Giuliani has denied discussing a preemptive pardon with Trump.
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Contributing: Kristine Phillips