- President Donald Trump’s final pardon was announced Tuesday night and included more than 140 people.
- Many on the list were low-level non-violent drug offenders, but Trump also gave forgiveness and mercy to some surprising figures.
- Among the list is a one-time nominated candidate for Trump administration, a snake smuggler and a former Google executive convicted of stealing trade secrets.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
President Donald Trump’s final waiver list was announced Tuesday with more than a hundred people on it, and none of them happened to be Joe Exotic.
Exotic and his lawyer Eric Love were hoping for a pardon – Love allegedly waited outside Exotic’s jail with a limo on standby (after a few hours he drove away). Exotic was sentenced to 22 years on more than a dozen charges of animal cruelty and two counts of attempted murder.
But, surprisingly, the exotic animal world wash represented on the last list of the president. Robert Bowker pleaded guilty to trafficking in wildlife 30 years ago after he was caught transporting 22 snakes to the Miami Serpentarium, an act for which he was offered 22 American alligators. Bowker was sentenced to probation and has worked extensively in custody over the past few decades. Trump granted him a full pardon.
Trump also looked at fellow politicians, including former Arizona Representative Rick Renzi, who was convicted in 2013 of extortion, bribery, insurance fraud, money laundering and racketeering in connection with the development of a mine outside Phoenix.
Renzi was released from prison in 2017. In a statement on Wednesday, he said: “After nearly 14 years of fighting for my innocence, it took a real man of action and courage in President Trump to finally relieve me of the heinous fraud of being convicted wrongfully. by a justice department that was involved in tampering with witnesses, illegal eavesdropping and gross misconduct of the prosecutor. ‘
Ken Kurson, who at one time was nominated to be on the board of the National Endowment for the Humanities, was also granted a preventative pardon in an ongoing cyber stalking case.
When the FBI began judging the former New York Observer editor for the NEH role, it was revealed that he was accused of harassing two doctors in Mt. Sinai Hospital, which he believes is to blame for the dissolution of his marriage in 2015.
A criminal complaint has been filed that alleged Kurson created fake online personas to harass the women, and that Kurson at one point contacted the woman’s employer to falsely accuse them of ‘improper contact with a minor’, according to CNBC.
Kurson is known as a good friend of Jared Kushner and was connected to him through his work at the Observer, the newspaper that Kushner once owned.
According to The New York Times, Kurson also helped write a campaign speech for Trump in 2016, and co-authored Rudy Giuliani’s 2002 book Leadership. Kushner’s father, Charles Kushner, was pardoned by the president in December.
Google’s former convict Anthony Levandowski has been backed by several corporate heavyweights, including venture capitalist Peter Thiel and CAA founder Michael Ovitz and Oculus founder Palmer Luckey.
Levandowski founded Google’s auto self-driving initiative, but then became embroiled in a civil lawsuit after being accused of sharing trade secrets with Uber. In March 2020, he pleaded guilty to one charge of secret theft and was sentenced to 18 months in prison.
More than a dozen pardons have gone to people convicted of violent drug offenses. In some cases, the convictions date back to the late 1980s and early 1990s. Many of the names given to Trump have been judged by # Cut50, a dual criminal law reform group.
Alice Johnson, who was pardoned by Trump in 2018 after being convicted of drug trafficking in 1996, was part of # Cut50’s efforts. (Johnson was completely forgiven by Trump in 2020 after speaking on his behalf at the Republican National Convention.)
A particularly notable commutation that Johnson fought for was that of Ferrell Damon Scott, who was convicted of possession with intent to distribute marijuana in 2007 and sentenced to life in prison under the Three Strikes Law. The commutation was backed by acting U.S. Attorney Sam Sheldon, who said he “strongly does not believe it. [Mr. Scott] deserves a mandatory life sentence. ‘