WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump pardoned former chief strategist Steve Bannon as part of a wave of mercy action in the last hours of his term in the White House, which benefited more than 140 people, including rap artists, former members of Congress and other allies of him and his family.
The last minute, announced Wednesday morning, follows separate waves of apologies over the past month for Trump aides convicted of the FBI’s Russia investigation, as well as for his son-in-law’s father. Collectively, the action underscores the president’s willingness, throughout his four years in the White House, to expand his constitutional powers in a way that defies the convention and explicitly helps his friends and supporters.
To be sure, the latest list is heavily populated by more conventional candidates whose cases have been put forward by criminal activists. The sentence of one man who spent almost 24 years in prison on charges of drugs and weapons, but behind the bars exemplary behavior has been overturned, as well as a former Marine who was sentenced in 2000 in connection with a conviction for cocaine .
But those names of prominent Trump allies stood out nonetheless.
In addition to Bannon, there were also Elliott Broidy, a Republican fundraiser who pleaded guilty last fall to a plan to persuade the Trump administration to drop an investigation into the looting of a Malaysian welfare fund, and Ken Kurson, a friend of Trump’s son. -legal Jared Kushner who was charged with cyber-stalking during a violent divorce last October.
Bannon’s pardon was particularly noteworthy, as the prosecution was still in its early stages and that any trial was months away. While pardons are usually seen as defendants confronted by justice, often by serving at least one prison sentence, the pardon destroys the prosecution and eliminates every possibility of punishment.
“Steve Bannon gets a pardon from Trump after he cheated Trump’s own supporters into paying for a wall that Trump promised Mexico would pay for,” the Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said on Twitter. ‘And if it all sounds crazy, it’s because it is. Thank God we only have 12 hours left of these thieves. ”
And while other presidents issued controversial pardons at the end of their administration, perhaps no commander-in-chief enjoyed using the grace authority so much as to benefit not only friends and acquaintances, but also celebrities’s and those put forward by allies. word.
Wednesday’s list includes his share of high-profile defendants. Among them were rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black, both convicted in Florida on gun charges. Wayne, nicknamed Dwayne Michael Carter, has regularly voiced support for Trump and recently met with the president on criminal law issues. Others on the list included Death Row Records co-founder Michael Harris and New York art dealer and collector Hillel Nahmad.
Other recipients of pardon include former Representative Rick Renzi, a Arizona Republican who served three years for corruption, money laundering and other charges, and former Representative Duke Cunningham of California, who was convicted of accepting $ bribes. 2.4 million of defense contractors. Cunningham, who was released from prison in 2013, received a conditional release.
Trump also overturned the prison sentence of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who served about seven years behind bars for racketeering and bribery.
Bannon is accused of defrauding thousands of donors who believe their money would be used to fulfill Trump’s main campaign promise to build a wall along the southern border. Instead, he allegedly diverted more than a million dollars and paid a salary to one campaign official and paid personal expenses for himself.
Bannon did not respond to questions Tuesday.
Trump has forgiven a number of longtime collaborators and supporters, including his former campaign president, Paul Manafort; Charles Kushner, the father of his son-in-law; his longtime friend and adviser Roger Stone; and his former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
A voice of nationalist, outsider conservatism, Bannon – who served in the Navy and worked at Goldman Sachs and worked as a Hollywood producer before turning to politics – led the conservative Breitbart News before being exploited to serve as CEO of Trump’s 2016 campaign in his critical last months.
He later served as chief strategist for the president during the turbulent early days of Trump’s government and was at the forefront of many of his most controversial policies, including his travel ban on several Muslim countries.
But Bannon, who clashed with other top advisers, was ousted after less than a year. And his rift with Trump deepened after he was quoted in a 2018 book, which made critical remarks about some of Trump’s adult children. Bannon apologizes and will soon step down as chairman of Breitbart. He and Trump recently reconciled.
In August, he was pulled from a luxury yacht off the coast of Connecticut and brought before a judge in Manhattan, where he pleaded not guilty. When he came out of court, Bannon tore off his mask, smiled and waved to news cameras. As he waited for a guard, he shouted, “This whole fiasco is to stop people who want to build the wall.”
The organizers of the “We Build The Wall” group have portrayed themselves as eager to help the president build a “big beautiful” barrier along the border between America and Mexico, as he promised during the 2016 campaign. They raised more than $ 25 million from thousands of donors and promised that 100% of the money would be used for the project.
But according to the criminal charges, much of the money never made it to the wall. Instead, it was used to carry the bags of group members, including Bannon.
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Associated Press author Zeke Miller contributed to this report.