US President Donald Trump granted clemency to dozens of people on Wednesday, including his former strategist, Steve Bannon, the rapper Lil Wayne and former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, in one of his final official acts as president.
While Trump has drawn criticism for extending pardons to political allies, including former campaign chief Paul Manafort and former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, he’s issued fewer pardons than other recent presidents. Trump spoke to Bannon on Tuesday. People familiar with the pardon planning said on Monday that clemency for the former White House strategist, who was once estranged from the president, wasn’t being prepared. Trump ordered it at the last minute, the people said.
A pardon for Broidy, a fundraiser for both Trump and the Republican National Committee in 2016. Fugitive businessperson Jho Low initially paid $6m to Broidy and promised $75m more if he succeeded in persuading the justice department to walk away from its civil forfeiture case. The back-channel efforts failed and Low was indicted in 2018 on charges of conspiring to launder billions of dollars embezzled from 1MDB. He has denied wrongdoing.
A pardon for former Google executive Anthony Levandowski, an autonomous driving engineer who was ordered in August to spend 18 months in prison for stealing trade secrets from Google as he defected to Uber Technologies, in one of the highest-profile criminal cases to hit Silicon Valley. A pardon for former Representative Rick Renzi, an Arizona Republican who served three years in prison on corruption, money-laundering and other charges. He was convicted in 2013 of using his congressional seat to make companies buy his former business associate’s land so the associate could repay a debt to Renzi. Prosecutors also said he looted a family insurance business to help pay for his 2002 campaign.
Bannon pardoned for stealing from Trumpkins who put up their own money to build The Wall. Co-conspirators not pardoned. Clearly a favour for a crony.
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