SerpApi.Org
President Donald Trump’s liberal use of his pardoning power has already attracted scrutiny, and now one of his former Homeland Security officials predicts it will ultimately lead to his prosecution.
“As a consequence, he now holds more raw power over American industry than any recent occupant of the Oval Office and arguably any in history,” Miles Taylor, who worked for President George W. Bush before serving in Trump’s Homeland Security, wrote his Defiance Substack. “Not because of any new authorities but because of a novel and corrupt combination of them. Together, those powers open the door to unprecedented pay-to-play schemes.”
He continued that “the only solace I have about the president granting what amounts to “super pardons” is that he’s given us a gift. When power changes hands, he’s telling us exactly what to investigate. And he’s left much of it in the public records.”
Describing Trump’s aggressive use of his pardoning power as a form of “super-pardons” unknown to the Constitution’s drafters and the previous presidents who served under it, Taylor explained that Trump is both monetizing the ability to receive pardons and granting blanket pardons to not only individuals but entire companies.
“The freshest example landed just days ago,” Taylor wrote. “Ryan LaLone, a Michigan diesel shop owner convicted of tampering with emissions systems, received a presidential pardon and so did his actual business, Diesel Freak LLC. With the stroke of the pen, Trump erased a $750,000 penalty that LaLone and his company were facing, after the man became a cause célèbre in MAGA world for being a purported victim of Biden-era overreach (LaLone was charged with deleting controls on vehicles that were meant to stem emissions). Now both the man and the LLC have been absolved.”
He added, “It’s important to take a beat to understand how radical this is. For the 239 years since the Constitution was ratified, the pardon has typically been understood as an act of mercy for individuals. Presidents grant clemency to people who committed crimes but are seen as deserving a reprieve, whether because their sentences were unusually harsh or their convictions were unjust. The founders saw the power as a safety valve to temper the severity of the law and, on occasion, restore domestic tranquility. They didn’t envision it as a magic wand to be waved over entire corporations, i.e. legal fictions that cannot sit in a jail cell, cannot be executed, and cannot, in any meaningful sense, be shown ‘mercy.’”
Taylor also listed Trump’s pardon of cryptocurrency-linked businessman Arthur Hayes, three other former executives of the BitMEX crypto exchange — and then the entire company itself, wiping away its debt of $100 million in fines.
“Since then, Trump has extended clemency to nine companies and counting,” Taylor added. “As Bloomberg reports, the president has been wielding the pardon power in ways akin to a king granting favors to feudal landowners. His fortunate subjects span industries, from an auto supplier to a media startup to a crypto platform. In the process, almost $200 million in financial penalties (some of it intended for victims of wrongdoing) has been wiped out.”
By his analysis, “The full arsenal Trump can use for corporate forgiveness is staggering,” Taylor pointed out. “He’s realized he can regulate an industry or de-regulate it… he can award federal contracts or yank them away… he can open investigations or quietly close them. Wielded separately, each of these is a routine exercise of executive power. But wielded collectively and transactionally, they amount to something new: again, what I call the ‘super pardon.’ Trump has hacked together a way to make criminal liability, regulatory burdens, and competitive disadvantages all disappear for companies that he favors.”
In June, New York Times journalist Jonathan Swan — who, along with his colleague Maggie Haberman, co-authored a book called “Regime Change” about Trump’s second term — reported to C-SPAN’s Peter Slen that “Trump is essentially beyond the reach of the law in terms of actions. Trump has told senior advisers in the Oval Office that he's going to pardon anyone who came within 250 feet of the Oval Office. I don't think they feel any real concern about illegality."
Meanwhile earlier in July NPR's Ayesha Rascoe told NOTUS reporter Jasmine Wright reported that there is a literal cottage industry built around securing pardons from Trump. On one occasion rapper Boosie Badazz — a.k.a. Torence Ivy Hatch Jr. — decided to sue a lobbying firm that he claimed promised to secure a Trump pardon but ultimately failed to do so.
“$600,000: That's the amount rapper Boosie Badazz reportedly paid a Washington lobbying firm to secure a presidential pardon,” Rascoe told Wright. “The rapper, whose real name is Torrence Hatch, was looking to overturn a federal conviction over the unlawful possession of a firearm. But the pardon hasn't happened. Now Hatch is reportedly looking to recover half of what he paid through arbitration. The rapper's case represents a growing industry in Washington, D.C.: wealthy clients paying to try to secure clemency from President Trump.”
Related Articles:
・All of Trump's white-collar prosecutions share a single damning detail: legal expert
・Trump's blanket pardon plan has a loophole — and there's nothing he can do about it
・Trump's pardon-for-cash scheme crumbles as wealthy clients spill the beans
