Pardon Me? The Ugly Consequences of ‘No MAGA Left Behind’

 

Trump’s pardons cheat victims out of millions in restitution and fines, allowing fraudsters to keep their ill-gotten gains.

Crypto Corruption

Donald Trump’s penchant for using the presidency for personal enrichment, often on the taxpayers’ dime, is hiding in plain sight. Trump and his family have added over one billion dollars to their net worth through a series of cryptocurrency transactions launched after Trump’s reelection, including World Liberty Financial and the $TRUMP memecoin.

According to the minority report of the House Judiciary Committee,

America has never seen corruption on this scale take place inside the White House. This report shows how Trump’s so-called ‘pro-crypto agenda’ is just one more Trump family self-enrichment plan, built on pay-to-play deals and corrupt foreign interests seeking secret channels of access and influence…all the while dismantling federal oversight and safeguards that once protected Americans from fraud, scams, and financial exploitation.

Trump’s pardoning of MAGA-connected scammers is especially egregious since it cheats the victims out of a reported $1.3 billion in fines, forfeiture, and restitution, allowing fraudsters, tax evaders, and drug dealers to keep their ill-gotten gains.

No MAGA Left Behind

When Trump’s pardon attorney Ed Martin tweeted “No MAGA Left Behind,” he said the quiet part out loud. Martin implied that all Trump supporters convicted of a crime could be eligible for a pardon.

This effort got off to a smashing start when Trump, on his first day in office, granted unconditional clemency to the nearly 1600 people convicted of sacking the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. That included the more than 600 rioters convicted of assaulting Capitol police officers and 170 caught using a deadly weapon.

Those pardoned included Enrique Tarrio, the Proud Boys leader convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to 22 years; and Stewart Rhodes, the Oath Keepers founder who got 18 years. Both were released with time served.

Trump was just getting started.

Crypto Takes Care of Its Own

Last fall, Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, a Chinese-born Canadian billionaire who founded Binance, said to be the largest crypto-trading mecca. Prosecutors alleged that Binance had become “a central hub for terrorists, hackers, and human traffickers seeking to move [launder] their money.” Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) gives us the particulars:

First, Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to a criminal money-laundering charge. Then, he boosted one of Donald Trump’s crypto ventures [World Liberty Financial] and lobbied for a pardon. [Then,] Donald Trump did his part and pardoned him.

In an interview, Trump said he was “not concerned” about the appearance of corruption. “I only care about one thing,” Trump asked. “Will we be number one in crypto?”

Drug Kingpins Pardoned

During Trump’s 2024 reelection campaign, he promised to pardon Ross Ulbricht, the convicted founder of the dark web marketplace Silk Road. Trump was appealing to Republican Party libertarians, who regarded Ulbricht’s venture as a harmless expression of free enterprise.

Accordingly, Trump issued the pardon on Day 2 of his second term. But Silk Road was hardly benign. Ulbricht made millions of dollars from what prosecutors called a marketplace for “criminals hoping to buy and sell illegal drugs and other illicit goods and services outside the reach of law enforcement. ”

Oh, and in order to access the Silk Road site, users were required to pay with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

The Worst of the Worst

During his trial for helping drug traffickers move hundreds of tons of cocaine north through Honduras to the US, prosecutors allege the former two-term Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez once told a group of drug dealers,

[We’re] going to shove the drugs right up the noses of the gringos.

Hernandez got 45 years for his troubles. But the gringo-in-chief Donald Trump came to his rescue, issuing a pardon after the drug lord had served just 16 months.  Trump maintained that Hernandez was “treated very harshly and unfairly.” (Former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, currently being held in a Brooklyn jail, must be sighing wistfully.)

The pardon wipes clean months of trial preparation by prosecutors at the Southern District of New York. The US government will not collect the $8 million fine imposed at sentencing.

Rogues Gallery

Here, in no particular order, is a sampling of six randomly selected persons pardoned during Trump’s second term.

• Anti-abortion activists: On the third day of his second term, Trump pardoned 23 anti-abortion activists who were convicted of blockading a Washington, DC, abortion clinic and harassing patients and staff.
• Joseph Schwartz, a nursing home executive, was found guilty of a $38 million tax fraud scheme. According to a House lobbying disclosure form, Schwartz spent $960,000 to have lobbyists secure a pardon for him.
• Paul Walczak, another nursing home executive, was convicted of diverting $10 million of employment taxes to fund a lavish lifestyle. The pardon came three weeks after Walczak’s mother attended a $1 million-per-person fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago.
• Trevor Milton, the founder of an electric-vehicle start-up, was sentenced to four years for defrauding his company’s investors. Milton donated $1.8 million to Trump’s reelection campaign.
• Reality TV stars Todd and Jule Chrisley were convicted of a $30 million fraud and tax evasion scheme. Their daughter, Savannah Chrisley, was a vocal MAGA supporter who lobbied for their release from a 12-year sentence.
• Nevada Republican activist Michele Fiore was convicted of pocketing $70,000 she had raised for a memorial for fallen police officers, but instead used for personal expenses.

Coda

The power to issue a presidential pardon is rooted in the old English “royal prerogative of mercy,”  championed by Alexander Hamilton in Federalist 74, and codified in Article II, Section 2 in the US Constitution, which grants the president the authority to “grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.”

Perhaps the most famous presidential pardon was when President Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon for his Watergate crimes. We’ll never know whether Nixon finagled his pardon in exchange for resigning and going away quietly.

Trump likes to remind anyone who’s listening that he has the power to pardon anyone he chooses. And so he exercises that power with impunity, regardless of the quid pro quo optics. Remember Ed Martin saying the quiet part out loud: no MAGA left behind.

But running the government as a corrupt enterprise has never been a path to success. People do expect more from their elected leaders. The bill will inevitably come due. We the People will speak, and those caught with their hands in the public till will be vanquished.