Mr_X
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Trump announces wave of pardons, including Papadopoulos and former lawmakers Hunter and Collins
President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a wave of lame duck pardons, including two for men who pleaded guilty in Robert Mueller's investigation, as well as ones for Republican allies who once served in Congress and military contractors involved in a deadly shooting of Iraqi civilians.
www.cnn.com
President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a wave of lame duck pardons, including two for men who pleaded guilty in Robert Mueller's investigation, as well as ones for Republican allies who once served in Congress and military contractors involved in a deadly shooting of Iraqi civilians.
The pardons of former campaign aide George Papadopoulos, former US congressmen Duncan Hunter and Chris Collins, and the four Blackwater guards involved in the Iraq massacre kick off what is expected to be a flurry of pardons and commutations in the coming weeks as Trump concludes his term.
Also included in the batch announced on Tuesday are Alex van der Zwaan, the Dutch lawyer who was sentenced to 30 days in jail after pleading guilty to lying to Mueller investigators; two Border Patrol agents convicted in 2006 of shooting and wounding an unarmed undocumented immigrant and then covering it up; and several people convicted of non-violent drug crimes serving lengthy sentences.
The pardons came at the recommendation of Trump allies in Congress and, in some cases, the conservative media. Many of the non-violent drug offenders were recommended for clemency by Alice Johnson, the former federal inmate whose sentence Trump commuted at the urging of Kim Kardashian West.
The announcement Tuesday also included commuting the remaining prison term of former Rep. Steve Stockman, a Texas Republican who was convicted by a jury in Texas of almost two dozen felonies, including fraud and money laundering.
In the release, the White House cited Stockman's age, 64, and said he "has underlying pre-existing health conditions that place his health at greater risk during the COVID epidemic, and he has already contracted COVID while in prison." He had served two years of his 10-year sentence for what prosecutors called a "a white-collar crime spree."
Others included in the clemency batch on Tuesday were pardons for Alfonso Costa, a dentist who pleaded guilty to health care fraud; Alfred Lee Crum, who pleaded guilty in 1952 to illegally distilling moonshine; Weldon Angelos, who was sentenced to 55 years in prison for selling marijuana and carrying a handgun; Philip Lyman, a county commissioner in Utah who was sentenced to 10 days in jail related to his protest of ATV restrictions on federal land; and Otis Gordon, who was convicted of possession with intent to distribute.
Philip Esformes, a Florida nursing home mogul convicted of paying bribes in a Medicare fraud case, also had some of his sentence commuted by Trump.
Trump also reduced the sentences of three women -- Crystal Munoz, Tynice Nichole Hall and Judith Negron -- convicted of drug crimes at the recommendation of Johnson, who has worked on behalf of other inmates after the President commuted her own sentence. Trump later granted Johnson a full pardon at this year's Republican National Convention.
Nicholas Slatten, 30, of Sparta, Tennessee, the team’s sniper, was found guilty of first-degree murder while armed in the slaying of the river of a white Kia sedan in the Baghdad traffic circle. Prosecutors said Slatten kicked off the incident when he opened fire.
The other verdicts:
– Paul Slough, 35, of Keller, Texas, was found guilty of 13 counts of voluntary manslaughter, 17 counts of attempted manslaughter and one firearms offense;
– Evan Liberty, 32, of Rochester, New Hampshire, was found guilty of eight counts of voluntary manslaughter, 12 counts of attempted manslaughter and one firearms offense;
– Dustin Heard, 33, of Maryville, Tennessee, was found guilty of six counts of voluntary manslaughter, 11 counts of attempted manslaughter and one firearms offense.
