WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump pardoned former chief strategist Steve Bannon as part of a wave of leniency actions in the last hours of his term in the White House that benefited more than 140 people , including rap performers, former members of Congress and other allies of him and his family.
The last-minute clemency, announced Wednesday morning, follows different waves of pardons over the past month for Trump associates convicted of the FBI’s investigation into Russia, as well as for his son-in-law’s father. Taken together, the actions underscore the president’s willingness, during his four years in the White House, to flex his constitutional powers in a way that defies convention and explicitly helps his friends and supporters.
Certainly, the latter list was heavily populated by more conventional candidates whose cases had been defended by criminal justice activists. A man who has spent nearly 24 years in prison accused of drugs and weapons, but who had shown exemplary behavior behind bars, was sentenced, as was a former sailor convicted in 2000 in connection with a convicted of cocaine.
But even so, they highlighted the names of Trump’s prominent allies.
In addition to Bannon, other beneficiaries of the pardon included Elliott Broidy, a Republican fundraiser who pleaded guilty last fall to a plan to pressure the Trump administration to drop an investigation into the looting of a wealth fund from Malaysia and Ken Kurson, a friend of Trump’s son-in-law. -The Jared Kushner Act, which was accused last October of cyberattacking during a heated divorce.
Bannon’s pardon was especially notable given that the indictment was still in its early stages and that any trial was months away. While the addressees of the pardon are conventionally regarded as defendants who have faced justice, often for having served at least some imprisonment, the pardon overturns the charge and effectively eliminates any possibility of punishment.
“Steve Bannon receives Trump’s pardon after defrauding Trump’s own supporters to pay for a wall that Trump promised Mexico would pay,” Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said on Twitter. “And if all this sounds crazy, it’s because it’s like that. Thank God, we only have 12 more hours of this lair of thieves ”.
And while other presidents have issued controversial pardons at the end of their administration, perhaps no commander-in-chief has so much enjoyed using clemency authority to benefit not only friends and acquaintances, but also celebrity defendants and allied defenders.
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, whose name is Dwayne Michael Carter, has often expressed support for Trump and recently met with the president on criminal justice issues. Others on the list include Death Row Records co-founder Michael Harris, and New York art collector and distributor Hillel Nahmad.
Other beneficiaries of the pardon include former Rep. Rick Renzi, an Arizona Republican who served three years for corruption, money laundering and other charges, and former California Duke Duke Cunningham, who was convicted of bribery. of $ 2.4 million from defense contractors. Cunningham, who was released from prison in 2013, received a conditional pardon.
Trump also commuted the prison sentence of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who has served about seven years behind bars for a scheme of machinations and bribery.
Bannon has been accused of cheating thousands of donors who believed his 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, paying a salary to a campaign officer and personal expenses for himself.
Bannon did not answer questions Tuesday.
Trump has already pardoned a number of longtime associates 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 and foreign conservatism, Bannon, who served in the Navy and worked at Goldman Sachs and as a Hollywood producer before turning to politics, directed Conservative Breitbart News before being chosen to serve as director. executive of Trump’s 2016 campaign in its critical final months.
He later served as the president’s chief strategist during the turbulent early days of the Trump administration and was at the forefront of many of his most controversial policies, including a ban on travel to several predominantly Muslim countries.
But Bannon, who clashed with other top councilors, was fired after less than a year. And his breakup with Trump deepened after he was quoted in a 2018 book making critical comments about some of Trump’s adult children. Bannon apologized and soon left office as president of Breitbart. He and Trump have recently reconciled.
In August, he was removed from a luxury yacht off the coast of Connecticut and taken to a Manhattan judge, where he pleaded not guilty. When he left the courtroom, Bannon ripped off his mask, smiled, and signaled to the cameras. As he walked toward a waiting vehicle, he shouted, “All this failure is to stop people who want to build the wall.”
The organizers of the group “Let’s build the wall” were eager to help the president build a “very beautiful” barrier along the border between the United States and Mexico, as promised during the 2016 campaign. more than $ 25 million from thousands of donors and pledged to allocate 100% of the money to the project.
But according to the criminal charges, much of the money never reached the wall. Instead, it was used to line the pockets of group members, including Bannon.
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Associated Press writer Zeke Miller contributed to this report.