Trump Corruption, Continued

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start. Its corruption is unprecedented. Qatar's gift of a jet is just one example. His memecoin is another. Abuse of pardons is third.

Kenneth P. Vogel at NYT:

As Paul Walczak awaited sentencing early this year, his best hope for avoiding prison time rested with the newly inaugurated president.

Mr. Walczak, a former nursing home executive who had pleaded guilty to tax crimes days after the 2024 election, submitted a pardon application to President Trump around Inauguration Day. The application focused not solely on Mr. Walczak’s offenses but also on the political activity of his mother, Elizabeth Fago.

Ms. Fago had raised millions of dollars for Mr. Trump’s campaigns and those of other Republicans, the application said. It also highlighted her connections to an effort to sabotage Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s 2020 campaign by publicizing the addiction diary of his daughter Ashley Biden — an episode that drew law enforcement scrutiny.

Mr. Walczak’s pardon application argued that his criminal prosecution was motivated more by his mother’s efforts for Mr. Trump than by his admitted use of money earmarked for employees’ taxes to fund an extravagant lifestyle.

Still, weeks went by and no pardon was forthcoming, even as Mr. Trump issued clemency grants to hundreds of other allies.

Then, Ms. Fago was invited to a $1-million-per-person fund-raising dinner last month that promised face-to-face access to Mr. Trump at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla.

Less than three weeks after she attended the dinner, Mr. Trump signed a full and unconditional pardon.

An April 11 release from the US Department of Justice:

Owner Of Florida Health Care Companies Sentenced for Employment Tax Crimes

Friday, April 11, 2025
For Immediate Release
Office of Public Affairs
Defendant Did Not Pay Over $10M in Taxes


A Florida man was sentenced today to 18 months in prison, two years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $4,381,265.76 in restitution to the United States for willfully failing to pay over employment taxes and willfully failing to file individual income tax returns.

According to court documents and statements made in court, Paul Walczak controlled a network of interconnected health care companies operating under various names, including Palm Health Partners. Through another of his entities, Palm Health Partners Employment Services (PHPES), Walczak employed over 600 people and paid over $24 million annually in payroll. As such, Walczak was required to withhold Social Security, Medicare, and federal income taxes from his employees’ paychecks and to pay those monies over to the IRS each quarter, and to pay the companies’ portion of Social Security and Medicare taxes.

For more than a decade, Walczak was not compliant with his tax obligations and instead used the withheld taxes to enrich himself. In 2011, Walczak did not pay two quarters of withheld taxes to the IRS. In 2012, the IRS began collection efforts, including by sending him notices about his unpaid taxes, and by meeting with Walczak to help bring him into compliance. When that effort was unsuccessful, the IRS assessed the outstanding taxes against him personally. After that was imposed, Walczak paid the assessments in October 2014. Walczak’s compliance did not last long, however. By the end of the following year, Walczak was again withholding taxes from his employees’ paychecks and keeping the money.

From 2016 through 2019, Walczak withheld $7,432,223.80 of taxes from his employees’ paychecks, but did not pay those taxes over to the IRS. While Walczak was withholding taxes from the pay of his employees under the pretext of paying these funds to the IRS, he used over $1 million from his businesses’ bank accounts to purchase a yacht, transferred hundreds of thousands of dollars to his personal bank accounts, and used the business accounts for personal purchases at retailers such as Bergdorf Goodman, Cartier, and Saks. During this same time, he also did not pay $3,480,111 of his business’s portion of his employees’ Social Security and Medicare taxes.

By 2019, the IRS had assessed millions of dollars in civil penalties against Walczak. Beginning with the 2018 tax year, Walczak also stopped filing personal income tax returns despite that he was still receiving income including a $360,000 salary from PHPES and $450,000 in transfers from his business bank accounts.

Moreover, in 2019, Walczak created a new business, NextEra. Walczak used a family member as the 99% nominal owner of NextEra, but Walczak had ultimate control of the finances and operations of NextEra. Through NextEra, Walczak transferred in 2020 just under $200,000 to a bank account titled in a family member’s name, over $250,000 to a bank account in his wife’s name, and over $800,000 in payments directly to third parties for Walczak’s personal expenses, including clothing stores, department stores, and fishing retailers.

In total, Walczak caused a tax loss to the IRS of $10,912,334.80

Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney Karen E. Kelly of the Justice Department’s Tax Division and Special Agent in Charge Emmanuel Gomez of IRS Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI) Miami Field Office made the announcement.

IRS-CI investigated the case.

Trial Attorneys Brian Flanagan, Andrew Ascencio, and Ashley Stein of the Justice Department’s Tax Division prosecuted the case.
Updated April 11, 2025

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I interviewed a guy who did The Big Short, except using $TRUMP coin.

He got a free dinner with the President out of it. pic.twitter.com/NpLm5QEAop

— Tina Nguyen (@tina_nguyen) May 27, 2025

Trump Administration and Ethics

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The second Trump administration is off to an ominous start.  Just a few weeks in, it is not only unethical, it is waging war on ethics.

 Jack Blanchard at Politico Playbook:

• The president signed a new executive order halting enforcement of the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which blocks American companies from offering bribes to foreign governments, per FT’s Steff Chávez. (“It’s going to mean a lot more business for America,” he said.)
• The Justice Department moved to end the federal bribery case against NYC Mayor Eric Adams, Fox News’ Brooke Singman and colleagues scooped. Acting Deputy AG Emil Bove’s directive to the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office “raises urgent questions about the administration of justice during Mr. Trump’s second term and the independence of federal prosecutors,” NYT’s William Rashbaum and colleagues report.
• Trump pardoned former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who went to prison for eight years for trying to sell off a Senate seat, as Axios’ Alex Isenstadt scooped.
• Trump dismissed David Huitema as head of the Office of Government Ethics, even though he’d only recently begun his five-year term, CNN’s Fredreka Schouten reports. VA Secretary Doug Collins was tapped as interim head of the office — another instance of replacing an independent watchdog with a loyalist.
• Trump fired Hampton Dellinger, head of the whistleblower-protecting Office of Special Counsel — but a federal judge ordered Dellinger (who quickly filed suit) temporarily reinstated, per the AP.

Opinion on Trump Policies

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. 

Karlyn Bowman at AEI:

Trade: Trump has discussed a new 10 percent tariff on imports from China and a 25 percent tariff on imports from Mexico and Canada. There is longstanding concern in public opinion about China’s unfair trade practices as well as sustained support for protecting workers’ jobs and American manufacturing. Fifty-two percent of registered voters in the new Harvard CAPS/Harris poll favored imposing tariffs on China. Fewer, 40 percent, supported new tariffs on Canada and Mexico. In a new AP/NORC poll, only 29 percent favored a tariff on all imports, while 46 percent opposed the idea. Sixty-eight percent in the Wall Street Journal poll said new tariffs would raise prices.

Immigration: Americans want policymakers to get serious about the border and illegal immigration. In the Harvard/Harris poll, 61 percent favored closing the border and reinstating past policies that discouraged illegal immigration (39 percent were opposed). Seventy-one percent favored deporting undocumented or illegal immigrants who have committed crimes (29 percent were opposed). There is majority support in several polls for mass deportations. The new Fox poll, however, provides a more nuanced impression: 30 percent of registered voters wanted to deport all illegal immigrants, 50 percent deport only those with a criminal record (but allow those without a record to remain and eventually qualify for citizenship), and 10 percent allow all illegal immigrants to stay.

NATO: For years, Americans have believed our NATO allies aren’t contributing their fair share to defense costs. Forty-five percent in the Harvard/Harris poll wanted to raise NATO members’ minimum contributions to 5 percent of their GDP, but 55 percent were opposed to this substantial increase which is larger than what the US spends on its own defense. Only 24 percent wanted to withdraw from the alliance.

Energy and Environment Policy: Americans want to tap America’s vast energy potential — but carefully. Forty-seven percent in the Harvard/Harris poll favor undoing Biden’s ban on offshore oil and gas drilling, but 53 percent are opposed. In the AP/NORC poll, the public split more evenly on increased oil drilling on federal lands, with 35 percent in favor, 39 percent opposed, and 25 percent in the middle. In the Wall Street Journal poll, 50 percent favored easing these regulations, but 46 percent were opposed. More than twice as many Americans opposed withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement as favored the action, 52 percent to 21 percent. As the data on NATO and energy show, Americans see value in working with other countries to address problems.

Pardons: In the AP/NORC poll conducted before Trump’s executive order, 60 percent opposed pardoning most people who participated in the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, with 21 percent in favor. The Wall Street Journal poll found 57 percent opposed and 38 percent in favor.

Government: Americans have long believed that the government in Washington is wasteful and inefficient. In the Journal’s poll, 53 percent wanted Trump to make changes in how government is run, but 61 percent opposed closing the Department of Education. Sixty-one percent opposed replacing thousands of career civil servants with presidential appointees.

Trump Greenlights Violence

Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses the aftemath of the January 6 insurrection.

Ivana Saric at Axios:

Here are the most notorious Jan. 6 defendants impacted by Trump's executive order.

Enrique Tarrio: ex-Proud Boys leader

One of the most well known rioters to receive a pardon is Henry "Enrique" Tarrio, the former leader of the right-wing extremist Proud Boys group.Tarrio was sentenced in 2023 to 22 years in prison after being found guilty of engaging in seditious conspiracy related to the Jan. 6 riot, the longest prison sentence handed down in the Jan. 6 cases.
Seditious conspiracy is committed when two or more people in the U.S. conspire to overthrow, destroy, seize the property of or levy war against the U.S. government, or to prevent the execution of any U.S. law.

Zoom in: While Tarrio wasn't at the Capitol riot himself, prosecutors argued that he maintained command over the Proud Boys during that time and took credit for what unfolded on behalf of the group.Tarrio's mother posted on X Monday night that her son was being released. "Tarrio is free!" she wrote.

Stewart Rhodes: founder of Oath Keepers

Trump commuted the sentence of Stewart Rhodes, founder of the far-right militia group Oath Keepers.Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2023 for seditious conspiracy, after he helped lead a plot to halt the certification of the 2020 election results.
Rhodes was released from prison early Tuesday morning, Reuters reported.

 Trump pardons Proud Boys leaders

Three other Proud Boys leaders — Joseph Biggs, Zachary Rehl, and Ethan Nordean — were all military veterans and Proud Boy leaders who had their sentences commuted by Trump.Biggs and Rehl were sentenced for seditious conspiracy and other charges in their Jan. 6 cases, with Biggs was sentenced to 17 years in prison and Rehl to 15 years in prison.
Nordean was sentenced to 18 years in prison after also being found guilty of seditious conspiracy.
It was not immediately clear when the trio would be released.
Kelly Meggs: Oath Keepers leader

One of Rhodes' top deputies, Kelly Meggs, also had his sentence commuted by Trump.Meggs, a former Florida leader of the Oath Keepers, had been sentenced to 12 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other felonies.
His wife, Connie Meggs, also received a pardon for her role in the riot, per Reuters.

Go deeper: Trump pardons most Jan. 6 defendants

The Pardoner's Tale

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Our next book covers the 2024 election.  The pardon of Hunter Biden is a discordant coda to an issue that the GOP had hoped to use against Joe Biden in the general election.

Betsy Woodruff Swan at Politico:

Hunter Biden’s pardon looks a lot like Richard Nixon’s.

President Joe Biden’s grant of clemency on Sunday night — an extraordinary political act with extraordinary legal breadth — insulates his son from ever facing federal charges over any crimes he possibly could have committed over the past decade.

Experts on pardons said they could think of only one other person who has received a presidential pardon so sweeping in generations: Nixon, who was given a blanket pardon by Gerald Ford in 1974.

“I have never seen language like this in a pardon document that purports to pardon offenses that have not apparently even been charged, with the exception of the Nixon pardon,” said Margaret Love, who served from 1990 to 1997 as the U.S. pardon attorney, a Justice Department position devoted to assisting the president on clemency issues.

“Even the broadest Trump pardons were specific as to what was being pardoned,” Love added.

Joe Biden’s “full and unconditional pardon” of his son is deliberately vague. Donald Trump and his allies have long fixated on the president’s son, and Trump has repeatedly pledged to use his second term to investigate and prosecute members of the Biden family. Conservative commentators have engaged in parlor-game speculation that Hunter Biden could be charged with bribery, illegal lobbying or other crimes stemming from his foreign business activities and drug addiction.

So rather than merely pardoning his son for the gun crimes for which he was convicted and the tax crimes for which he pleaded guilty, the president’s pardon covers all “offenses against the United States which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in” from Jan. 1, 2014, through Dec. 1, 2024. That language mirrors the language in Ford’s pardon of Nixon, which did not merely cover the Watergate scandal but extended to “all offenses against the United States” that Nixon “has committed or may have committed” between Jan. 20, 1969, and Aug. 9, 1974 — the exact span of Nixon’s presidency.

Post-Election 2024: What's a President-Elect to Do?

The General Services Administration Runs the Transition:

• GSA continues to provide office space and support services to the President-elect and Vice President-elect, with support continuing up to 60 days after inauguration
• A classified summary regarding national security is given to the president-elect as soon as possible after the election
• Training and orientation activities commence for prospective presidential appointees (typically funded by Congress for the fiscal year in which the transition falls)
• 30 days before the expiration of the term, GSA begins support to outgoing president and vice president, with support continuing for seven months total.

Personnel:

• The Plum Book
• RFK
• Project 2025 database
• "You won't work in this town again."
• Schedule F

Policy: Unilateral Power

• Tariffs
• Deportation
• Pardons
• Prosecutions
• Ukraine
• NATO

Policy: Congressional Action

The Pardoner'sTale

Our latest book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  The 2024 race has begun.

Jacob Knutson at Axios:

Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley said if she is elected president, she would pardon former President Trump if he's convicted of a crime, saying the amnesty would be "in the best interest of the country."
...

 Haley joins her fellow Republicans Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy in signaling support for a possible pardon for Trump.

What they're saying: "I would pardon Trump," Haley said.She was responding to a 9-year-old boy's question at a New Hampshire campaign event NBC News covered.

"If he is found guilty, a leader needs to think about what's in the best interest of the country," she added. "What's in the best interest of the country is not to have an 80-year-old man sitting in jail that continues to divide our country."

"What's in the best interest of the country would be to pardon him so that we can move on as a country and no longer talk about him," Haley said.

Of note: Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Friday slammed Haley for making the remarks before the trial in the election interference case against Trump even started.Christie has also skewered Haley several times in recent days, primarily over declining to say that slavery was the cause of the Civil War at a campaign event on Wednesday.

"I Know Donald Trump Will Pardon Us"

  Our book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.

So Trump is still giving “aid and comfort” to violent insurrectionists like Biggs, and that raises the little issue of his ineligibility to be president again, but some people say it’s impractical to take that part of the Constitution seriously. Do they have a secret list? https://t.co/fImGnHR8SJ

— Laurence Tribe 🇺🇦 ⚖️ (@tribelaw) September 3, 2023

The expectation is rational:

Former President Trump says he would "very seriously" consider pardons for Jan. 6 defendants if he where to run for office and become president again, saying, they've been "treated worse than terrorists and murderers."
WATCH: https://t.co/5WGYcZxitH pic.twitter.com/TKL8m7lWQI

— Emmanuel Touhey (@EmmanuelTouhey) June 17, 2022

Rudy and the Pardons

Our most recent book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.

Zoë Richards at NBC:

A woman who said she worked for Rudy Giuliani during the last two years of the Trump administration alleged in a wide-ranging lawsuit that Giuliani, the former president’s personal attorney, discussed selling presidential pardons and detailed plans to overturn the 2020 election results.

In a 70-page complaint filed in state court in New York on Monday, Noelle Dunphy said that after Giuliani hired her in January 2019 he sexually assaulted and harassed her, refused to pay her wages and often made "sexist, racist, and antisemitic remarks," adding that she had recordings of numerous interactions with him.

Dunphy, who is seeking $10 million in compensatory and punitive damages, said Giuliani had hired her for $1 million a year in addition to expenses and pro bono legal representation for a domestic abuse case against a former partner. But after she was hired, Dunphy alleged, Giuliani kept her employment “secret” and paid her only about $12,000 and reimbursed some of her business expenses, owing her $1,988,000 in unpaid wages. She said she was fired in January 2021.

Giuliani denied the allegations through a spokesperson.

Trump, Pardons, Protests, Racism, and a Confession

 Our book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection.  Some Republican leaders -- and a measurable number of rank-and-file voters -- are open to violent rebellion, coups, and secession.  DOJ has charged the head of the Oath Keepers with seditious conspiracy.

In the fall, the Claremont Institute claimed:

Contrary to almost universally false news accounts, which have done great damage, John did not ask the Vice President, who was presiding over the Joint Session of Congress where electoral votes were to be counted on January 6, to “overturn” the election or to decide the validity of electoral votes.

Yesterday, Trump admitted that overturning the election was the whole point:

NEW!

President Donald J. Trump:

“If the Vice President (Mike Pence) had “absolutely no right” to change the Presidential Election results in the Senate, despite fraud and many other irregularities, how come the Democrats and RINO Republicans, like Wacky Susan Collins, are... pic.twitter.com/9kz05Jwi7y

— Liz Harrington (@realLizUSA) January 30, 2022

 

Trump also gave a speech this weekend.

NEW -- Trump has a new message for this midterm election year: There should be massive protests in DC, NY and Atlanta if prosecutors go after him and, if elected in 2024, he will pardon the January 6 mob that attacked the Capitol and assaulted police.https://t.co/3ZvocWj6bT

— S.V. Dáte (@svdate) January 30, 2022

"Let’s take a step back and drill down on [one] word [of] Trump’s: 'Racist.' It seems to come out of left field...Except that three of the key prosecutors investigating Trump as well as the chair of the House committee, Bennie Thompson, are all Black."https://t.co/HrqlxVbR4l

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) January 30, 2022

Trump uses language he knows caused the Jan 6 violence; suggests he’d pardon the Jan 6 defendants, some of whom have been charged with seditious conspiracy; threatens prosecutors; and admits he was attempting to overturn the election.

He’d do it all again if given the chance.

— Liz Cheney (@Liz_Cheney) January 31, 2022

“He could have overturned the election.” This is an admission, and a massively un-American statement. It is time for every Republican leader to pick a side… Trump or the Constitution, there is no middle on defending our nation anymore. pic.twitter.com/Bp3dfn7cBe

— Adam Kinzinger (@AdamKinzinger) January 31, 2022

Congressional Complicity

Our new book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics.  Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good. Trump and his minions falsely claimed that he won the election, and have kept repeating the Big Lie.  And we now know how close he came to subverting the Constitution.

Hunter Walker at Rolling Stone:

As the House investigation into the Jan. 6 attack heats up, some of the planners of the pro-Trump rallies that took place in Washington, D.C., have begun communicating with congressional investigators and sharing new information about what happened when the former president’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Two of these people have spoken to Rolling Stone extensively in recent weeks and detailed explosive allegations that multiple members of Congress were intimately involved in planning both Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss and the Jan. 6 events that turned violent.

...

Along with Greene, the conspiratorial pro-Trump Republican from Georgia who took office earlier this year, the pair both say the members who participated in these conversations or had top staffers join in included Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).

“We would talk to Boebert’s team, Cawthorn’s team, Gosar’s team like back to back to back to back,” says the organizer.

And Gosar, who has been one of the most prominent defenders of the Jan. 6 rioters, allegedly took things a step further. Both sources say he dangled the possibility of a “blanket pardon” in an unrelated ongoing investigation to encourage them to plan the protests.

“Our impression was that it was a done deal,” the organizer says, “that he’d spoken to the president about it in the Oval … in a meeting about pardons and that our names came up. They were working on submitting the paperwork and getting members of the House Freedom Caucus to sign on as a show of support.”

Legal Jeopardy for Trump and Company

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election.

 Lloyd Green at The Guardian:

In case anyone forgot, the US attorneys’ office for the southern district of New York previously treated Trump aka “Individual-1” as un-indicted co-conspirator in Michael Cohen’s case. As a result, the confirmation hearings of Joe Biden’s pick for attorney general, Merrick Garland, will certainly be interesting.

Already, prosecutors in Manhattan have the Orange Don and his crew in their cross-hairs. According to court filings and published reports, Cyrus Vance Jr, Manhattan’s district attorney, is investigating the truthfulness of the Trump Organization’s financial reporting and the company’s relationship with Deutsche Bank.

It is not for nothing that Trump again appealed to the US supreme court to quash a subpoena issued to his accountants for eight years of tax returns. Trump previously lost a similar bid last summer.

Back in July, Chief Justice John Roberts derailed Trump’s efforts to shroud his tax filings from Vance’s office. “No citizen, not even the president, is categorically above the common duty to produce evidence when called upon in a criminal proceeding”, wrote Roberts. For good measure, Brett Kavanaugh, the infamous Trump appointee added: “In our system of government, as this court has often stated, no one is above the law.”

...

In addition, Trump’s recent bouts of wrath have given lawyers in Washington and Georgia plenty to ponder. Local authorities in the Peach state are weighing a criminal investigation into his failed efforts to browbeat Brad Raffensperger, the state’s secretary of state, into submission. Trump telling Raffensperger to “find” 11,779 more votes and interfering with election certification may have been a step too far.

And then there is the Trump-fomented insurrection. When Bill Barr, Trump’s second attorney general, lays the blame at his one-time boss’ feet, it is clear that the story is no longer simply about over-zealous House Democrats. Likewise, when Senator Mitch McConnell accuses the president of “feeding the mob lies” and provoking insurrection, conviction of Trump by the US senate is very much on the table.

In a word, Trump’s problems aren’t disappearing. Two separate federal statutes and a law on DC’s books may have criminalized Trump’s exhortations to his devotees to “fight like hell” in the face of his loss, a reality acknowledged by Karl Racine, the District’s attorney general.

Andrew Weissman at Just Security:

[O]ddly, not all of Trump’s pardons followed the Flynn model. Indeed, many are narrowly drawn.

The pardon for Paul Manafort (on Dec. 23, 2020), is illustrative. By its own terms, the pardon covers only the crimes “for his conviction” on specific charges and not any other crimes (charged or uncharged). Specifically, the pardon is solely for the crimes of conviction — eight in the Eastern District of Virginia and two in the District of Columbia. That leaves numerous crimes as to which Manafort can still be prosecuted, as in Virginia there were 10 hung counts. In Washington, the situation is even more wide open. In that district, Manafort pleaded to a superseding information containing two conspiracy charges, while the entire underlying indictment — containing numerous crimes from money laundering, to witness tampering, to violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act — now remains open to prosecution as there was no conviction for those charges.

What’s more, the trial on such charges would be unusually simple. First, as part of his plea agreement, Manafort admitted under oath the criminal conduct in Virginia as to which the jury hung (although he did not plead to those counts and thus they are not subject to the pardon). In addition, he admitted in writing the underlying criminal conduct in Washington. Thus, proving the case could largely consist of introducing Manafort’s sworn admission to the charges.

Second, all such charges could be brought in Washington, and not require two separate trials (in Virginia and D.C.), since Manafort waived venue in his plea agreement Third, Manafort waived the statute of limitations — the deadline by which a prosecution must be brought — and thus all these charges would not be time-barred.

Finally, because the Washington, D.C. district judge, the Honorable Amy Berman Jackson, ruled in February 2019 that Manafort breached his cooperation agreement by repeatedly lying to the government, the court found that the government is not bound by the provision in the cooperation agreement not to pursue these other charges. That cooperation agreement explicitly provides that Manafort’s admissions as part of his plea can be used against him in a future trial of such charges.

 

Crooked to the End

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election.

Trump did this in the middle of the night. Only hours before he prepared to get on a plane to fly back to Mar-a-Lago. Please take the time to read all the way through this piece. Your jaw will drop. https://t.co/MbYxTNU1Dx

— Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) January 20, 2021

Chief Justice William Howard Taft, writing for the majority in Ex Parte Grossman, 267 U.S. 87 (1925):

To afford a remedy, it has always been thought essential in popular governments, as well as in monarchies, to vest in some other authority than the courts power to ameliorate or avoid particular criminal judgments. It is a check entrusted to the executive for special cases. To exercise it to the extent of destroying the deterrent effect of judicial punishment would be to pervert it; but whoever is to make it useful must have full discretion to exercise it. Our Constitution confers this discretion on the highest officer in the nation in confidence that he will not abuse it

The Pardon Market

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  Our next book, Divided We Stand, looks at the 2020 election.

Michael S. Schmidt and Kenneth P. Vogel at NYT:

As President Trump prepares to leave office in days, a lucrative market for pardons is coming to a head, with some of his allies collecting fees from wealthy felons or their associates to push the White House for clemency, according to documents and interviews with more than three dozen lobbyists and lawyers.

The brisk market for pardons reflects the access peddling that has defined Mr. Trump’s presidency as well as his unorthodox approach to exercising unchecked presidential clemency powers. Pardons and commutations are intended to show mercy to deserving recipients, but Mr. Trump has used many of them to reward personal or political allies.

The pardon lobbying heated up as it became clear that Mr. Trump had no recourse for challenging his election defeat, lobbyists and lawyers say. One lobbyist, Brett Tolman, a former federal prosecutor who has been advising the White House on pardons and commutations, has monetized his clemency work, collecting tens of thousands of dollars, and possibly more, in recent weeks to lobby the White House for clemency for the son of a former Arkansas senator; the founder of the notorious online drug marketplace Silk Road; and a Manhattan socialite who pleaded guilty in a fraud scheme.

Pardons

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law.  

He has abused the pardon power.

Lloyd Green at The Guardian:

With hours to spare before Christmas, Donald Trump has delivered pardons to Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, Charlie Kushner, a passel of war criminals and a bent congressman or two. There is no reason to believe our “law and order” president’s pardon binge is over. Too many people in his immediate orbit remain exposed to future prosecution, including the president himself.

Come noon on 20 January 2021, Trump and his inner circle will be private citizens again. Devoid of legal immunity, stripped of the air of invincibility, they become fair game for federal and local law enforcement alike. The potential for prison hovers over them like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.

Cyrus Vance, Manhattan’s district attorney, is circling Trump and his business. Eric Trump has testified at a court-ordered deposition conducted by New York’s attorney general. As for federal prosecutors in the southern district of New York, they labeled Trump an unindicted co-conspirator in the case of Michael Cohen. The statute of limitations has not expired.

And then there is Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer. According to reports, he remains on the radar of federal law enforcement in connection with possible election law violations, and doesn’t like it one bit. On Wednesday Giuliani lashed out, calling investigators “secret police” and accusing them of toadying to Joe Biden, the president-elect.

Unpresidented

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's dishonesty and his record of disregarding the rule of law. The 2019 update includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.

Mike Allen at Axios:

• Other presidents lamented disloyal servants, but rarely purged them en masse and in public. Trump told staff after his impeachment acquittal that he felt surrounded by "snakes" and "bad people" he wanted ousted.
• Other presidents plugged loyalists into key jobs — but rarely made that the prerequisite. To run the powerful presidential personnel office, Trump last week tapped John McEntee, 29, who has no experience in staffing governments, and was fired by his former chief of staff John Kelly — but is a favorite of the family.
• Other presidents pardoned criminals — but never in a big batch in the middle of a re-election race, after getting lobbied on TV. Trump's 11 pardons and commutations this week included Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat and former Illinois governor whose wife, Patti, had appealed to Trump on Fox News. Blagojevich told cameras that he's now a "Trumpocrat."
• Other presidents pressured their Justice Department, but never so nakedly and publicly. Trump, asked this week if he agreed with Attorney General Bill Barr that White House tweets made it impossible to do the job, said: "I do agree with that. I think that’s true. ... I'm allowed to be totally involved. I'm actually, I guess, the chief law enforcement officer of the country."

In New Delhi, an exchange with Jim Acosta of CNN:

Q    I just wanted to follow up on my colleague’s question about Russian interference.  Can you pledge to the American people that you will not accept any foreign assistance in the upcoming election?
And on this idea of a purge in your administration, there was recently the departure of your Acting DNI, Joseph Maguire.  You replaced him with your Ambassador to Germany, Rick Grenell.  Some of your critics have pointed out that Ambassador Grenell has no intelligence experience.  How can you justify to the American people having an Acting DNI with no intelligence experience?
THE PRESIDENT:  Okay, first of all, I want no help from any country.  And I haven’t been given help from any country.
And if you see what CNN, your wonderful network, said — (laughter) — I guess they apologized, in a way, for — didn’t they apologize for the fact that they said certain things that weren’t true?  Tell me, what was their apology yesterday?  What did they say?
Q    Mr. President, I think our record on delivering the truth is a lot better than yours sometimes, if you don’t mind me saying.
THE PRESIDENT:  Your record is — let me tell you about your record.  Your record is so bad you ought to be ashamed of yourself.
Q    I’m not ashamed of anything, and our —
THE PRESIDENT:  You have probably the worst record —
Q    — organization is not ashamed, sir.
THE PRESIDENT:  — in the history of broadcasting.

Offering Pardons to Encourage Lawbreaking

In Defying the Odds, we discuss Trump's character and record of dishonesty.  He also has a weak understanding of the Constitution.  The update  -- recently published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.

Nick Miroff and Josh Dawsey at WP:

President Trump is so eager to complete hundreds of miles of border fence ahead of the 2020 presidential election that he has directed aides to fast-track billions of dollars’ worth of construction contracts, aggressively seize private land and disregard environmental rules, according to current and former officials involved with the project.

He also has told worried subordinates that he will pardon them of any potential wrongdoing should they have to break laws to get the barriers built quickly, those officials said.

Trump has repeatedly promised to complete 500 miles of fencing by the time voters go to the polls in November 2020, stirring chants of “Finish the Wall!” at his political rallies as he pushes for tighter border controls. But the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has completed just about 60 miles of “replacement” barrier during the first 2½ years of Trump’s presidency, all of it in areas that previously had border infrastructure.

The president has told senior aides that a failure to deliver on the signature promise of his 2016 campaign would be a letdown to his supporters and an embarrassing defeat. With the election 14 months away and hundreds of miles of fencing plans still in blueprint form, Trump has held regular White House meetings for progress updates and to hasten the pace, according to several people involved in the discussions.

When aides have suggested that some orders are illegal or unworkable, Trump has suggested he would pardon the officials if they would just go ahead, aides said. He has waved off worries about contracting procedures and the use of eminent domain, saying “take the land,” according to officials who attended the meetings.

“Don’t worry, I’ll pardon you,” he has told officials in meetings about the wall.

“He said people expected him to build a wall, and it had to be done by the election,” one former official said.

Asked for comment, a White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Trump is joking when he makes such statements about pardons

New York Twofer

 In  Defying the Odds, we discuss  Trump's record of scandal.  The update  -- recemtly published --includes a chapter on the 2018 midterms.

Jesse McKinley at NYT:

Even before he was elected president, Donald J. Trump had steadfastly refused to release his federal tax returns, bucking years of tradition among presidential candidates. His intransigence deepened once he entered the White House, defying a congressional subpoena for the tax records.

Now, however, a nine-page workaround by the New York State Legislature may serve as a way for Congress to get its hands on a trove of Mr. Trump’s tax information.

On Wednesday, the Democratic-led Legislature passed a bill that would permit New York State tax officials to hand over Mr. Trump’s state returns to any one of three congressional committees. Such returns — filed in New York, the president’s home state and business headquarters — would likely contain much of the same information as the contested federal returns.

Also Jesse McKinley at NYT:

The New York State Assembly passed a bill on Tuesday that would allow state prosecutors to pursue charges against any individual granted a presidential pardon for similar federal crimes, closing a loophole that lawmakers said could be exploited by President Trump in a bid to indemnify former associates.

The bill, which has already passed the State Senate and has the support of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, would exempt the state’s so-called double jeopardy law from cases involving presidential pardons, something supporters say is necessary to stave off a possible abuse of Mr. Trump’s pardon power.