Trump pardons former campaign chairman Paul Manafort along with Charles Kushner, other allies

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump pardoned his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort on Wednesday, making the former globe-trotting political operative the latest presidential ally to receive a grant of clemency during Trump's last days in office.

The pardon once again highlighted the long shadow cast on the White House by the investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election, which resulted in the prosecution of six former aides to the president. The Manafort pardon was the latest in a series given to former aides caught up in that investigation – and underscored the president's desire to deal with the fallout of that probe.

On the heels of another round of clemency just a day earlier, Trump granted pardons to 26 people on Wednesday and commuted part or all of the sentences of three more people. The move followed a tradition of presidents granting pardons – often controversial – during their remaining days in the White House.

Manafort's pardon came as part of the latest batch of clemency grants which also included Charles Kushner, the father of Jared Kushner, who is the president's son-in-law and senior advisor. Charles Kushner was convicted of preparing false tax returns, witness retaliation, and making false statements to the FEC.

Trump also granted a pardon Wednesday to Roger Stone, a Republican operative convicted of lying to Congress to protect the president's campaign from an investigation into Russian election interference. Trump had commuted Stone's sentence in July.

Once again, the grants drew sharp rebukes from critics and prosecutors who described the moves as an effort to invalidate special counsel Robert Mueller's two-year investigation into Russian election interference in 2016.

The president's opponents said the list reflects Trump's habit of granting pardons to political allies or to people who could have testified against him during the Russia investigation.

"In pardoning Paul Manafort, Roger Stone and Charles Kushner, President Trump has made it clear that he believes the purpose of the pardon is to bail out rich white men connected to him," said Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "Trump has turned an instrument of mercy and justice into just another way for him to be corrupt.”

Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, agreed.

"Pardons for Paul Manafort and Roger Stone serve neither justice nor mercy," Nadler said. "President Trump is handing out rewards to his co-conspirators and shielding his own conduct from scrutiny."

Manafort thanked Trump with a post on Twitter.

"Mr. President, my family & I humbly thank you for the Presidential Pardon you bestowed on me. Words cannot fully convey how grateful we are," he wrote.

Manafort was sentenced to nearly four years in prison in Virginia, where he was convicted of defrauding banks and taxpayers out of millions of dollars he had amassed through illicit lobbying. He was sentenced to a little over three years in prison in Washington, D.C., where he pleaded guilty.

Unraveling Mueller

The Manafort pardon was yet another move by the president to roll back the nearly two-year investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. A day earlier, Trump granted a pardon to George Papadopoulos, a former campaign aide who admitted lying to the FBI as part of that investigation.

He also pardoned Alex van der Zwaan on Tuesday. The Dutch attorney pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his work with two of Trump's former campaign aides.

Trump pardoned his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, in November, ending a three-year legal odyssey for the retired Army general who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with a Russian ambassador before Trump's inauguration in 2017.

U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson – who presided over the criminal case of Roger Stone, another Trump ally – delivered a withering rebuke from the bench during Manafort's sentencing in Washington. She said that Manafort spent much of his career "gaming the system" and that he cheated taxpayers to maintain an extravagant lifestyle.

"It's hard to overstate the number of lies and the amount of fraud and the extraordinary amount of money involved," Jackson said.

Trump said after Manafort was sentenced that he felt "very badly" for his former campaign chairman. "It's a very sad situation," he told reporters.

'Counterintelligence threat'

A voluminous report released last summer by the GOP-led Senate Intelligence Committee found that Manafort's role as Trump campaign chairman, his longstanding ties to people affiliated with Russian intelligence services and his willingness to share information with them "represented a grave counterintelligence threat" during the 2016 presidential race.

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"The Committee found that Manafort's presence on the Campaign and proximity to Trump created opportunities for Russian intelligence services to exert influence over and acquire confidential information on, the Trump campaign," according to the nearly 1,000-page report.

Manafort, 71, has been serving his sentence in his home in Northern Virginia after the Bureau of Prisons moved him to home confinement as the coronavirus pandemic spread in the federal corrections system.

His attorneys asked prison officials to allow him to serve the rest of his sentence at home, saying his old age and health conditions put him at "high risk" of COVID-19 infection. They said Manafort suffers from several health conditions, including high blood pressure, liver disease and respiratory illness, and he was hospitalized for a heart condition, flu and bronchitis while in prison.

Trump has also granted clemency to longtime ally Roger Stone, who was convicted of lying to Congress to protect Trump and his campaign from the Russia investigation. The president commuted Stone's 40-month sentence just days before he was set to report to prison last summer.

Johnson influence

Alice Johnson, who was pardoned by Trump in August, appeared to be behind several of the individuals the president granted clemency to on Wednesday.

Topeka Sam served three years of a 130-month sentence in 2012 as a result of pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine. Sam founded a group to help incarcerated women transition back into society and helped the passage of the First Step Act that Trump signed into law in 2018.

The White House said Johnson was also behind Trump's pardon of James Batmasian, who pled guilty to willful failure to collect and remit payroll taxes. The South Florida businessman fully repaid the IRS and served an 8-month sentence.

Trump pardoned Johnson, who was sentenced to life in prison on noviolent drug charges in 1997. He commuted her sentence in 2018 after Kim Kardashian advocated on her behalf.

Trump also pardoned Margaret Hunter on Tuesday, the wife of former congressman Duncan Hunter, who received a pardon a day earlier. Margaret Hunter pleaded guilty in 2019 to one count of conspiracy to misuse campaign funds for personal expenses, the White House said.

Kushner case

The White House described Charles Kushner as being "devoted to important philanthropic organizations and causes" it said "overshadows" his conviction and two-year sentence for preparing false tax returns and other crimes.

The elder Kushner admitted paying to a prostitute to seduce a brother-in-law and have their sexual encounter videotaped. Kushner sent the tape to his sister in an effort to intimidate her against becoming a witness in the federal investigation.

The U.S. attorney in that case was Chris Christie, who went on to become the governor of New Jersey and Trump ally.

Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who testified against his former boss, said the pardons reflect a broken system.

"What happened tonight shows how broken the whole criminal justice system is," he said Wednesday.

Contributing: John Fritze, Courtney Subramanian

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump pardons former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and other allies