Pardons for sale
By 
Another amazing coincidence:
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.
It came just in the nick of time for Mr. Walczak, sparing him from having to pay nearly $4.4 million in restitution and from reporting to prison for an 18-month sentence that had been handed down just 12 days earlier. A judge had justified the incarceration by declaring that there “is not a get-out-of-jail-free card” for the rich.
One thing Trump has fully learned is that there seems to be a hard one day maximum of coverage for any particular Trump scandal, so he has no reason to even pretend anymore.
Of course, while Trump likes to give out pardons to drown his beak, he also likes to issue them for authoritarian reasons:
Sigh. i was refraining from talking about the push to pardon this sheriff bc I didn't want to give it traction.
[image or embed]— Jessica Pishko (@jesspish.bsky.social) May 26, 2025 at 12:25 PM
He sold auxiliary deputy badges for cash! www.justice.gov/usao-wdva/pr…
[image or embed]— Jessica Pishko (@jesspish.bsky.social) May 26, 2025 at 12:27 PM
The unconstrained pardon power was a bad idea that has been abused plenty over the course of history, but as with so many things Trump is far worse than any other previous offender. The only check on the pardon power is political, and he got away with it,