A President Working Overtime to Pardon the Crooks and Lock Up the Good Guys…..

His fellow Crooks….

Trump’s extraordinary move to pardon former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández — convicted last year of flooding the U.S. with tons of cocaine — is among the clearest examples yet….

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• In an Oct. 28 letter to Trump obtained by Axios, Hernández alleged that he was “targeted by the Biden-Harris administration not for any wrongdoing, but for political reasons.”

The appeal, laced with effusive praise for Trump and claims of common persecution, appeared to work.

• Trump granted the pardon request, claiming Hernández was “treated very harshly and unfairly.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt later called it a “clear Biden over-prosecution.”
• Left unmentioned: Emil Bove, a former member of Trump’s legal team who’s now a federal judge, was a lead prosecutor on Hernández’s case while working for the Southern District of New York.

Between the lines: The Hernández pardon fits squarely within Trump’s view of justice — serious criminal conduct matters far less than whether the defendant pledges loyalty, flatters the president or aligns with his ideological project.

• While the right-wing Hernández walks free from his 45-year prison sentence, left-wing Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro — indicted on charges of narcoterrorism — faces the threat of a U.S. military invasion.
• “If someone sells drugs in their country, that doesn’t mean you arrest the president and put him in jail for the rest of his life,” Trump told reporters Sunday when pressed on why he pardoned Hernández.

Zoom out: The dynamic extends to Trump’s domestic orbit, where MAGA-friendly financiers, operatives and celebrity allies have had their convictions wiped away with the stroke of Trump’s pen.

• Changpeng Zhao (“CZ”): The billionaire founder of crypto giant Binance was pardoneddespite pleading guilty in 2023 to money laundering violations. Trump — whose family’s crypto venture has ties to Binance — later claimed he did not know CZ, saying on “60 Minutes”: “I heard it was a Biden witch hunt.”
• George Santos: The disgraced former GOP congressman — convicted of defrauding donors and lying to the House — had his seven-year sentence commuted by Trump after spending less than three months in prison.
• Paul Walczak: Trump pardoned the former nursing home executive, who pleaded guilty to tax crimes, less than three weeks after his mother attended a $1 million-per-person fundraising dinner at Mar-a-Lago. A White House official claimed Walczak was “targeted by the Biden administration over his family’s conservative politics.”
• Fake electors: Trump granted sweeping pardons to Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows and more than 70 allies tied to efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including the “alternate electors” scheme. Many never faced federal charges, raising questions about whether Trump was seeking to interfere in state prosecutions, which are not covered by pardons.The other side: As Trump has granted pardons to dozens of white-collar criminals, he’s ordered the Justice Department to investigate his political enemies for less serious allegations, such as mortgage fraud.
  • Trump loyalist Ed Martin — who is leading investigations of New York Attorney General Letitia James and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) — holds the position of both U.S. pardon attorney and weaponization czar.
  • “No MAGA left behind,” Martin tweeted after the pardon of former Virginia sheriff Scott Jenkins, a Trump supporter convicted on bribery charges…

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The bottom line: On Day One, Trump launched a radical redefinition of presidential clemency by pardoning roughly 1,500 Jan. 6 defendants, including supporters charged with seditious conspiracy.

• It was a signal that those who act in Trump’s name will be shielded — and that those who don’t, won’t…..

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His Enemies….

Members of the first group – at least 247 individuals and entities – were singled out by name, either publicly by Trump and his appointees or later in government memos, legal filings or other records. To qualify, acts had to be aimed at specific individuals or entities, with evidence of intent to punish. Reuters reporters interviewed or corresponded with more than 150 of them.

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Another 224 people were caught up in broader retribution efforts – not named individually but ensnared in crackdowns on groups of perceived opponents. Nearly 100 of them were prosecutors and FBI agents fired or forced to retire for working on cases tied to Trump or his allies, or because they were deemed “woke.” This includes 16 FBI agents who kneeled at a Black Lives Matter protest in 2020. The rest were civil servants, most of them suspended for publicly opposing administration policies or resisting directives on health, environmental and science issues….

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The second form was threats. Trump and his administration targeted at least 46 individuals, businesses and other entities with threats of investigations or penalties, including freezing federal funds for Democratic-led cities such as New York and Chicago.

Trump openly discussed firing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell for resisting interest rate cuts, for instance. Last week, he threatened to have six Democratic members of Congress tried for sedition – a crime he said is “punishable by DEATH” – after the lawmakers reminded military personnel they can refuse “illegal orders.” This week, the Defense Department threatened to court-martial one of them, U.S. Senator Mark Kelly, a former Naval officer.

The third form was coercion. In at least a dozen cases, organizations such as law firms and universities signed agreements with the government to roll back diversity initiatives or other policies after facing administration threats of punishment, such as security clearance revocations and loss of federal funding and contracts….

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