A White-Collar Criminal Pays a Duo With Connections to Trump to Successfully Obtain a Presidential Pardon
One of the things we will have to untangle in future congressional hearings or investigations by a future Department of Justice is the exact mechanism by which pardons are being granted under Donald Trump. There is already strong prima facie evidence that a whole industry has grown up to buy and sell Trump pardons.
Consider a case reported in the Washington Post:
In April, Alina Habba, the U.S. attorney for New Jersey, extolled her office’s role in the sentencing of a former nursing home magnate to three years in prison for defrauding the government of $38 million. The man, Joseph Schwartz, was alleged to have overseen a “collapsed nursing home empire” and “willfully” failed to pay employment taxes, Habba’s announcement said.
Around that time, Schwartz paid $960,000 to two lobbyists “seeking a federal pardon,” according to their lobbying filing. …
The lobbyists, right-wing provocateurs Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl, noted on the disclosure form that they had been convicted of telecommunications fraud in Ohio in connection with a robocall scheme designed to deter the turnout of minority voters. They also face sentencing next month in Michigan on a similar robocall case and have been subject to millions of dollars in fines in a related case brought by the Federal Communications Commission, according to state and federal authorities. For years, the pair have injected themselves into politics, such as alleging without evidence in 2018 that there were sexual assault claims against special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.
It is not clear what Burkman and Wohl did for Schwartz. But on Nov. 14, seven months after Habba celebrated Schwartz’s conviction, Trump granted Schwartz a “full and unconditional” pardon. …
The lobbying disclosure form says Burkman and Wohl contacted Congress, the White House, and the Justice Department on Schwartz’s behalf but does not provide further details.
A newspaper report is only the beginning of the investigation. Perhaps the money went merely to buy connections rather than an outright bribe. But that, too, is normal for an authoritarian regime. Notorious bottom-feeders like Burkman and Wohl can prosper from their connections to the regime, as a reward for their political loyalty.
The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.
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