The Wall Street Journal Finds That $1 Million Is the Going Rate for Crooks to Obtain Fast-Track Pardons From Trump

Trump’s signature abuse of executive power is the way he has issued pardons. The Constitution gives the president a very broad power to grant clemency, but Trump has used this power in a way that clearly is not guided by justice or the public interest but is instead is casual, impulsive, and open to corrupt influences.

The Wall Street Journal recently published an exposé on the going price for a Trump pardon:

As a string ensemble played in the background, Donald Trump Jr. walked up with lobbyist Ches McDowell to chat with the president. Trump Jr. at one point pulled McDowell forward to shake the president’s hand, according to a livestream broadcast. After they went inside, McDowell took the president aside to discuss a pressing issue, according to people familiar with the matter: One of his clients was seeking a pardon.

The client was Changpeng Zhao, founder of the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance. That afternoon, the president agreed to sign Zhao’s pardon, the people said.

Zhao was one of the beneficiaries of a new, informal path to presidential pardons that has become a feature of Trump’s second term, which allows some clemency applicants with deep pockets or politically connected lobbyists to circumvent the traditional pardon process.

The new approach—driven in part by Trump’s own experience as a criminal defendant, people close to him say—has spawned a pardon-shopping industry where lobbyists say their going rate is $1 million. Pardon-seekers have offered some lobbyists close to the president success fees of as much as $6 million if they can close the deal, according to people familiar with the offers. …

Administration officials and lobbyists describe two playbooks that have emerged. There is the official track, which involves pardon czar Alice Johnson, Justice Department pardon attorney Ed Martin and the White House Counsel’s Office. Applicants usually go through one of the three, and ultimately White House counsel Dave Warrington reviews the application and makes a recommendation to Trump. The two men meet every few weeks to discuss pardons, administration officials said.

The second track is riskier but can be much faster. If an applicant can find Trump at Mar-a-Lago or a White House event and ask for a pardon directly, Trump is often inclined to be helpful, administration officials said—particularly if someone says the magic words: “unjust persecution.”

The very haphazardness of Trump’s approach to pardons, the lack of a formal and transparent process vetted by lawyers, makes it inherently corrupt. If pardons are granted just because the right person happened to get the president’s ear, then the president’s ear will naturally become a valuable commodity to be bought and sold.

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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