Trump Sells a Pardon to a Rich Crook Who Paid a Million Bucks to Have Dinner With Him

May 28, 2025

In addition to pardons for fellow celebrity fraudsters whom Donald Trump regards as kindred spirits, he is now also flagrantly selling pardons to people who attend his fundraisers and invest in his business ventures.

The New York Times reports on the latest:

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. …
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.

The judge who sentenced Walczak had said “there ‘is not a get-out-of-jail-free card’ for the rich.” Well, there is now. Other presidents have issued fishy pardons, but they usually wait until their last days in office. Trump is openly selling them in the first months of his second term.

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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