The former president undermined negotiations between Jonathan Braun and prosecutors who hoped Braun would testify against other predatory lenders in exchange for his release
Very early in the morning on Donald Trump‘s last day in office, the president announced he was pardoning Jonathan Braun, a loan shark who had been convicted of running a vast marijuana ring. Braun, who at the time was serving a 10-year sentence, was pardoned along with 142 others, including rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black.
Trump’s move undermined a years-long federal investigation, The New York Times reported Sunday. The paper also uncovered ties between Braun and the family of Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
Federal prosecutors were in the midst of negotiations hoping to secure Braun’s cooperation in a Justice Department investigation into predatory lenders in the merchant cash advance industry when Trump announced his clemency. Investigators felt that an industry insider like Braun could reveal information about predatory lending agreements, but after he was released from incarceration, prosecutors no longer had leverage they could use to compel Braun to talk.
This guy has got to be one of the least law & order presidents. I could see it if he was helping good people for good reasons, but the ones he helps are all scum.
Non-American here: how many can a president pardon? I thought it was 1 or maybe a few. Now I see 142? What sort of dictatorship is this?
No limit. They just mostly don’t do it until they’re on the way out of office.
It sounds like an insane practice!
The problem is, it turns out a lot of the US government works on a sort of honor system, where it’s assumed whoever is put in office a) has the US’s best interest at heart and b) has the trust and support of the people who voted them in, and that they’d swiftly removed by the democratic process upon violating that trust. Unfortunately, the past few years have made it painfully clear that neither of these things are necessarily true.
This isn’t the first time presidential pardons have stirred up controversy, though. Another famous case was following the Watergate scandal in the '70s, which led to president Nixon resigning. His vice president, Gerald Ford, became president as a result, and used his power to pardon Nixon of any crimes he may have committed as president. His approval dropped sharply as a result, and it probably cost him his chance at reelection.
Ford was probably right to do so. We held off a few decades on the divisiveness and anger we have today, on seeing whether the laws apply to them as well, on the hatred and outrage. Because of that pardon, we got over it more quickly
Nixon going down would have caused all of his cronies to go down with him.
Instead, as a result of the pardon, Nixons cronies just reinstalled themselves over and over and led to the bullshit we see today.
If all of Nixons cronies would have been permanently dislocated from power, the country would be in a much much better spot today.
Oh I guess there’s a major limit, the president can not pardon people with state charges on them which is like 99% of criminals. Their state governors can do that. They can pardon federal crimes only.
But yes it seems like a very dated concept.
I thought accepting a pardon was an implicit guilty plea and have up your fifth amendment protections. Couldn’t they lean on him based on that?
He was already guilty and serving time. They were working with early release as a bargaining chip but now that’s gone.
Exactly, now why would he submit to hundreds of hours of interviews with people that can charge him with other crimes adjacent to what he was convinced and pardoned of. There is no incentive for him to cooperate. There is nothing the investigators can offer him that will make it with his while.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Very early in the morning on Donald Trump‘s last day in office, the president announced he was pardoning Jonathan Braun, a loan shark who had been convicted of running a vast marijuana ring.
Braun, who at the time was serving a 10-year sentence, was pardoned along with 142 others, including rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black.
Federal prosecutors were in the midst of negotiations hoping to secure Braun’s cooperation in a Justice Department investigation into predatory lenders in the merchant cash advance industry when Trump announced his clemency.
The cousin, Isaac Wolf, later claimed that the Kushners had helped secure Braun’s release, the merchant cash advance dealer said.
Federal investigators were not made aware of the pardon until the morning it was announced and, according to The Times, they were furious that Trump had sabotaged a possible deal with Braun over predatory lending practices.
Trump has publicly said that if he becomes president again, he intends to make more pardons, including for those convicted of crimes related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
The original article contains 712 words, the summary contains 173 words. Saved 76%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
