Dem
47
GOP
53
Time for some more discussion of the outright corruption that Donald Trump and his underlings have embraced during his second term. Here are the stories we've done so far.
Today, it's two incredibly sleazy pardons. Pardons that, incidentally, barely attracted notice because Team Trump is so effective at overloading all channels with myriad forms of B.S.
The first pardon was granted a little over a week ago, to former representative "George Santos." He was guilty as sin of committing fraud, admitted his guilt, and agreed to prison time and to pay about $400,000 in restitution. Those restitution figures are often fantasy numbers, as the guilty party has no real possibility of paying them off (especially since certain kinds of income are protected). That said, "Santos" is young, and $400,000 is not $400 million, so... maybe he might have satisfied part or all of the total. But he doesn't have to worry about that anymore, because Trump wiped out the conviction AND the restitution. The former congressman is now a free man, and can keep every penny he makes on Cameo.
Why was "Santos" pardoned? Let's let Trump explain for himself, courtesy of his favored-by-Cosa-Nostra social media platform:
George Santos was somewhat of a "rogue," but there are many rogues throughout our Country that aren't forced to serve seven years in prison. I started to think about George when the subject of Democrat Senator Richard "Da Nang Dick" Blumenthal came up again. As everyone remembers, "Da Nang" stated for almost twenty years that he was a proud Vietnam Veteran, having endured the worst of the War, watching the Wounded and Dead as he raced up the hills and down the valleys, blood streaming from his face. He was "a Great Hero," he would leak to any and all who would listen — And then it happened! He was a COMPLETE AND TOTAL FRAUD. He never went to Vietnam, he never saw Vietnam, he never experienced the Battles there, or anywhere else. His War Hero status, and even minimal service in our Military, was totally and completely MADE UP. This is far worse than what George Santos did, and at least Santos had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN! George has been in solitary confinement for long stretches of time and, by all accounts, has been horribly mistreated. Therefore, I just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY. Good luck George, have a great life!
For those who struggle to make it through that word salad, the explanation basically comes down to two things. The first is whataboutism; it would seem that when Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) implied (falsely) that he had served in the Vietnam War, that was somehow worse than "Santos" misrepresenting his entire life history AND bilking supporters out of half a million dollars. The second is that "Santos" always voted Republican. We are quite confident that one of those is the real reason, and the other is just misdirection. Readers will have to figure out for themselves which is which.
That pardon was bad, but the one that came down last Tuesday was several orders of magnitude sleazier, as Trump granted a pardon to the founder and former CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao (usually known as "CZ"). Binance is the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world, and while Zhao was running the company, it got popped for looking the other way while money laundering took place. Binance had to pay $4.3 billion, while Zhao (who pleaded guilty) had to pay $50 million and spend 4 months in jail. He already served his sentence, and he apparently won't get his money back (though you never know). However, the pardon means that Zhao once again has a clean record, and that he's no longer barred from running financial ventures.
When Trump was asked about the situation, he pretended not to know who CZ is. So, it was up to White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt to explain the reason for the pardon:
President Trump exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency. In their desire to punish the cryptocurrency industry, the Biden Administration pursued Mr. Zhao despite no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims.
Does she really believe that victimless crimes are not actually crimes? Very odd for an administration that is fanatical about deporting undocumented immigrants (including many who aren't actually undocumented). When someone enters the country illegally, or overstays their visa, there is also no identifiable victim.
So, why might Trump have wanted to pardon CZ? Well, the word "cryptocurrency" in the above paragraph is a pretty big clue. It's a little weedy, but basically, even during the time CZ could not run Binance, he still owned a majority of the company. And Binance set up an under-the-radar auxiliary called PancakeSwap. Because details surrounding PancakeSwap are fuzzy, it's hard to know if CZ merely owns that auxiliary or if he's quietly helping run it. And, as you might guess, PancakeSwap's single-largest client is... World Liberty Financial, owned by the Trump family. Now, CZ doesn't even have to lurk in the shadows if he wants to run PancakeSwap. In fact, he might well be able to resume leadership of Binance, which would allow him to move the Trump cryptocurrencies to a much larger platform with much greater visibility.
This is not Trump's first time doing this, either. He's also pardoned the founders of the crypto exchange BitMex, as well as Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht. On top of that, he's given Get Out of Jail free cards to 17 different people who were convicted of fraud. As you might imagine, Democratic members of Congress are screaming to the heavens about all of this, particularly the CZ pardon. So too are some Republican members. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC), who is retiring and has nothing to lose, told reporters, "I don't like it. [CZ] was convicted. He's not innocent."
The folks who wrote the Constitution did pretty well. But their batting average was not quite as high as Shohei Ohtani's was last night. They are guilty of a few swings and misses, and the pardon power is among the worst of those. Did they honestly imagine that presidents would resist the temptation to pardon friends and family members? It is true that the presidents before Trump at least had the good taste to, by and large, wait until their last week in office before issuing dubious pardons. Now, even that guardrail is gone. (Z)