| It’s a white, joyous Christmas for convicts with connections to President Trump. The justice system — and the law enforcers who worked years to prosecute these cases — got a big lump of coal. I’ve read that people have been approaching tRump to ask for pardons for themselves, their clients — even their former clients. Why it matters: This official has no role in the pardon process. The request is a sign of the final days free-for-all among people who want to be on Trump’s extensive pardons list for personal and political allies. Last evening, Trump granted full pardons to 26 more people, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, longtime associate Roger Stone and Charles Kushner, father of Jared Kushner.. Manafort was one of the first major figures to be charged in the Mueller investigation. Stone was charged and convicted for lying to investigators who were probing his contacts with WikiLeaks, which released damaging Democratic emails hacked by the Russian government during the 2016 campaign. Charles Kushner is a developer who pleaded guilty in 2004 to filing false tax returns, retaliating against a witness and making false statements to the FEC as part of a prosecution by then-U.S. Attorney Chris Christie. True story: Manafort and Stone were once in business together. In the Reagan years of the early ’80s, Black, Manafort & Stone was one of the most formidable lobby shops in town. |
