After Mr. Arpaio, Mr. Trump pardoned Dinesh D’Souza and Conrad Black. Mr. D’Souza was a right-wing provocateur (who became a 2020 election denier) who was convicted of making fraudulent campaign contributions to a Republican Senate candidate in New York. Mr. Black, a Canadian-born author and former newspaper publisher who was convicted in a multimillion-dollar fraud, had endeared himself to Mr. Trump by writing a fawning biography, “Donald J. Trump: A President Like No Other.” The three men’s crimes were different, but they earned their reward from Mr. Trump in the same way: by praising and agreeing with him.
As in other areas of his career, there were so many scandals with pardons and commutations in the final days of Mr. Trump’s first term that it was difficult for the public to fasten on a single one. The sheer number of outrageous pardons served as a kind of insulation against critical public attention to any of them. (At the time, the unfolding scandal of Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the election also limited the attention given to his pardons.) The recipients in this period started with Charles Kushner, his daughter’s father-in-law, who was convicted in a lurid scandal in New Jersey and served 14 months in prison. (After winning a second term, Mr. Trump named Mr. Kushner his ambassador to France.)
Mr. Trump also used pardons to nurse his grievance against Robert Mueller, the special counsel who investigated Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia. Mr. Trump used pardons to undo convictions that Mr. Mueller obtained. This group included Michael Flynn, Mr. Trump’s first national security adviser; George Papadopoulos; and Alex van der Zwaan, who were all convicted of lying to investigators. Mr. Trump pardoned his old friend Roger Stone, whose sentence he commuted in another false statement case, as well as Paul Manafort, his campaign chairman, after his conviction for fraud. Though Steve Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former chief White House strategist, was charged with fraud by federal prosecutors in New York (not by Mr. Mueller), Mr. Trump regarded the indictment as an affront. So Mr. Trump pardoned Mr. Bannon, too.
Another group of pardons appeared to be thank-yous to Republican members of Congress. Several of their former colleagues had been prosecuted for corruption in office (some of it egregious). Among those receiving clemency were Duke Cunningham of California, who was convicted of taking $2.4 million in bribes; Duncan Hunter, also of California, who pocketed thousands of dollars of campaign contributions; Rick Renzi of Arizona, who was convicted of racketeering, extortion and other crimes; Robin Hayes of North Carolina, who lied to investigators in a bribery investigation; Chris Collins of New York, who pleaded guilty to insider trading and false statements; and Steve Stockman of Texas, whose commutation meant he was released after serving only two years of a 10-year sentence for stealing upwards of $1 million.
In a political gesture, Mr. Trump pardoned military officials who were accused of war crimes in Afghanistan. For example, Lt. Clint Lorance was serving a 19-year prison sentence for ordering the killing of two unarmed Afghan villagers. Maj. Mathew Golsteyn was awaiting trial, charged with the premeditated murder of a Taliban bomb-making suspect. Mr. Trump pardoned them and later brought them onstage at one of his political fund-raisers.
