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US President Donald Trump has pardoned 15 people, including Republican allies, a 2016 campaign official caught in the Russia probe and former government contractors convicted in a 2007 Baghdad massacre.
The pardons included former Republican politicians Duncan Hunter of California and Chris Collins of New York.
Collins, the first member of Congress to endorse Trump for president, was sentenced to two years and two months in federal prison after admitting that he helped his son and others avoid $ 800,000 in stock losses when he learned that a Drug trial by a pharmaceutical company had failed.
Hunter was sentenced to 11 months in prison after pleading guilty to stealing campaign funds and spending the money on everything from outings with friends to his daughter’s birthday party.
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Trump also announced a pardon for George Papadopoulos, his 2016 campaign adviser, whose conversation inadvertently helped spark the Russia investigation that followed Trump’s presidency for nearly two years.
Andrew Harnik / AP
A Marine stands outside the West Wing entrance of the White House, which means the President is in the Oval Office.
By pardoning Papadopoulos, Trump again pointed to special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe and is part of a broader effort by Trump to undo the results of the probe that dumped criminal charges against half a dozen associates.
Last month, Trump pardoned former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who had twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, and months earlier commuted the sentence of another associate, Roger Stone, days before he was to report to prison.
Lauren Victoria Burke / AP
Donald Trump has already pardoned former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
In the group announced Tuesday night were four former government contractors convicted in a 2007 massacre in Baghdad that killed more than a dozen Iraqi civilians and sparked an international uproar over the use of private security guards in a war zone. .
Supporters of Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard, the former Blackwater Worldwide contractors, had lobbied for pardons, arguing that the men had been unduly punished in an investigation and prosecution that they said was tainted by problems. and withheld exculpatory evidence. All four were serving long prison terms.
