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US President Donald Trump’s pardons include his former campaign manager Paul Manafort, his adviser Roger Stone and his son-in-law’s father, Charles Kushner.
Issues controversial pardons: US President Donald Trump. (File image)
AFP / Brendan Smialowski
Free thanks to Trump: his former campaign manager Paul Manafort. (File image)
Reuters / Eduardo Muñoz
He was sentenced to more than three years in prison for perjury and obstruction of justice, but never complied: Trump’s confidant Roger Stone.
AFP / Brendan Smialowski
Four weeks before the end of his term, the president of the United States, Donald Trump, pardoned his former advisers Paul Manafort and Roger Stone. As the White House announced on Wednesday, the president pardoned a total of 26 other convicts. Among them is the father of his counselor and son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Manafort and Stone were implicated in alleged Russian interference in favor of Trump in the 2016 US presidential election. Manafort served temporarily as Trump’s campaign manager in 2016. In February 2019, he was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison for tax and bank fraud, among other things.
Manafort was not convicted for his work for Trump, but among other things because he had hidden his lobbying work from Ukrainian politicians and the millions of dollars in revenue from the US authorities.
Manafort now thanked the online service Twitter for the pardon. “You really have made America great again,” the former lobbyist wrote, referring to Trump’s campaign slogan.
Trump has already released Stone from sentencing
Stone, in turn, was sentenced to 40 months in prison in November 2019. He was found guilty of obstructing parliamentary investigations into alleged Russian electoral interference. Trump released his lifelong confidant from sentence last July, even before he was released from prison.
However, a release from detention is not the same as the pardon that has now been pronounced. A pardon removes all legal consequences of a conviction, such as deprivation of the right to vote or the right to run for political office.
Pardons series
Now also pardoned real estate businessman Charles Kushner, father of Trump’s son-in-law, was convicted in 2004, among other things, of tax evasion. He spent almost two years in prison.
Trump had recently issued a series of pardons. On Tuesday he pardoned his former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, another figure on the Russia affair. He had been convicted of lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia. Papadopoulos was detained for twelve days.
Before Trump, former presidents also used clemency power shortly before leaving the White House.
