On Tuesday, President Don the con handed out 20 pardons, but several stuck out to me as galling and incredibly corrupt. The pardons that made my stomach turn the most was the spade of pardons for corrupt politicians, including former New York Republican representative Chris Collins and California Republican representative Duncan Hunter.
This mentally-ill President pardoned former representative Collins who was convicted of insider trading and securities fraud. Collins, who was sent to jail in October, ends up serving roughly 60 days of a 26-month-long sentence. Law and order?
Former representative Hunter was convicted in 2020 of illegal spending over $200,000 campaign finance money. Money that was not his to spend in his private life. He will not end up spending one day in jail. I guess it is true that there is one legal system for the wealthy and well connected and another one for the rest of us.
Philip Esformes, who was convicted of defrauding Medicare to the tune roughly $1 billion with a B, was sentenced in Miami to 20 years in prison in 2019. This white-collar dreg of society also had his sentence commuted by the so-called law and order President, so he will serve almost no time for the worst Medicare fraud against U.S. taxpayers in American history.
Trump also pardoned four members of Blackwater USA guards who were involved in the 2007 massacre of 17 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including two children. Clearly, pardoning war criminals is not a problem for Trump, including one who was serving a life sentence for first degree murder. Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard were all serving 30-year sentences while Nicholas Slatten was serving life for his role in the murders. Slatten was tried and convicted twice of the crime. The second time it was Trump's Department of Justice that spent taxpayer money to try him to reaffirm his life sentence, only to have this dingbat President pardon him anyway.
It is vile scumbags like these cowboy contractors that give the U.S. a bad name in the region when in fact the bulk of our military is out there trying to enhance and support democracy. It is important here to note that Erik Prince, the former CEO of Blackwater USA, is the brother of Trump education secretary Betsy DeVos.
Trump also pardoned former Democratic governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich, who was tried and convicted of taking bribes and selling Barack Obama's former Senate seat to the highest bidder. This criminal got a pass from Trump because he spent time on the Apprentice.
Make no mistake, the Apprentice is the only reason Trump is still wealthy. NBC bailed the failing Trump Organization out by giving him millions of dollars per year to host that fraud of show. Remember Trump is not a business success, but is miserable failure. He bankrupted casinos, the USFL, and a host of other Trump businesses. And all his real estate holdings were obtained by bank fraud and tax fraud, so when they finally investigate this career felon, the government will confiscate all those holdings like they did Paul Manafort's.
The list of 20 pardons and commutations is filled, nearly entirely, with these kinds of scumbags, in the image of Donald Trump, who violated the public trust or outright murderous felons. Drain the swamp? Not even close. He swamped it with dirty mosquito infested water. It could only be made worse if the mosquitos were infected with Covid.
We must, as an electorate, continue to rid public offices of the sycophants who have allowed this lifelong failure to corrupt the government unchecked. Vote them out! It begins January 5, 2021 in Georgia when the electorate can fire David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, two politicians who used insider information to make millions off of Covid in stock trades.
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