When they pleaded guilty, the three men took responsibility for crimes.
One acknowledged his involvement in an illegal campaign cash scheme. Another expressed “so much shame” for his tax fraud. And the third man wrote a letter to “apologize from the heart” to a police officer he assaulted with a stun gun.
But when they or their allies pushed for pardons from President Trump, they argued that they — like him — had been unfairly targeted by prosecutors because of their politics.
It is an argument that has resonated with Mr. Trump, who issued full and unconditional pardons to all three of the men, as well as hundreds of other supporters convicted of an array of crimes.
About four months into his second stint in the Oval Office, Mr. Trump has redefined the exercise of presidential clemency.
On Wednesday, Mr. Trump announced a raft of pardons, which wipe away convictions, and commutations, which cut sentences short. Not all had obvious political ties. Recipients included a rapper who was sentenced to nearly two years in prison in a federal gun case and the co-founder of a Chicago gang who was serving multiple life sentences for crimes including murder.
But several beneficiaries had ties to Mr. Trump or to conservative groups, including Michael G. Grimm, a former Republican representative from Staten Island who served seven months in prison for tax fraud a decade ago.
The president has focused on rewarding allies and supporters who make arguments that echo his own claims that he was prosecuted by a Justice Department that was weaponized for political ends by the administration of his predecessor, former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Mr. Trump has largely forsaken a more formal Justice Department process intended to identify and vet deserving clemency applicants who have served their time and expressed remorse.
His approach has created an incentive for pardon seekers, or their allies, to demonstrate their fealty to him and to accuse the Biden Justice Department of singling them out because of that support. And it has created a cottage industry of clemency lobbyists and lawyers offering to help shape such appeals.
It worked in the case of Brian Kelsey, a former Republican state senator from Tennessee, who had pleaded guilty in 2022 to illegally funneling money to his failed campaign for Congress in 2016. He tried unsuccessfully to withdraw the plea, then after Mr. Trump was elected, he filed a pardon application with the White House, claiming that prosecutors had gone after him to get to a close ally of Mr. Trump, according to a person familiar with the application.
Mr. Kelsey reported to prison in February for a 21-month sentence, but was pardoned by Mr. Trump about two weeks later.
In an essay published on Wednesday, Mr. Kelsey claimed that “the Biden administration waged unprecedented lawfare against President Trump” and that “it also waged lawfare against Trump supporters, including me.”
Paul Walczak, a former nursing home executive who last year pleaded guilty to tax offenses, sounded similar notes in his pardon application. It claimed that he was targeted for criminal prosecution because of his family’s fund-raising and other support for Mr. Trump.
Mr. Walczak received a pardon in April, less than three weeks after his mother, Elizabeth Fago, attended a $1-million-a-head fund-raising dinner with Mr. Trump at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla.
Not all the Trump supporters benefiting from this dynamic are wealthy enough to hire a well-connected lawyer or make large campaign donations to political or nonprofit groups affiliated with the president.
After Daniel Rodriguez was charged with assaulting a Washington police officer, including with a stun gun, during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot by Trump supporters at the Capitol, he tearfully expressed regret, according to a transcript of an interview with F.B.I. agents.
He pleaded guilty in 2023 and was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison by a federal judge who called him a “one-man army of hate,” making him one of more than 1,100 sentenced for their roles in the attack.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump called those convicted of offenses related to Jan. 6 “hostages” and “political prisoners.” On his first day in office, he pardoned nearly all of them, including Mr. Rodriguez, in a proclamation that called the prosecutions “a grave national injustice that has been perpetrated upon the American people over the last four years.”
The president used similar justifications for a series of pardons issued this week to supporters convicted of white-collar crimes.
On Tuesday, in announcing pardons for the conservative reality television stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, Mr. Trump said their yearslong prison sentences, handed down in 2022 for bank fraud and tax evasion that prosecutors said was done to fund a lavish lifestyle, was “pretty harsh treatment” that “should not have happened.”
Their pardon application — which was read aloud by the Chrisleys’ daughter, Savannah Chrisley, on her podcast in February — called the couple “vocal supporters of President Trump.”
It drew a direct line between their prosecutions and Mr. Trump’s, asserting that the Chrisleys’ conviction “exemplifies the weaponization of justice against conservatives and public figures, eroding basic constitutional protections.”
The application, written by Alex Little, the same Nashville lawyer who represented Mr. Kelsey in his clemency bid, linked the prosecutors in the Chrisleys’ case to Fani T. Willis, the Georgia state prosecutor who charged Mr. Trump in 2023 in connection with his efforts to cling to power after the 2020 election.
On Monday, in announcing a pardon for a former Virginia county sheriff who was sentenced last year to 10 years in prison for bribery, Mr. Trump declared that the sheriff was “a victim of an overzealous Biden Department of Justice, and doesn’t deserve to spend a single day in jail.”
The former sheriff, Scott Jenkins, is a prominent local supporter for Mr. Trump.
After the pardon was announced, Ed Martin, a close Trump ally who was recently appointed as the Justice Department’s pardon attorney, signaled that there would be more pardons coming for Trump supporters.
“No MAGA left behind,” he wrote on social media, adding “Freedom for Captives!” after a ceremonial swearing-in for his new position on Wednesday.
The appointment of Mr. Martin, who supported the defenses of Capitol rioters and has emerged as a leading advocate for using the power of the Justice Department to punish Mr. Trump’s foes, underscores the administration’s political approach to clemency.
The first political appointee to serve as pardon attorney in recent memory, Mr. Martin stepped into the role after the firing of a career Justice Department official who had refused to recommend the restoration of gun rights for the actor Mel Gibson, a prominent Trump supporter. (Mr. Gibson had his gun rights restored soon thereafter.)
Mr. Martin had previously been tapped as the head of the powerful U.S. attorney’s office in Washington. His nomination was withdrawn amid rising concerns that he was using the office to advance Mr. Trump’s political causes and target his enemies, including by seeking to undermine the pardons that Mr. Biden had issued to his family members and others during his final days in office.
Mr. Martin also heads a “Weaponization Working Group” inside the Justice Department that is seen as pursuing Mr. Trump’s grievances with the Biden administration’s investigations into him and his supporters.
Neil McCabe, a senior adviser to Mr. Martin, cast the positions as two sides of the same coin.
“As weaponization czar, he is going to find out what happened and hold people accountable,” Mr. McCabe said. “But then as pardon attorney, he can unwind the damage.”
Alan Feuer and Neil Vigdor contributed reporting.
Kenneth P. Vogel is based in Washington and investigates the intersection of money, politics and influence.
The post To Win Pardons, Trump Allies Echo His Claims of Political Prosecutions appeared first on New York Times.
