Former President Donald Trump issued more than 100 pardons before leaving the White House, most of them to personal friends and political allies, including controversial figures such as Paul Manafort .
President Trump s pardons leave some of their subjects open to additional prosecution, experts say.
His former campaign chair Paul Manafort could still be prosecuted for specific crimes he wasn t pardoned for.
Even Michael Flynn, who received a wider-ranging pardon, could still have it tested by courts.
On his way out of office, President Donald Trump issued more than 100 pardons, mostly to his personal friends and political allies.
A number of those pardons were for people convicted of federal crimes linked to the Mueller investigation including his former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and advisors Roger Stone and George Papadopoulos.
Donald Trump’s last-minute pardons issued just as he left the White House last week may include major "gaps" that could allow President Joe Biden's Justice Department to continue seeking prosecutions against recipients, according to legal experts. The former president granted a flurry of clemencies to several of his loyalists and advisers, as well as celebrities like rapper Lil Wayne, before he skipped the Inauguration Day ceremonies and headed.
In the final weeks of
Donald Trump’s presidency, many of the swamp leeches who’d spent four years attached to him focused on leveraging their parasitic bond to power for as much cash as possible before January 20. One such hanger-on was
Matt Schlapp, the chairman of the American Conservative Union and husband to former top Trump communications aide
Mercedes Schlapp. Matt Schlapp has built his influence in part by directing ACU’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference essentially the Panama City Beach spring break for College Republicans trying to get laid, Comic-Con for people who LARP as military operators, and Coachella for Fox News fans dying to see their favorite TV acts live. It’s through CPAC that Schlapp has gotten plenty of face time with Trump. The former president spoke at the conference every year of his term, including in 2019, when he used Schlapp’s main stage in National Harbour, Maryland, to make one of his longest speeches on record.