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Friends, enemies, friends: Trump with Bannon, whom he has now pardoned
Photo: MANDEL NGAN / AFP
Steve Bannon landed on his feet again.
Investment banker, chairman of the right-wing website »Breitbart«, campaign guru for Donald Trump, chief strategist in the White House: Bannon has had many jobs, some of them short-lived.
But that all seemed to be a thing of the past.
In November, Twitter kicked him out for calling for the murder of FBI chief Christopher Wray and Corona expert Anthony Fauci.
In May he was threatened with trial because he had defrauded Trump supporters of around $ 25 million in donations for "building the wall".
But now Bannon can breathe a sigh of relief: During the night Trump pardoned his old friend, enemy and finally friend again - in his last official act before he moved out of the White House this Wednesday.
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Decision behind closed doors: Guard in front of the Oval Office
Photo: Leigh Vogel / POOL / EPA-EFE / Shutterstock
Bannon's blank check was one of 143 pardons and penalties that Trump finally announced in the package - at 1 a.m., eleven hours before the change of power.
The long list includes Trump friends, white-collar criminals, ex-party officials, two prominent rappers, and many lesser-known names - including some who had been sentenced to disproportionately high sentences, such as drug offenses, and who had good reason for a discount.
Most of them are men.
The full list of pardons and penalties can be found here:
Statement from the Press Secretary Regarding Executive Grants of Clemency
Hope for later consideration
Trump's final wave of grace had the effect of a lottery or a "Monopoly" card: "You will be released from prison." As if he had just handed out gifts in the hope of later consideration.
It was the fitting line under the most corrupt US presidency in generations.
May also be happy: Rapper Lil Wayne
Photo: RONALD MARTINEZ / AFP
Among the other recipients of Trump's grace:
Rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black (illegal gun possession);
Kwame Kilpatrick, the former mayor of Detroit (corruption);
Elliott Broidy, ex-Vice-Treasurer of the Republicans (illegal lobbying for Malaysia):
Salomon Melgen, a prominent ophthalmologist and Trump's neighbor from Palm Beach, Florida (health insurance fraud against seniors);
Paul Erickson, conservative activist and ex-boyfriend of alleged Russian spy Maria Butina (money laundering);
Robin Hayes, party donor (bribery).
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Pardoned despite corruption: Kwame Kilpatrick, ex-Mayor of Detroit
Photo: REUTERS
Presidential acts of grace, of course, only relate to central state procedures.
They do not apply to investigations and judgments in the individual US states.
Not on the list - although there are still a few hours left: Trump himself, his children and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
It had long been speculated whether Trump would give himself a prophylactic pardon to escape the lawsuits that now threaten him as a private citizen - including cases of dubious business practices and two reports of women accusing him of sexual assault.
Suspicion of impeachment
Two congressmen who, as a precautionary measure, are said to have booed for "pardons" because of their involvement in the attack on the Capitol, were left empty-handed.
Trump, it was said, did not want to make himself suspicious of the cover-up so shortly before his second impeachment proceedings because of the parliamentary storm.
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Last minute grace wave: Donald Trump
Photo: JIM WATSON / AFP
Last minute pardons are nothing new in the US.
Other presidents were even busier in that regard.
Bill Clinton pronounced more than half of his nearly 400 pardons and commutations in his last month in office, 170 of them on the last day alone - for example to the tax evader Marc Rich, whose wife had donated more than a million dollars to the Democrats.
But nobody has instrumentalized "pardons" as brutally, amorally and selfishly as Trump.
Most of the beneficiaries were unrepentant criminals, but with Connections: They had a direct line to Trump or knew someone who had access to the president.
Bannon's pardon is also dubious because he helped to heat the storm on the Capitol - and could now play a role in Trump's future again, for example in founding a new party, as Trump allegedly intends to do.
Death row inmates asked for mercy in vain
Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort, ex-security advisor Michael Flynn and Roger Stone, Trump's notorious "man for the rough", had benefited from his arbitrariness.
Also Charles Kushner, father of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, and - to the horror of human rights activists - four former members of the Blackwater mercenary group convicted of a massacre in Iraq.
Others got the short straw.
The 13 US death row inmates whom Trump had executed in a historically unprecedented fast-track process since July, asked in vain for mercy - their requests were rejected by Trump, the last resort.
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Conflicts of grace: George W. Bush and Barack Obama
Photo: JEWEL SAMAD / AFP
A pardon is the ultimate symbol of power for a US president; it cannot be challenged or canceled.
Word has got around, which often leads to an application backlog, especially at the end of a term of office.
“One of the biggest surprises in the end was the flood of pardons,” complained George W. Bush.
Barack Obama also granted most of them shortly before closing time, in January 2017 (142 of 212).
But nobody was as obsessed with "pardons" as Trump.
Most recently he talked about it "non-stop," reports Josh Dawsey of the Washington Post, which described the midnight announcements as a "mercy blizzard."
"Personal and Political Relations"
Especially since Trump realized that he could use it in his favor, above all by favoring influential friends who will be in his debt in the future - and who in return can protect him from criminal prosecution.
Trump issued fewer clemency judgments than many of his predecessors, but the majority actually benefited well-connected insiders: more than 90 percent, according to a study, came through outside of the regular, bureaucratically complex clemency proceedings in the US Department of Justice - but directly through "Personal and political relationships" with Trump.
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No mercy from Trump: Whistleblower Edward Snowden
Photo: Lotta Hardelin / DAGENS NYHETER / AFP
Attorney General Bill Barr, who resigned in December, is said to have kept out of this gaggle.
“He didn't want to hear about it,” writes the online magazine “Axios”.
The only pardon Barr "tried to preventively stop" was that of whistleblower Edward Snowden.
In the end, the process apparently withered into a mercy bazaar, in which Trump let the representatives of the petitioners in person in the Oval Office hump - and they in turn paid dearly for their services.
Trump was "besieged by lobbyists and lawyers for wealthy clients" who wanted to see their annoying convictions erased, reports the "New York Times".
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At work to the end: pardoned Roger Stone (left) and mediator Rudy Giuliani
Photo: JIM BOURG / REUTERS
Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani allegedly even offered to broker pardons for two million dollars apiece.
A former US attorney whose clients include Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the darknet drug exchange Silk Road who has been sentenced to life in prison, earned more than $ 42,000 from it.
Trump's ex-attorney John Dowd also monetized his line to Trump.
Which request made it to Trump's desk and how it will be shown later.
In any case, Trump spent several hours with his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner in the Oval Office over the weekend to discuss the very last, "long grace list" in detail.
And maybe there will be a surprise after all.
Because Trump does not necessarily have to publish his acts of grace.
So he could very well have pardoned himself, but kept it a secret - and only pulled it out of his sleeve at some point when he is charged.
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