As if Robert Mueller had worked for nothing. With the new series of pardons announced on Christmas Eve, Donald Trump has rescued almost all of the relatives or intermediaries who had been convicted in the context of the investigation of the independent prosecutor in charge of Russian interference in the election presidential election of 2016.
Robert Mueller had conducted twenty-two months of investigation, which resulted in a 448-page indictment document. But only two defendants, on the American side, are still under sentence. These are the two men who cooperated with FBI investigators: Michael Cohen, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, who testified bluntly against his former boss in Congress. And Rick Gates, deputy director of the 2016 campaign, who pleaded guilty to fraud and lying to investigators.
On Wednesday, December 23, the president pardoned twenty-six people and commuted the sentences of three others. The day before, the beneficiaries were twenty, of which more than half, according to the New York Times, did not meet the criteria established by the justice department to request a clemency measure. According to lawyer and Harvard professor Jack Goldsmith, nearly 90% of the leniency measures granted by Mr. Trump have benefited defendants with family, friendship, professional ties, with him, or having helped in his election.
Among the elected: the former director of his campaign Paul Manafort, 71, sentenced to seven and a half years in prison; released in May due to the pandemic, he is serving his sentence at home (he remains charged locally in New York); the flamboyant friend Roger Stone, 68, whose sentence of forty months in prison had already been commuted in July, and never seemed to have the slightest concern about his fate. George Papadopoulos, the diplomatic adviser during the 2016 campaign: he admitted having lied to the FBI; he served twelve days in prison and withdrew from the adventure a book he promotes in conservative circles and which explains how he found himself “Involved in the plot to bring down Trump”. Alex van der Zwaan, a Dutch lawyer, collaborator of Manafort in his interests in Ukraine.
“One by one, Trump wants to ensure silence”
At the end of November, Mr. Trump had already pardoned Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser, also implicated for having lied about his contacts with Russian officials. “One by one, Trump wants to ensure silence” of those who would be likely to be questioned again if the investigation was relaunched after his departure from the White House, assured Democratic Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas), interviewed by CNN.
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