Posted on 01/16/2026 12:20:00 PM PST by Kleon
President Donald Trump pardoned nearly two dozen people this week including a woman who had a fraud conviction commuted by the president in 2021, according to multiple outlets, marking the latest pardons handed out by Trump in his second term.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
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Many “convicted felons” are in truth innocent victims of a massive crime syndicate that owns the judges and the prosecutors.
Fraudulent courts, anyone?
I was telling my liberal sister about the Somali fraud yesterday (she didn’t know a thing about it) but then she told me POTUS pardoned people who stole and were convicted of it and weren’t required to pay back their victims.
What’s up with that?
Weird how she seemed to think POTUS pardons of fraudsters counteracted billions stolen by Somalis.
Some more specific info would help clarify that.
For one thing, the court doesn't have the authority to issue pardons.
However during sentencing, a convicted fraudster may not be required to return money. That would partially depend, I believe, on whether or not the fraudster still had access to the money. If part of a group, the money may have been long siphoned off.
Why does he keep pardoning white-collar criminals?
Our justice system is the gold standard of fairness, impartiality, is devoid of bias, and is non-political.
I cannot imagine why anyone would get pardoned.
My son is attorney.
I’ve had this discussion with him - “the law isn’t always logical”. This is sadly true when someone is convicted and subsequent evidence exonerates that person. If there was no mistake in the prosecution, in the trial, etc... Well, I know it sounds crazy, but I understand the point: The law itself needs to retain 100% fidelity to the law. He pointed me to some writings from Scalia explaining it - and while I don’t like it? I get the point.
The “out” is the pardon.
Nonetheless - and I’ve never claimed to be anything more than a “least bad option” DJT voter - one pardon I’m quite familiar with is Rod Blagojevich.
Blago is a sleazy crook. He always was and he still is. He got a pardon because he went on that silly gameshow - while he was awaiting sentencing. Since then, he’s been trying to grift and complain it buzz-word fault (”Deep State”, etc) - but he’s a crook. He was. He is. He got a pardon thanks to a personal connection via the gameshow and kissing the right a**.
The power of the pardon needs to exist because it is simply the best and easiest way for someone wrongly convicted to be freed.
I do not have any good answers, but slowjoe (if not Billybob, if not previously) abused it. I’m sorry to say, but so has DJT.
It needs to be throttled and limited. I do not know how, but it needs to be limited.
On the other hand, look up David Gentile of GPB Capital who was found guilty of $1.8B fraud. He served two weeks of a ten year sentence in November, whereupon President Trump commuted his sentence.
This man is guilty - I know it first hand.
I am a Donald Trump supporter, but I am horrified that he did this.
Yes Blago is a crook, like almost all high level Illinois politicians. But Trump did not pardon him, he commuted his 14 year sentence after Blago had served close to 8 years. Blago is still a convicted felon.
I wonder why he did that!
Yes I support him but I don’t think he’s totally perfect.
Because a lot of them were railroaded by a corrupt system, something Trump knows all too well.
Not sure what you're talking about. Trump pardoned Blago. He actually lives near me, and I talked to him about a few months back.
Him and Martha Stewart.
Prosecutors want to make a name for themselves taking down a rich CEO.
Although I wouldn’t believe Blago if he told me the sky was blue on a sunny day, I stand corrected. Trump commuted his sentence in 2020 but then fully pardoned the scum in Feb 2025. I must have missed that in the flurry of activity that was the first couple of months of Trumps second term.
As someone said in another post, I think Trump is very pissed after the way they tried to railroad him with a bunch of phoney charges after his first term and giving out these pardons is his way of telling the system to screw off. After all, is amazing how Blago was charged but the other conspirators like Governor Creosote Pritzker were not even investigated.
Trump commuted his sentence during his first term and pardoned him shortly after taking office last year..
They state what the charges were, but nothing to confirm that the chages were legitimate.
I felt the article was short on detail so I looked at some contemporary local articles on the case. It seems the woman was getting discounted food and drinks by telling companies she was selling to prisons and to stores in Mexico. She instead sold them in the US, undercutting the food companies’ legitimate distributors. In many cases this activity is not illegal but does violate contracts. She was however accused of removing Spanish market labels and replacing them with English labels which is explicitly illegal. She received a 1 year sentence and was forced to pay back 25 million of the 53 million she profited between 2019 and 2023, I guess the government got the other half in taxes.
Sorry, but much as fatboy is also a crook?
Blago’s crimes are irrelevant to fatboy. By all means - indict try fatboy too.
If anything? Blago got a pass - hung jury on some counts and then, without looking back into it, I recall the appellate courts eventually determined some charges were via an “honest services” law that was overly vague, essentially striking down the law.
But anyone wanting to spare that sleazy, grifter POS is off their rocker.
I had the great misfortune of meeting grease boy a couple times - professionally just as a private businessman and IL resident, obviously not politically (though, the “meetings” were 100% him gladhanding and I was expected to be present).
I lay no claim to being any great judge of character and no, I don’t have any special spidey-sense — but in nearly 60 years of life? I’ve never met anyone - and that includes bums on the street - who set off my “keep your hands on your wallet” more than that jackass.
It was a long time ago, but I followed his charges and trials and the intricate details of evidence VERY closely.
If anything? He got off light. The law is the law - and the greasy SOB ain’t stupid - so I accept the fact that he managed to sleazily craft some of grifting in a manner that allowed for reasonable doubt on *some* charges. Sure, no way I’d have ever been sat on a jury — I’d have readily admitted I couldn’t be impartial.
But let me say this: DAMN anybody who thinks he got “railroaded”. He’s one of the top sleazebags in modern politics. Everybody knew he was before he got charged. If anything? I suspect JUSTICE got railroaded because a sleazebag crook like him was able to hang on some counts where he was crookedly clever enough to escape conviction.
Forbes is just another leftist Trump hating trash dump now. Moving on.
This man is guilty - I know it first hand.
Please do share.
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