Why was this massive Trump scandal hiding in plain sight for 28 months?

[Nevilledog]

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/rudy-giuliani-selling-trump-pardons-20230521.html

No paywall
https://archive.is/lh9bg

It’s remarkable, in hindsight, that Donald Trump even showed up for work during the last week of his twisted 45th presidency in January 2021. After all, his fantasies that some sort of coup could overturn his stinging election defeat to now-President Joe Biden had melted in the deadly violence of Jan. 6, 2021, which prompted his unprecedented second impeachment.

But Trump had to race through some important unfinished business before the clock struck noon on Jan. 20, Biden’s inauguration day. The night before, the ongoing president issued a whopping 144 pardons and commutations as he wielded one of his few utterly unchecked powers granted in the U.S. Constitution. Indeed, looking just at pardons, Trump issued 116 of just 143 during his four years in office in his final month, January 2021.

To the very end, Trump ignored the practices of past presidents — who’d worked mostly off petitions that had been investigated by the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney — and granted clemency largely for connected folks that he tended to know, from close cronies like Roger Stone and Steve Bannon to his reality-TV pal Rod Blagojevich, the disgraced Illinois governor, to his son-in-law’s dad, Charles Kushner. Then there was an additional category: those who’d paid good money to Trump World insiders to plead their case.

On Jan. 17, 2021, the New York Times published an article headlined: “Prospect of Pardons in Final Days Fuels Market to Buy Access to Trump.” Based on more than three dozen interviews with key players, the Times confirmed that wealthy convicted felons were paying tens of thousands of dollars to insiders like a former Trump personal attorney, John Dowd, in the rush to gain clemency. To be clear, hiring a lawyer promising special access — while perhaps unseemly — is not new and probably not unlawful. But a Times passage about convicted ex-CIA leaker John Kiriakou, who paid an unnamed Trump associate $50,000 with a contingent promise of $50,000 more if a pardon was granted, included a jaw-dropping if unproven allegation:

“And Mr. Kiriakou was separately told that Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani could help him secure a pardon for $2 million. Mr. Kiriakou rejected the offer, but an associate, fearing that Mr. Giuliani was illegally selling pardons, alerted the F.B.I. Mr. Giuliani challenged this characterization.”

*snip*

[Joinfortmill]

1. This is big. I think we'll be hearing more about this very soon...Tick Tock, Traitor.

[dalton99a]

2. Kick

[FakeNoose]

3. Chump figured he'd have another 4 years to sell those pardons, but suddenly it was over

I think Rudy, John Dowd, and Jared Kushner handled most of them, so we know it was corrupt as all get out.

I think we owe Ms. Noelle Dunphy a debt of gratitude for shining a spotlight on this corruption (especially Rudy's). Even though it was reported on a couple years ago by the NY Times, the story got lost among all the coup attempt news. Now it's front and center.

[Blue Owl]

4. As many here have expressed...

Wouldn't it be lovely and fitting and appropriate if Donny and Rudy were mates in a 12 x 8' prison cell, where one of them would be squatting on the stainless steel latrine at all times while the other was forced to endure the rancid, putrid odors....

[Midnight Writer]

7. Be sure Rudy gets his Viagra every day.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

5. I imagine granting immunity to the people who bought pardons would be extremely successful.

I mean, who wants to avoid jail time more than someone who just bought their freedom for $2 million dollars.

[Pacifist Patriot]

33. Excellent point!

[Autumn]

6. It hasn't been hiding for 28 months. It's been in plain sight and no one seems to give a fuck.

Giuliani must be above the law because this has been known and they are not doing shit about it. Instead they are focusing on a she said, he said lurid event.

[Tetrachloride]

14. +++. No special prosecutor???

[bucolic_frolic]

21. Ghouliani knows a lot of secrets

Former NYC Mayor, former US Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 1983 and former United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

[Snackshack]

8. 144.... all in

1 night.

Oh yea... that's totally normal.

Too many people are saying this for it to be just "the left piling on" as i have heard and by all accounts it is not that they sat back and just let people come to them to ask for a pardon but it looks like they were actively shopping it around.

[nowforever]

9. If this had been done by a Democratic President

It would still be the lead story at Fox...

[not fooled]

10. What a joke this country has become

corrupt "supreme" court bought and paid for, issuing rulings to allow the billionaires to loot the nation and poison the rest of us.

red don selling pardons.

Most of the country just shrugs and moves on, or doesn't even know or care.

It's already bad and only getting worse.

[gratuitous]

11. But is this naked corruption a crime?

The power of the Executive to pardon is more or less unchecked. If a president is lawless enough to monetize that power what's to stop him?

[Farmer-Rick]

32. It's called bribery

It is against the law to offer the president money for a pardon. That is clear and not ambiguous.

The president accepting the money for the pardon has never been challenged. But if offering a bribe is illegal, accepting a bribe is also very likely illegal.

Pardon power of the president is limited in what type of laws he can pardon. He can't pardon civil suits or state law violations. There are probably other limits but no one has tested them ....yet.

[Beastly Boy]

36. That will require proof beyond reasonable doubt of trump accepting a bribe.

The article doesn't hint of anything resembling that.

It only offers a third-hand account that raises the possibility of a bribe being solicited on Giuliani's behalf, a solicitation that was alleged, also by a third party, to have rejected it.

It is not that the law against offering money for pardons does not exist, it's a matter of proving it in court.

[mcar]

12. Geez. Bill Clinton pardoned one dude he probably shouldn't have

and the media, the right and the left went batshit crazy. How times have changed.

[Tetrachloride]

13. Golly gee, somehow i think there's been a whitewash.

and how long has it been washed

[brooklynite]

15. Before people get wrapped up in this "scandal", consider this...

There is no evidence of bribery. The complaint doesn’t say there was evidence of bribery. All it said was that Giuliani CLAIMED there was bribery. How trusting of him are you?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

20. Smoke : Fire. Are the two often associated? You are 100% correct that is not exactly evidence

But it sure as hell is reason to keep investigating.

[malaise]

16. This is HUGE

Jack is coming for Slobby!

Selling pardons is public corruption
That is all

[dlk]

17. Selling pardons at $2 million a pop is a significant amount of cash

When someone’s a grifter, this shouldn’t be surprising. Jack Smith could spend the rest of his life investigating Trump’s endless crimes and still barely scratch the surface.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

19. It is, but the amount is immaterial to the criminalness of the crime. . . . nt

[dlk]

25. Yes, Trump debased his office in the worst ways

Republicans clearly have no honor and no shame.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

18. I remember seeing that article and discussion on DU, but forgot all about it in the interim

There has been so much shit!

[RussBLib]

22. SOB had his rotten tentacles into everything

...and too many were willing to go along.

There is just an astronomical number of charges that Trump could be hit with. Could end up being more charges than against any other defendant in history.

[LaMouffette]

23. The concept of "learned helplessness" has stuck with me since Psychology 101 in college, oh so many

years ago. Don't remember this exactly, but something about they put some mice in a cage with an electrified floor. They zapped them, and at first, these poor mice tried to escape, but the walls were way too high, something like that. Eventually after trying and trying and trying, the mice gave up and stopped even trying to escape, and even after the walls were lowered so that they could easily hop over them, they didn't even try. They gave up hope of escape.

That's what Trump's monumental corruption and criminality has done to us. He has zapped us and zapped us and zapped us with one outrageous act after another with no accountability, no jail time, still being allowed to run as a candidate for president, still millions of people worshipping him, and the Republican Party doing nothing to save us from him, until we have almost reached the point of learned helplessness.

But people like Letetia James, Fani Willis, Alvin Bragg, and hopefully, hopefully, hopefully Jack Smith are courageously showing us that justice will be forthcoming for this POS masquerading as a human being.

[Beastly Boy]

24. "But a Times passage... included a jaw-dropping if unproven allegation"

As far as I know, this allegation remain as unproven as it is jaw-dropping. Alarming, but not actionable.

An opinion article in a publication that cites another publication citing a Mr. Kiriakou, who "was told" by someone that Giuliani "could help him secure a pardon for $2 million", which was denied by the said Mr Giuliani. A very weak string of mile-long hearsay trail. And, based on this, the question: "So who did [buy the pardon if not Kiriakou], and more importantly, why isn’t the FBI out there interviewing each and every one of them?" A pretty idiotic question, if you ask any law school freshman.

Perhaps Ms Dunphy's can corroborate this allegation with the records she says she has. Then, depending on the strength of her evidence, FBI can do something about it.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

30. Whether or not "actionable" legally at the moment, it needs investigation. . . . . nt

[Beastly Boy]

31. Any criminal investigation requires actionable information to even get started.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/just-what-fbi-investigation-fact-sheet

In the case of a preliminary investigation, “Information or an allegation” about possible crime is considered actionable, and for a full investigation it is "An “articulable factual basis” of a possible crime. An opinion article that refers to second and third, and even fourth hand accounts of a possible crime is not even actionable for a preliminary investigation: it does not contain a single verifiable allegation and the information it relays is unreliable at best.

Ms. Dumphy's lawsuit, on the other hand, contains both the allegation and information sufficient for FBI to start a criminal investigation. However, she chose a civil lawsuit in the State of New York as a remedy and, apparently, she never conveyed her first-hand knowledge of actionable information to the FBI. A civil case has a much easier burden of proof to meet than a criminal case. Should Ms. Dumphy win hers, it may as well trigger the federal criminal investigation. But if she loses, it is very doubtful that the FBI will pursue the same losing case, but which will require of them a far greater burden of proof.

[Martin68]

26. i hope this is investigated and finds proof positive that Trump provided pardons for money.

It could be a game changer.

[Prairie_Seagull]

27. I can't remember what the outcome of discussions about 'pocket pardons' was.

is it possible there are still pardons out there waiting for a finding of guilty.

[former9thward]

29. No.

1) He was not pardoned. His sentence was commuted.
2) Blagojevich does not have $2 million dollars
3) He served 8 years of the 12 he would have served without the commutation. That is longer than anyone else sentenced for the crime he was convicted.
4) His commutation took place almost a year before the pardons alleged in the OP.

[usonian]

34. There is no low that's low enough.

Dante needs heavy equipment to find a proper spot for these thugs.

[brewens]

35. "Wealthy convicted felons". Sounds like the fines should be bumped up with serious white collar

crime to prevent that. If the fines take them right down to their last shitstained pair of underwear, they wouldn't be able to buy pardons.