Trump pardons sports executive charged by his Justice Department

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5. MaddowBlog-With yet another controversial pardon, Trump derails his own DOJ's corruption case

There’s a fine line between a president using pardons to abide corruption and using them to encourage corruption.

As Trump pardons a real estate developer who’d been charged with corruption by his own Justice Department, an unsettling fact appears obvious:

Trump made a right-turn at *abiding* corruption and is now, though his pardon abuses, effectively *encouraging* corruption. www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-12-04T18:18:23.894Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/with-yet-another-controversial-pardon-trump-derails-his-own-dojs-corruption-case

But the pattern isn’t limited to politicians. The New York Times reported on Trump also pardoning a real estate developer who’d been charged by the president’s own Justice Department after allegedly rigging the bidding process for a sports arena. From the article:

Mr. Trump’s pardon effectively quashed his administration’s effort to convict the developer, Timothy J. Leiweke, a founder and former chief executive of Oak View Group, for allegedly orchestrating a conspiracy to rig the bidding process for the Moody Center Arena at the University of Texas to benefit his own company. The maximum penalty for the charge was 10 years in prison and a $1 million fine.

While the White House often tries to justify controversial pardons by whining about Joe Biden, that wasn’t an option in this case: Leiweke was charged by a federal prosecutor appointed by Attorney General Pam Bondi as part of an investigation led in part by an FBI official appointed by Director Kash Patel......

At this point, it’s difficult to speculate as to what might have transpired behind the scenes, but the broader pattern is plainly indefensible.

The Times’ Jamelle Bouie noted in his latest column:

In addition to his co-conspirators in the effort to ‘stop the steal,’ Trump has pardoned a number of white-collar criminals. In March he pardoned the founders of a crypto exchange after they had pleaded guilty to money laundering. In April he pardoned a nursing home chief executive, Paul Walczak, whose mother is a major Republican donor, and in October, Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, a billionaire with connections to the Trump family’s crypto investments.

There is yet another set of Trump pardons meant for people convicted of fraud and political corruption. In May he commuted the sentence of Lawrence Duran, who had been convicted of Medicare fraud and money laundering. That month Trump also commuted the sentence of Marian Morgan, who had been sentenced to a 35-year prison term for stealing millions of dollars from investors in a Ponzi scheme.

.....The easy observation is that the president, himself a convicted felon, appears to have a soft spot for those accused of corruption, but given the frequency and brazenness of Trump’s abuses, a different kind of concern is coming into focus: Trump made a right turn at abiding corruption and is now, through his pardon abuses, effectively encouraging corruption — making it clear to the public that such crimes will not lead to consequences so long as he’s in the White House.