Trump's lawmaker pardon list stretches beyond Henry Cuellar
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President Trump looks on during a meeting of his Cabinet at the White House on Dec. 2. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) is the latest in a growing list of current and former elected U.S. lawmakers who have received clemency from President Trump.
The big picture: A dozen members of Congress — a vast majority of whom are former lawmakers — are part of Trump's not-so-exclusive clemency club as the president has embraced the pardon as a tool of political power.
- MAGA-friendly business leaders, celebrities, political allies and hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants have also been shielded by the president's far-reaching clemency power.
- Trump has often framed his second-term pardons as righting what he sees as weaponization within the Justice Department under the prior administration.
Context: As Trump has accused his prominent political foes of crimes, he's let members of both parties off the hook for the ones they allegedly committed, as highlighted by Capitol Hill reporter Jamie Dupree.
- White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said last month that "a whole team of qualified lawyers ... look at every single pardon request" that makes its way to Trump's desk.
- She added that the president was most focused on those defendants "over-prosecuted" under the former DOJ.
- "President Trump has exercised his constitutional authority to issue pardons and commutations for a variety of individuals," White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement provided to Axios, saying "the only pardons anyone should be critical of" were those signed by former President Biden.
The latest: Cuellar and his wife were indicted last year and accused of taking nearly $600,000 in bribes from an Azerbaijani government-controlled oil company and a Mexican bank. Trump issued a pardon for the couple on Wednesday.
- "I want to thank President Trump for his tremendous leadership and for taking the time to look at the facts," Cuellar replied in a social media post.
Read on for more about the other former lawmakers Trump has given clemency to:
Former Rep. George Santos
Trump signed a commutation to immediately release former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) from prison in October.
- Santos was sentenced to more than seven years in prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud and aggravated identity theft charges.
- He was expelled from Congress in a historic vote some two years ago.
- In announcing Santos' commutation, Trump alleged that Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) had committed "far worse" misdeeds than Santos, saying, "at least Santos had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN!"
Former Rep. and Gov. Rod Blagojevich
Former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), who once served as an Illinois representative, was granted a pardon by Trump earlier this year after the president commuted his sentence during his first term.
- Blagojevich served eight years in prison on charges stemming from his effort to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat.
- Trump and the former governor, who appeared on Trump's "Celebrity Apprentice," have a relationship dating back over a decade, Axios' Alex Isenstadt reports.
Former Rep. Michael Grimm
Earlier this year, Trump pardoned the former Republican congressman who resigned from office after being convicted of tax fraud.
- He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to eight months in prison.
Former Gov. and Rep. John Rowland
John Rowland, the former Republican governor of Connecticut, was a rising star knocked into the political wilderness by a corruption scandal, per the AP.
- He served ten months after pleading guilty to a corruption charge and went to prison again for conspiring to hide his work on political campaigns.
Former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham
Just before leaving office during his first term, Trump granted a conditional pardon to the former California congressman who pleaded guilty to accepting more than $2 million in bribes.
- Cunningham, also a highly decorated flying ace during the Vietnam War, died earlier this year.
Former Rep. Robert Cannon "Robin" Hayes
Hayes, a North Carolina congressman who served as the chairman of the state's Republican party, was pardoned by Trump at the end of the president's first term after being sentenced to a year of probation for lying during a federal investigation.
Former Rep. Mark Siljander
In 2020, Trump pardoned the former Republican congressman who pleaded guilty and was convicted of lying to the FBI over his ties to a charity suspected of having links to international terrorism, per NPR.
- The White House described him as being "one of Congress' most stalwart defenders of pro-life principles."
Former Rep. Rick Renzi
Renzi (R), a former Arizona congressman, was pardoned by Trump after spending nearly two years in prison on extortion and money laundering convictions.
- Several Republican lawmakers backed clemency for Renzi, who argued he was "wrongly convicted" by the DOJ.
Former Rep. Steve Stockman
In December 2020, Trump commuted the sentence of a former GOP congressman from Texas who was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for misusing charity dollars for personal and campaign expenses.
- The White House pointed to "underlying pre-existing health conditions that place[d] his health at greater risk" during the COVID-19 pandemic and said he would remain subject to a period of supervised release.
Former Rep. Duncan Hunter
Hunter (R-Calif.), who in 2016 was one of the first sitting members of Congress to endorse Trump, was pardoned in 2020 just before he was set to go to prison for violations of campaign finance law.
- The White House said in announcing his pardon that the case should have been handled as a civil violation by the Federal Election Commission.
Former Rep. Chris Collins
Collins, a New York Republican who was the first House member to endorse Trump's White House bid, was pardoned in the same December 2020 batch of clemency actions as Hunter and Stockman.
- In 2019, he pleaded guilty to participating in a scheme to commit insider trading and to making false statements to federal agents.
Zoom out: Trump has also granted clemency to other state and local-level officials.
- Before he left office, Biden issued a tranche of preemptive pardons for members of his family and for members of the House Jan. 6 committee.
- But those lawmakers who received preemptive clemency had not been charged with a crime — rather, Biden said he did it to protect them from "baseless and politically motivated investigations."
Go deeper: Trump lets private equity exec out of prison early
