Trump’s ‘crony pardons’ flabbergast the political world

Kedric Payne, a former deputy chief counsel of the Office of Congressional Ethics and former deputy general counsel at the U.S. Department of Energy during the Obama administration, said what discourages him most about Trump’s pardons are the large number of government officials absolved by Trump over the course of his term — not just former members of Congress, but also a slate of state and local officials. “It’s an unprecedented amount of public officials who were committing crimes while in office who are being pardoned,” said Payne, now of the Campaign Legal Center, who put the number of government officials granted clemency during Trump’s term at 15. “That hasn’t happened in modern history, to pardon that many officials who were convicted of criminal activity.”

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