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Crime Syndicate; Trumps CORRUPT Jan 6 Pardons/Biden Witness Goes Missing in Prison
Former Pardon Attorney Breaks Down How Trump Upended Jan 6 Pardons Process
Questions Raised as Biden Impeachment Witness Goes Missing From Prison after Lying to FBI
Alexander Smirnov pleaded guilty to making up a story that former President Joe Biden and his son Hunter had gotten millions of dollars in bribes from a Ukrainian energy company,
AP 7 NOV 2025
Donald Trump issues executive orders and pardons for Jan. 6 defendants, names are seen on the document he holds, in the Oval Office on Inauguration Day in Washington, DC on Jan. 20.
Even before Trump admitted to having no idea who his latest pardon recipient, disgraced cryptocurrency founder Changpeng Zhao, is, the president has been upending pardon norms since his first term and even more so in his second administration, a former pardon attorney and legal experts told Raw Story.
From an early commutation of former Rep. George Santos seven year prison sentence for aggravated identity theft and wire fraud, to granting blanket pardons for more than 1,500 defendants involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection, Trump has issued pardons and clemency since resuming office in January with unprecedented brazenness, experts say.
Sam Morison, who served for 13 years as a staff attorney for the Office of the Pardon Attorney in the Department of Justice, said, Trump has a different understanding of what makes somebody a good candidate for a pardon.
The traditional way it works is you have to go through DOJ, and you sort of have to kiss the ring.
Trump made a practice of bypassing the pardon office in his first term and has continued to do so in his second term, granting pardons in cases that normally wouldnt qualify by office standards, such as pardoning violent offenders like some Jan. 6 defendants.
Yet, the checks on the presidential pardon power are almost none, said Mark Osler, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis, allowing Trump to issue pardons despite perceptions of impropriety or political favors.
It does seem like he tends to grant cases where at least he thinks hes getting something out of it, whether financial or political or whatever. He views this in a sort of transactional way. That seems to be true, Morison said. I have yet to see him do one that was altruistic.
Trump has pardoned individuals with mutlimillion dollar restitution orders. For example, in March, Trump pardoned Trevor Milton, founder of electric vehicle company, Nikola Corporation, who was convicted of securities and wire fraud and ordered to pay $680 million in restitution to shareholders.
In another case, Trump pardoned reality TV stars Julie and Todd Chrisley for their bank fraud convictions in May, releasing them from prison and erasing any remaining obligations on the original $4.7 million and $17.2 million restitution owed, respectively, according to the Department of Justice.
Trump has gotten comfortable with not just releasing somebody from prison, but remitting the punishment altogether, including fines and restitution Traditionally, pardon applications where petitioners frame themselves as treated unfairly or as victims of a political prosecution
Trump has called prosecutors in criminal cases hes faced scum,evil and corrupt.
Trump said he pardoned Zhao, who pleaded guilty to violating anti money laundering laws at cryptocurrency exchange Binance, because his sons are into cryptocurrency, and he was told Zhao was set up by President Joe Bidens administration.
I heard it was a Biden witch hunt, Trump said. I have no idea who he is. I was told that he was a victim, just like I was and just like many other people, of a vicious, horrible group of people in the Biden administration.
Zhaos pardon brought scrutiny for its appearance of pay for play as Binance helped facilitate a $2 billion purchase involving a Trump family backed cryptocurrency, which Trump denied knowing anything about
We see here that the president is looking to give out pardons to those that can enrich himself, or those who have shown very clearly through donations, either through his campaign or his inaugural fund, that they can receive special treatment, and that itself is dangerous, Pino said.
Pardons can be bought or flattered under todays Trump administration, Demleitner said.
For instance, Milton and his wife donated more than $1.8 million to a Trump re election fund less than a month before the 2024 election.
George Santos who was expelled from the U.S. House of Representatives, departs after the sentencing in his criminal corruption charges at Central Islip Federal Courthouse in Central Islip, New York on April 25, 2025.
In Santos? case, more than $373,000 in restitution was erased, along with the remainder of his 87 month prison sentence through Trumps Oct. 17 commutation. Santos was less than three months into his sentence.
Liz Oyer, a former Department of Justice pardon attorney fired by Trump, calculated the cost of Trumps second term pardons to be more than $1 billion as of May.
A June memo from the Democratic staff of the House Committee on the Judiciary calculated a $1.3 billion cost for pardons.
Determining an exact financial impact of the pardons is challenging because oftentimes fines and restitution go uncollected, Morison said. Theoretically, taxpayers could save some money when someone is released from prison considering it costs the Bureau of Prisons at least $30,000 per year to keep someone incarcerated, he said.
Otherwise, we're stuck in this doom loop where one side is angry at the other and nothing changes
Biden Impeachment Witness Goes Missing
An FBI informant tied to a fake bribery scheme against the Biden family has been released from prison, raising concerns that Donald Trump could pardon him
Alexander Smirnov pleaded guilty to making up a story that former President Joe Biden and his son Hunter had gotten millions of dollars in bribes from a Ukrainian energy company, but journalist Jacqueline Sweet reported that hes apparently no longer serving a six year prison term imposed days before Trump returned to office.
Despite Smirnov being judged a flight risk, with ties to Russian intelligence and foreign assets, the US/Israeli citizen has been mysteriously missing from prison for at least the past four months, Sweet reported.
Following reports in April that the Trump administration was reviewing the case, concerns have now arisen that the president is considering an imminent pardon.
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