End of Trump term fuels pardon-lobbying market

WASHINGTON -- As President Donald Trump prepares to leave office in days, a lucrative market for pardons is coming to a head, with some of his allies collecting fees from wealthy felons or their associates to push the White House for clemency, according to documents and interviews with more than three dozen lobbyists and lawyers.

The lobbying for pardons heated up as it became clear that Trump had no recourse for challenging his election defeat, lobbyists and lawyers say. One lobbyist, Brett Tolman, a former federal prosecutor who has been advising the White House on pardons and commutations, has monetized his clemency work. He has collected tens of thousands of dollars, and possibly more, in recent weeks to lobby the White House for clemency for former Arkansas Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson; the founder of the notorious online drug marketplace Silk Road; and a New York City socialite who pleaded guilty in a fraud scheme.

Trump's former personal lawyer, John Dowd, has marketed himself to felons as someone who could secure pardons because of his close relationship with the president, accepting tens of thousands of dollars from a wealthy felon and advising him and other potential clients to leverage Trump's grievances about the justice system.

A onetime top adviser to the Trump campaign was paid $50,000 to help seek a pardon for John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer convicted of illegally disclosing classified information, and agreed to a $50,000 bonus if the president granted it, according to a copy of an agreement.

And Kiriakou was said to have separately been told that Trump's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, could help him secure a pardon for $2 million. Kiriakou rejected the offer, but an associate, fearing that Giuliani was illegally selling pardons, alerted the FBI, sources said. Giuliani challenged this characterization.

After Trump's impeachment following the deadly riot at the Capitol, the pardon power remains one of the last outlets for quick unilateral action by the president. Sources say he has suggested to aides that he wants to take the unprecedented step of pardoning himself, although it was not clear whether he had broached the topic since the assault on the Capitol.

He is also said to have discussed issuing preemptive pardons to his children; his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner; and Giuliani.

A White House spokesman declined to comment.

There are few historical parallels to the current wave of pardon lobbying. Perhaps the closest occurred in the final hours of Bill Clinton's administration when he issued 170 pardons and commutations, some of which went to people who paid six-figure sums to his family and associates. But even Clinton, who was seen as flouting protocols, mostly rewarded people who had gone through an intensive Justice Department review process intended to identify and vet the most deserving recipients from among thousands of clemency applications.

Trump has shunned that process more than any recent president, creating an ad hoc system in the White House that Kushner has had significant influence over, and has relied on input from an informal network of outside advisers, including Tolman.

Few regulations or disclosure requirements govern presidential clemency grants or lobbying for them, particularly by lawyers, and there is nothing illegal about Trump associates being paid to lobby for clemency. Any explicit offers of payment to the president in return could be investigated as possible violations of bribery laws, but no evidence has emerged that Trump was offered money in exchange for a pardon.

Some who used resources or connections to try to get to Trump say clemency should be granted to more people, independent of their clout.

"The criminal justice system is badly broken, badly flawed," said Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas, a Republican who served in Congress from 1993 to 2003.

He has paid Tolman at least $10,000 since late last year to lobby the White House and Congress for a pardon for his son Jeremy Hutchinson, who pleaded guilty in 2019 to accepting bribes and to tax fraud, according to a lobbying disclosure filed this month.

Tim Hutchinson said the $10,000 was only for lobbying, and he acknowledged that Tolman may have performed legal services not reflected in the disclosure. While Hutchinson said he was happy with Tolman, he added, "There is a lot of people deserving of mercy, and I hope the president has a wide net in his approach to pardons and clemency."

CLEMENCY ADVOCATE

Tolman, who did not respond to requests for comment, is a former U.S. attorney in Utah appointed by President George W. Bush. He was a leading supporter of legislation overhauling sentencing laws, which was championed by Trump and Kushner, and was invited to the White House signing ceremony in December 2018.

Since then, Tolman has emerged as a prominent advocate for clemency requests, with his firm's website highlighting a White House statement crediting him with helping secure pardons or commutations for three people, including Kushner's father, a wealthy real estate developer who was convicted of tax evasion, witness tampering and campaign finance violations.

The White House has also credited Tolman with helping less well-connected offenders win clemency. There are no public records indicating Tolman was paid for those efforts, and Tolman wrote on Twitter on Friday that he has "represented many to get clemency. Some have been paying clients, many have been pro bono. I'm proud of my team's clemency work."

He filed paperwork this month indicating he was paid $20,000 in the last three months of last year to seek a commutation for Dina Wein Reis, who pleaded guilty in 2011 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Reis, who was released from prison in 2014, did not respond to requests for comment.

A filing this month revealed that Tolman was paid $22,500 by an Arizona man named Brian Anderson who had retained him in September to seek clemency for Ross Ulbricht, the Silk Road founder. Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise and distributing narcotics on the internet.

ACCESS TO PRESIDENT

Weeks after stepping down as the president's lawyer in 2018, Dowd began marketing himself as a potential conduit for pardons. Dowd told prospective clients that he could help them receive pardons because of his access to Trump and top aides such as Kushner.

Dowd, who according to people with knowledge of the discussions had, as the president's lawyer, dangled a pardon to stop Trump's former national security adviser from cooperating with investigators, had continued to informally advise Trump. After leaving the Trump legal team, Dowd began representing William Walters, a wealthy sports gambler in Las Vegas convicted of insider trading. Walters paid Dowd tens of thousands of dollars, but a pardon has yet to materialize.

Dowd declined to answer questions.

The former Trump campaign adviser, Karen Giorno, also had access to people around the president, having run Trump's campaign in Florida during the 2016 primary and remaining on board as a senior policy adviser during the general election.

She met in 2018 with Kiriakou, who pleaded guilty in 2012 to illegally disclosing the name of a CIA officer involved in the waterboarding of an American detainee. Although the name was never publicly disclosed, Kiriakou was sentenced to 30 months in prison. In the meeting, at the Washington office of his lawyer, Kiriakou said he had been wronged by the government and was seeking a pardon so he could carry a handgun and receive his pension.

Giorno was accompanied by Trump's former director of advance, George Gigicos. Both said they had direct lines to the president, Kiriakou said.

"I wanted to believe them," he said.

Giorno disputed this account, saying neither she nor Gigicos bragged about their presidential access. She said Gigicos was not involved in her effort, which she said was motivated by a feeling that "it was unfair what happened" to Kiriakou.

In July 2018, Giorno signed an agreement with Kiriakou, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, "to seek a full pardon from President Donald Trump of his conviction" for $50,000. The agreement promised another $50,000 as a bonus if she secured a pardon.

Giorno said she was approached about working on the matter by Kiriakou's lawyer. She said she never spoke to Trump directly about Kiriakou and did not lobby anyone in his administration for a pardon. Rather, she said that in meetings with senior administration officials, she tried "to connect the dots" between the people and techniques involved in Kiriakou's prosecution and those involved in the special counsel investigation that was then dogging Trump's presidency.

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