
There is no direct evidence that former president Trump was offered money in exchange for a pardon but his close aides were paid to lobby for clemency
The Times report names many people involved in this process, including an associate of Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney, who told John Kiriakou, a former C.I.A. officer, that Giuliani could help get a pardon, but it would cost $2 million. “I laughed. Two million bucks—are you out of your mind?” Kiriakou said. “Even if I had two million bucks, I wouldn’t spend it to recover a $700,000 pension.” Giuliani denies that ever happened.
Even though there was nothing illegal about this, experts look down upon such favors. “This kind of off-books influence peddling, the special-privilege system denies consideration to the hundreds of ordinary people who have obediently lined up as required by Justice Department rules, and is a basic violation of the longstanding effort to make this process at least look fair,” said Margaret Love, who ran the Justice Department’s clemency process from 1990 until 1997 as the United States pardon attorney.
While there is no evidence that Trump was directly involved in this or took any kind of payment in return for a pardon, it seems like Trump's associates were paid to lobby for clemency, which is considered unethical, though not illegal.
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