The pay for pardon scheme

A federal judge in Washington unsealed heavily redacted court documents on Tuesday that disclosed the existence of the investigation into possible unregistered lobbying and bribery. [Two people familiar with the inquiry] said it concerned efforts by the lawyer for Mr. Kushner, Abbe Lowell, and the fund-raiser, Elliott Broidy, who pleaded guilty in October to a charge related to a different scheme to lobby the Trump administration.

  NYT

Elliott Broidy's "scheme" involved lobbying for a foreign government, and is the guy who paid for a Playboy model's abortion, with some people suggesting it was actually Trump's baby that got aborted, as well as copped a guilty plea in a pension fund bribery case.

A billionaire real estate developer from the San Francisco area, Sanford Diller, enlisted their help in securing clemency for a Berkeley psychologist, Hugh L. Baras, who had received a 30-month prison sentence on a conviction of tax evasion and improperly claiming Social Security benefits, according to the filing and the people familiar with the case. Under the suspected scheme, Mr. Diller would make “a substantial political contribution” to an unspecified recipient in exchange for the pardon. He died in February 2018, and there is no evidence that the effort continued after his death.

As part of the effort, someone approached the White House Counsel’s Office to “ensure” that the “clemency petition reached the targeted officials,” according to the court documents. They did not say who made the contact or how the White House responded.

Mr. Baras [who went to prison in June 2017 and was released in August 2019] did not receive clemency.

[...]

No government officials are “currently a subject or target of the investigation disclosed in this filing,” a Justice Department official said.

[...]

A lawyer for Mr. Broidy said that his client had played only a small role in the matter and said that his client did nothing wrong.

And as we've seen, Mr. Broidy would NEVER do anything wrong.

“Mr. Broidy was asked by Mr. Diller to refer him to a D.C. lawyer who could assist on a clemency petition,” said the lawyer, William A. Burck. “Mr. Broidy sent him to Abbe Lowell."

[...]

“This is much ado about precious little,” Mr. Weingarten said. “They investigated and concluded that nothing was amiss. In addition, prosecutors did not have the slightest issue with Abbe.”

Mr. Weingarten said that Mr. Lowell had never asked Mr. Kushner to help with Mr. Baras’s case or any other matter related to clemency, and added that Mr. Lowell’s work for Mr. Baras ended before he started representing Mr. Kushner.

[...]

[T]he case relates to the conviction of Mr. Baras, 77, who was sentenced in 2014 and ordered to pay restitution of about $594,000 for tax evasion and illegally claiming disability insurance benefits to which he was not entitled from the Social Security Administration.

Mr. Baras fought the conviction for years, suing to vacate, set aside or reduce his sentence. His lawyer sought to appeal up to the Supreme Court, arguing Mr. Baras was deprived of a fair trial partly because the court declined to allow him to present evidence that he made an effort to pay his back taxes and to pay back the improperly received disability benefits. The Supreme Court declined to take the case and Mr. Baras reported to prison in June 2017.

[...]

Presidents have unchecked authority over clemency, and there is a history of donors or their family members getting pardons. No law bars people from lobbying for pardons, nor is it necessarily illegal to give a donation to a president after receiving a pardon. But bribery laws could prohibit explicitly predicating donations or other gifts of value to the granting of a pardon.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.