Donald Trump’s pardon for sale scandal just got even uglier

| 11:59 pm EST January 17, 2021
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Late last year the news broke that the Feds were investigating a criminal plot where people in Donald Trump’s orbit were trying to buy and sell pardons. These things tend to go quiet for stretches, as the criminal investigation grinds along behind the scenes. Now it’s back.

In an interestingly timed new bombshell from the New York Times, it turns out Donald Trump’s henchmen have been trying to sell pardons for wildly inconsistent dollar amounts. Remarkably, a guy named John Kiriakou was seeking a pardon from Trump, but was told that an associate of Rudy Giuliani would want to be paid for facilitating it, so he withdrew his request and called the FBI.

This just means that even more of Trump’s people are going to end up being criminally charged once he’s gone. It also raises the surreal question of whether Trump will try to pardon the people who got caught trying to sell pardons, and if such pardons would hold up in court. In any case, Trump and his people are being as corrupt as possible right until the end. His final pardon list supposedly comes out on Tuesday. It should be utterly embarrassing.