Oyer: It’s Called a Pardon Economy, People Are Paying Enormous Amounts of Money to Get Their Pardon Applications on Trump‘s Desk

RUSH EXCERPT:
OYER: "Well, how it works now is not how it‘s supposed to work or how it has ever historically worked outside of Trump‘s presidency. But what is happening now is there‘s what‘s been referred to as a pardon economy, where people are paying enormous amounts of money to highly connected lawyers and lobbyists to get their applications for pardons on the president‘s desk. And that is working. The president is granting pardons to people who do not meet any of the standards that are set forth for that type of relief by the Justice Department, longstanding standards that have been applied. He‘s granting pardons to people who owe tens of millions and even hundreds of millions of dollars in financial penalties associated with their convictions. Much of this is money that are owed to victims of frauds and the president‘s pardons are essentially wiping away all of those penalties for the benefit of these wealthy and well-connected Americans, and to the detriment of people who have been victimized by fraud and financial crimes. That is truly a a historic and unprecedented use of the pardon power. And it is not consistent with the standards that the Justice Department has historically always applied for evaluating and recommending pardons."