Trump grants flurry of last-minute pardons
20 January 2021
President Trump issued 73 pardons and commuted the sentences of 70 individuals early Wednesday, 11 hours from leaving office.
Why it matters: It's a last-minute gift to some of the president's loyalists and an evident use of executive power with only hours left of his presidency. Axios reported in December that Trump planned to grant pardons to "every person who ever talked to me."
Of note: Some pardons and commutations were granted to Trump's allies while others were related to criminal justice issues.
Zoom in: The highest-profile name on the list was Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon. This pardon spared a close former aid from a federal fraud prosecution over his alleged misappropriation of nonprofit funds. Other pardons include:
- Elliot Broidy, former top Republican fundraiser who pled guilty to conspiring to violate foreign lobbying laws to sway the administration on behalf of Chinese and Malaysian interests.
- Rapper Lil Wayne, who pleaded guilty to a gun charge.
- Anthony Levandowski, the engineer at the center of a 2017 lawsuit between Google's self-driving car unit and Uber over alleged theft of trade secrets.
- Rick Renzi, former Republican congressman from Arizona who was convicted of corruption, corruptionracketeering and money laundering.
- Duke Cunningham, former Republican congressman from California who pleaded guilty to accepting ver $2.3 million in bribes.
- Robert Zangrillo, a Miami investor charged with committing fraud and bribery to secure his daughter's admission to USC.
Flashback:Trump in December granted pardons to more than two dozen people, including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, associate Roger Stone, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos and son-in-law Jared Kushner's father, Charles Kushner.
Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.