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Rep. Jamie Raskin has opened an investigation into how Donald Trump is issuing pardons with a letter to Trump’s DOJ Pardon Attorney Ed Martin.
Raskin wrote to Martin:
I write to ask you to explain the criteria and process you are now using as the United States Pardon Attorney to recommend individuals for a presidential pardon.
As you are undoubtedly aware, the mission of the Office of the Pardon Attorney is to “support second chances through clemency” by reviewing all applications from convicted offenders and making recommendations to the President that are consistent, unbiased, and uphold the “interests of justice.”
Alas, it at least appears that you are using the Office of the Pardon Attorney to dole out pardons as favors to the President’s loyal political followers and most generous donors, completely ignoring and abandoning the thousands of individual applications for clemency.
These Americans depend on your office for a fair shot at a second chance in a process that has some real integrity. The signs are troubling. During your short tenure as Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, you described yourself and the office’s career prosecutors as “President Trumps’ [sic] lawyers.” You used your office to place the President’s allies convicted of political violence and other crimes above the law and to target his imagined enemies, thus endangering public safety in our Nation’s Capital.