{"id":1229,"date":"2026-07-29T21:11:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T21:11:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1229"},"modified":"2026-07-29T21:11:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T21:11:14","slug":"trump-pardons-mega-donor-days-after-contribution-to-gop-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1229","title":{"rendered":"Trump Pardons Mega-Donor Days After Contribution to GOP Candidate"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Did you know that Truthout is a nonprofit and independently funded by readers like you? If you value what we do, please support our work with <\/span><\/i>a donation<\/span><\/i>.<\/p>\n

Read more Asked About ICC Warrant, Netanyahu Says He Travels With \u201cSpecial Forces\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

President Donald Trump has pardoned yet another person who has made significant donations to his past campaigns and to Republican Party causes, casting more doubts upon the legitimacy of his use of the constitutionally unchecked power. <\/p>\n

Adam Kidan, a key figure involved in the Jack Abramoff fraud and lobbying scandal, served a prison sentence of around two and a half years in the mid-2000s. A supporter of Republican causes, he has donated millions of dollars to GOP campaigns over the years \u2014 including over a quarter of a million dollars to Trump-backing political action committees in the 2024 election. <\/p>\n

Kidan, who has also hosted fundraising events at Trump\u2019s Mar-a-Lago resort, recently gave $2,600 to the campaign of incumbent Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R-Pennsylvania), whose seat is considered one of the most competitive in the nation for the 2026 midterms. That donation occurred on June 30. On July 3, Trump issued his pardon of Kidan. <\/p>\n

The pardon likely means that Kidan will not have to pay back much of the $21 million in restitution payments he was ordered to make following his sentencing. Kidan has thus far paid little of that amount (if any) despite living a life of luxury.<\/p>\n

The pardon from Trump to Kidan follows other acts of clemency from the president during his second term. Indeed, the pattern is so noticeable that even some right-wing voices are calling it out.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem isn\u2019t that Trump is pardoning insider traders, campaign finance abusers, and child pornography possessors. The problem is the seedy but legal and lucrative market he has created of quid pro quo deals, insider enrichment, and abandonment of due process,\u201d wrote Timothy P. Carney earlier this year in an op-ed for the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think tank. <\/p>\n

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Beyond allies who have donated to Trump or other political causes he supports, the president has also pardoned people who have shown immense loyalty to him in other ways \u2014 including the over 1,500 individuals who were charged or found guilty of taking part in the violent attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election on his behalf at the Capitol building on January 6, 2021. <\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s clemency orders have also flouted the traditional process that people requesting them typically have to go through. According to Reuters<\/em>, 96 percent of clemencies Trump has given during his second term so far \u201chave gone to recipients who didn\u2019t fulfill longstanding DOJ guidelines for such requests\u201d (for comparison, only 1 percent of clemencies issued under former President Joe Biden didn\u2019t meet those guidelines). <\/p>\n

Some groups are challenging Trump\u2019s pardons. Earlier this year, the Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC), noting that sizable donations to Trump have \u201cbecome a well-documented tactic for those seeking to obtain benefits, including favorable treatment by others facing civil and criminal enforcement for illegal activity, from the Trump administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

CLC cited this fact to issue a grievance over a specific pardon of a Venezuelan billionaire that Trump granted after the billionaire\u2019s daughter made large donations to a political action committee backing Trump, despite her lacking the financial means to do so.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sequence of events before and after the daughter\u2019s contributions strongly suggest that she was an illegal \u2018straw donor\u2019 used by her father to secure political favor and, consequently, clemency from the Trump administration,\u201d CLC said in a social media post after its complaint was filed. <\/p>\n

Presidential pardons (or other acts of clemency) are absolute \u2014 the Constitution grants chief executives the power with no oversight from either of the other two branches of government. The only possible \u201ccheck\u201d against a president issuing questionable pardons is for Congress to deem such a move an impeachable offense, meaning it would have to be viewed by the legislative branch as advancing an act of \u201ctreason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more UN Palestine Rapporteur Slams Nations\u2019 Complicity as Netanyahu Meets Trump<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Trump issued the pardon to Adam Kidan, a key player in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal that was exposed in the 2000s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1228,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump Pardons Mega-Donor Days After Contribution to GOP Candidate - Smart Moving Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1229\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump Pardons Mega-Donor Days After Contribution to GOP Candidate - Smart Moving Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Trump issued the pardon to Adam Kidan, a key player in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal that was exposed in the 2000s.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/smartmovinghome.com\/?p=1229\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Smart Moving Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-29T21:11:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1229#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1229\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/ec0d70042821fd684a174c8d0e8becfa\"},\"headline\":\"Trump Pardons Mega-Donor Days After Contribution to GOP Candidate\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-29T21:11:14+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1229\"},\"wordCount\":706,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1229#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/294739228bc3fd8cf8712653f2dfadb4.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Interesting\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1229#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1229\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/smartmovinghome.com\\\/?p=1229\",\"name\":\"Trump Pardons Mega-Donor Days After Contribution to GOP Candidate - 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