Trump’s twisted world: Where criminals are victims and public servants are villains

His dangerous use of executive power to target perceived enemies comes with the weight of DOJ loyalists.

By Mimi Rocah

American history is riddled with controversial and unpopular presidential pardons and commutations by presidents of any party. But no president has so consistently used the pardon process as a way to reward loyalty (financial and otherwise), while punishing the prosecutors who bring such cases as Donald Trump has in the past two months. Let me explain.

By now, we are all too familiar with the ways in which Trump and his loyalists wreak havoc on our institutions, including the one I know best, the Department of Justice. Just in the past month, a career immigration attorney, who had been praised and promoted just two weeks before, was placed on leave for daring to speak the truth in court. Indeed, the federal judge in the case praised the attorney for his “candor” to the court—a literal obligation of the Rules of Professional Responsibility for attorneys. Line-level prosecutors in the Los Angeles and Tennessee U.S. Attorneys’ Offices were fired—not by their superiors but by orders from the White House, which took guidance from a right-wing activist. Armed U.S. Marshals were dispatched to the home of a terminated DOJ lawyer, purportedly to deliver a letter about executive privilege prior to her testimony before Congress, in a shocking show of power. Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York were “escorted” on orders from Washington out of their office (almost unheard of), without warning, and placed on leave simply for having done their jobs. And this all follows a slew of actions quite clearly intended to dismantle key aspects of DOJ and demoralize its workforce.

Trump does all of this with the eager participation of his loyalists at the helm of DOJ— Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove. These three have no problem allowing the DOJ to be used as a propaganda machine, to help Trump’s friends by dismissing cases against them or to make political deals on Trump’s behalf. All reprehensible enough. And, yet, none of this can be viewed in a vacuum without also understanding the other side of the coin. While punishing and targeting federal employees, Trump has also been busy letting convicted white-collar criminals off the hook for political reasons.

Just last week, Trump pardoned Trevor Milton, co-founder and CEO of Nikola Motors, who had been sentenced to four years in prison for lying to investors. The motivation behind this get-out-of-jail-free card (which could mean hundreds of millions in restitution could be wiped out)? Apparently, because Milton supported and donated money to Trump. But Trump didn’t stop with his crass political reward. He also called the prosecutors who indicted and convicted Milton before a jury of his peers “a vicious group of people.”

He also last week commuted the sentence of Carlos Watson, co-founder and CEO of defunct Ozy Media, while Watson was on a plane on his way to prison no less, who was prosecuted for and convicted of financial fraud by a jury. Two other recent clemencies also had all the markings of political rewards. Jason Galanis, who was doing 14 years for defrauding the Oglala Sioux Tribe of tens of millions of dollars, had his sentence commuted on March 28 to time served, which also canceled approximately $80 million in forfeitures and restitution due to victims. Two days before, Trump pardoned Devon Archer, who was sentenced to one year for the same scheme. What did these two do to deserve leniency? They gave unfavorable testimony about one of Trump’s most favored punching bags, Hunter Biden, in the House Republicans’ failed attempt to impeach President Joe Biden.

And then there were the crypto bros. Also on March 27, Trump pardoned the four founders and senior officers of BitMEX, a cryptocurrency exchange, who in 2022 pleaded guilty to violating the Bank Secrecy Act by openly flouting money laundering rules. Trump also pardoned the corporation (a first), which entered a guilty plea in 2024, remitting its fine of $100 million. Why crypto? Because it is the new favored investment opportunity for Trump and his family. The administration is looking for ways to boost the industry in which the family has a financial interest and has even gone so far as to disband the crypto enforcement team at DOJ.

So, what is the connecting thread here? In a Trump administration, white-collar criminals are given breaks and treated as victims, while civil servants, especially prosecutors, are punished and demonized. As with the Jan. 6th pardons and the firing and demoting of prosecutors who worked on those cases, Trump has made it crystal clear that prosecutors who try to hold people accountable for breaking laws (with a few exceptions like immigration crimes) are bad, but people who are willing to do things on his behalf (including with violence), will be taken care of.

Have other presidents used the pardon power for illegitimate reasons? You bet. President Bill Clinton on his last day in office pardoned Marc Rich, a billionaire indicted for fraud, racketeering, tax evasion, and violating the U.S. embargo against Iran who then fled the country. Also awful: Rich’s ex-wife, Denise, who led the pardon campaign, had contributed some $200,000 to the Democratic Party in 2000, $450,000 to the Clinton presidential library fund, and more than $100,000 to Hillary Clinton’s Senate campaign. Denise Rich also gave the Clintons $7,000 worth of furniture. But that was a different time. As Slate wrote, “Republicans excoriated Clinton in the press. George W. Bush’s attorney general, John Ashcroft, initiated a criminal probe of the pardon. House Republicans launched their own investigation.” Democrats, too, decried the pardon, as did a New York Times editorial, which called it “indefensible,” Slate reported.

Meanwhile, Trump ‘s pardons of financial criminals who did political favors for him or whose pardons/commutations serve his own interests have gone largely under the radar, presumably because of the tsunami of other objectionable acts in the same time period—Signalgate and the self-inflicted collapse of the world economy. But none of this is OK. It isn’t merely his use of his executive power to reward friends, it is the other side of the (in my view) far more dangerous use of executive power to target perceived enemies with the weight of the DOJ—including just Wednesday from the Oval Office, when he directed DOJ to investigate two former members of his prior administration whom he views as disloyal, including for “treason.” The abuse of power is in full swing here in Trump’s twisted world, where white-collar criminals are victims and public servants are the villains.

Mimi Rocah was the district attorney of Westchester County, New York, from 2021 to 2024 and was a federal prosecutor from 2001 to 2017.

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