Among the recipients of pardons and commutations granted by Donald Trump, there is a group that legal experts and political scholars view as some of the most obvious evidence of how these actions undermine the rule of law: those who were released from prison and then arrested again on different charges.
During his first term, Trump issued 237 pardons — including one for a predatory lender and drug trafficker, and another for someone who ran a Ponzi scheme. Since returning to office, Trump has issued more than 1,600 pardons, mostly targeting individuals involved in the January 6th Capitol riot.
Since 2016, at least a dozen people who received Trump's pardons have been arrested again on other charges after January 6th.
Experts say this is not surprising, because Trump did not follow the usual review procedures when considering these pardons, which may have made it more likely that these individuals had previously committed other crimes, or that they viewed the pardon as a signal that their actions were not wrong.
"What else could you expect?" said Susan Benesch, director of the Dangerous Speech Project and a human rights lawyer, when talking about the recidivism. "In the past, people received pardons after expressing remorse or having served a long sentence, or credibly stating that they were sorry for their crimes and wished they hadn't committed them — or both."
Original source: toutiao.com/article/1850589898826764/
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