Trump pardons Giuliani, others in election cases
By: Bart Jansen
Joey Garrison
and Erin Mansfield
USA today
WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump has pardoned scores of allies including his former personal attorney, ex-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who faced charges and investigations alleging interference in the 2020 election, and New York baseball legend Darryl Strawberry, who was convicted of tax evasion.
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The latest grants of clemency for more than 70 people in what he called "a process of national reconciliation: followed Trump's pardon on the first day of his second term of about 1,000 people charged in the U.S. Capitol attack on January 6, 2021.
..... And Ghislaine Maxwell, the close associate of the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, intends to ask Trump to commute her prison sentence related to sex trafficking, according to a letter form U.S. Representative Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, who cited "grotesque pampering" of Maxwell and an unnamed whistle-blower.
..... "The White House does not comment on potential clemency requests," Abigail Jackson, a spokeswoman for the White House, told USA Tod fay in a statement. "As President Trump has stated, pardoning Ghislaine Maxwell is not something he has through about."
..... Maxwell's lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
..... Maxwell, who was convicted in 2021 and sentenced to 20 years in prison, is the only associate of Epstein to face prison time. Epstein died in custody while awaiting trial in 2019.
..... Others who were recently pardon included Mark Meadows, Trump's former White House chief of staff; Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department assistant attorney general who is now at the Office of Management and Budget; and Kenneth Chesebro, a private attorney who formerly advised Trump. All three faced state charges in Georgia related to election interference, and Chsebro pleaded guilty.
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"This proclamation a grave national injustice perpetrated upon the American people following the 2020 Presidential Election and continues the process of national reconciliation," trump said in the document dated November 7. [2025]
..... Trump's pardon attorney at the Justice Department, Ed Martin, announced the proclamation proving the latest pardons in a social media post November 9. [2025] The pardon applies to conduct "retailing to the advice, creation, organization, execution, submission, support, voting, activities, participation in, or advocacy for" slates of presidential electors or "efforts to expose voting fraud" in the 2020 election, the proclamation said.
..... "These great Americans were persecuted and put through hell by the Biden Administration for challenging an election, which is the cornerstone of democracy," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
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The federal pardons don't apply to state-level charges. A number of the pardons sent to people who face onstage-levle charges in Georgia and Arizona for alleged election interference, including Giuliani, Meadows and Clark.
..... In Arizona, the state Court of Appeals sent the case against Trump allies back to the grand jury because of complaints about how evidence was presented to the initial grand jury in 2020.