Donald Trump grants a festival of forgiveness to those around him before leaving power

The president of the United States, Donald trump, launched a forgiveness festival in the twilight of his presidency. The Republican has granted pardon to two people linked to the Russian plot and the company’s former military contractors. Black water, convicted of a massacre of civilians during the war in Iraq.

Donald Trump’s decision is not new. So far in his tenure he has pardoned sixty people, many from their environmentlike political strategist Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, former national security adviser.

The White House reported on Tuesday that Trump had pardoned 15 people and commuted all or part of the sentences to five more. Full forgiveness was granted to George papadopoulos, a former campaign adviser who admitted to lying to federal investigators about his contacts with the Russians.

Papadopoulos was a member of the Foreign Policy Advisory Group when Trump ran for president in 2016. In October 2017 pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI to contact an academic who promised to put him in touch with senior Russian officials. He cooperated with investigators led by Special Advocate Robert Mueller, who conducted a two-year investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

“Forgiveness helps correct the harm that Mueller’s team has inflicted on so many people,” the White House said in a statement.

Another full pardon was granted to Alex van der Zwaan, a Dutch lawyer who was also convicted in the Mueller investigation.

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In addition, Trump pardoned four military contractors convicted of murdering Iraqis in 2007. Among the four guards of the security company in Black water this Nicholas slatten, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for opening fire on bustling Nisur Square in Baghdad, in a bloody episode that sparked international scandal and heightened Iraqi resentment at the US military presence. The shooting left 14 civilians dead, including women and children, and 17 injured.

Iraqis reacted with outrage at Trump’s decision on Wednesday. “I lost all hope a long time ago,” Fares Saadi, the policeman who investigated the shootings in Nissour Square, told AFP. “I remember it like it was yesterday. I picked people up, I took them to the hospital, I took statements, but I knew we would not see justice,” he said. -he declares.

The pardons mentioned would not be the last Trump signs before leaving the Oval Room. As the American press reports, he would analyze others with greater impact. As published The New York Times, the president assesses the granting of immunity to the prince Mohamed bin salman, heir to the throne in Saudi Arabia, in a case involving an alleged assassination attempt against a former Saudi intelligence agent in Canada.

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If this pardon is finalized, the MBS could benefit from another file that investigates the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, dismembered at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

The New York Times He also reported that Trump had discussed with his advisers the possibility of granting preventive pardons to his children, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. But the most striking is that the president would also have consulted on the possibility of forgiving himself for any crime of which he could be accused after his departure from power.

CP