Trump team just killed an investigation into the president's corruption: NYT

President Donald Trump’s appointees reportedly terminated an early-stage criminal investigation into his controversial clemency for a convicted fraudster.

Five people with direct knowledge of the commutation claim that the Trump team did not want any probing into whether improper payments were made to commute a sentence to David Gentile, according to a report by The New York Times. Gentile was convicted of a $1.6 billion fraud against thousands of investors while running his private equity firm. By targeting low-income and middle-income investors, Gentile wiped out the retirement savings for many of his clients.

Because of Trump’s clemency, Gentile served less than two weeks of his seven year prison sentence and will not need to forfeit more than $15.5 million.

“Within a few months, federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, where Mr. Gentile’s conviction had been secured, opened an investigation into how the commutation came about,” The New York Times reported. “Among the evidence they gathered was information about jailhouse communications in which Mr. Gentile discussed making payments of $2.5 million or more to people or companies to help facilitate his clemency, according to two people with knowledge of the investigation who were not authorized to discuss it.”

Among others, Gentile allegedly worked with a retired Queens Catholic priest, the Rev. Frank Mann, who is friends with Trump. Despite denying to The New York Times that he had anything to do with the clemency, individuals with firsthand knowledge of the prison communications in question told the Times that Mann and Gentile spoke about the former speaking to Trump about his case. Eventually, the commutation occurred, and by May any investigation into how it came about was abruptly halted.

“Natalie Baldassarre, a Justice Department spokeswoman, suggested that everything was done by the book,” The New York Times reported regarding allegations that they directly ordered local prosecutors to end the investigation. It quoted her as saying, “Our prosecutors always work within the bounds of our enforcement priorities to hold bad actors accountable and ensure the efficient use of taxpayer resources.”

This is not the first story to allege that the Trump White House has turned pardons into a profit-based industry. The New York Times reported in March that the “lucrative pardon industry” in the Trump White House is “based in part on the proposition that paying the right person to deliver a message tailored to Mr. Trump's politics or grievances is more important than demonstrating remorse or a low likelihood of recidivism.”

The report added, “A growing number of practitioners promise access in this murky enterprise, but some also may exaggerate their effectiveness to elicit payments from clients desperate to avoid incarceration. Pardon seekers routinely offer to pay as much as $1 million or more, often with bonus payments triggered by a successful outcome, according to lobbying filings and people familiar with the fees."

Indeed, the knowledge of Trump’s seeming willingness to help people get off from legal consequences if he is paid led to widespread support for him among convicted white-collar criminals.

"This transactional approach to clemency has been welcomed by white-collar offenders like those serving time at the Otisville camp, a minimum-security facility about 75 miles northwest of Manhattan,” The New York Times reported in March. “Many of its inmates cheered Mr. Trump's election, seeing him as a kindred spirit who shares their grievances about the unfairness of financial crime prosecutions like the one that led to his own conviction, according to four people familiar with conversations at Otisville."

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