All of Trump's white-collar prosecutions share a single damning detail: legal expert

Former federal prosecutor Brendan Ballou warns that President Donald Trump’s lucrative business of handing out pardons in exchange for donations is stripping away the federal justice department’s ability to hold wealthy lawbreakers accountable.

“This is now a boom business,” Ballou told CNN anchor Jake Tapper. “You know, there are at least 18 people and companies that donated money to the Trump inaugural campaign, then then had their government investigations dropped or their civil litigations dropped or in extraordinary cases their criminal cases dropped entirely. This is something that has never happened before.”

Ballou reported that Trump is profiting mightily from his pardon gifts for wealthy criminals. The New York Times estimated that Trump made more than $1.4 billion since he was elected to his second term, in part from felons and wrongdoers seeking his clemency.

But Trump’s subordinates have also benefited from the president’s rollback of white-collar prosecutions. Trump’s own border czar, Tom Homan, for instance, accepted $50,000 in cash in a paper bag from undercover F.B.I. agents in 2024 in exchange for promising government favors if Trump returned to office. Since returning to office, Ballou pointed out that Trump has also gutted the office that would have investigated Homan, with just five attorneys reportedly remain, even as Homan now draws a taxpayer-funded check.

The Trump DOJ is still prosecuting some white-collar-style crimes, to be sure, said Ballou, but the targets all share an infuriating characteristic.

“I think it's important for viewers to understand the administration is still prosecuting and investigating people for these same kinds of crimes,” Ballou told Tapper, “but those people have exactly one thing in common, which is they haven't donated to the Trump campaign

Crypto mogul Changpeng Zhao pleaded guilty to money laundering before Trump granted him a pardon in October, said Tapper, despite criminals using Zhao’s crypto platform to fund terrorist financing, narcotics and child sex abuse.

“There's also the story of Ross Ulbricht. He's the founder of the dark web marketplace Silk Road, found guilty on a variety of charges including money laundering, drug trafficking, and hacking in 2015. Silk road has been linked to at least six drug overdose deaths,” reported Tapper. “Trump's pardon of Ulbricht eliminated his two life sentences, and the $184 million he owed in restitution and fines and it made good on a campaign promise Trump had made to the libertarian party and the cryptocurrency industry.”

Trevor Milton is another Trump pardon beneficiary who was convicted on in 2022 on charges of securities and wire fraud, but Ballou pointed out that Trump — while personally reaping the reward of Milton’s generosity — left Milton’s victim hanging.

“Prosecutors allege that [Milton] had $660 million that needed to be repaid to the investors he scammed. Now, when Donald Trump pardoned him, all those restitution obligations went away. Those investors never get to recover anything,” Ballou said.

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