今年2月，前报业高管肯尼斯·库尔森认罪网络跟踪他的前妻。几个月后，说唱歌手柯达·布莱克(Kodak Black)因毒品重罪指控在佛罗里达州被捕，之后他进行了无罪辩护。10月，陪审员发现政治间谍杰西·本顿犯有非法向一个与前总统结盟的组织输送俄罗斯资金的罪行唐纳德·特朗普。
这三个人的情况看似无关，但他们有一个显著的共同点:都是以前准予宽大处理特朗普在任的时候。
这个列表还没有结束。
美国广播公司新闻频道(ABC News)对特朗普政府期间被赦免或减刑的238人进行了分析，发现至少有10人此后面临法律审查——要么因为他们正在接受调查，被指控犯罪，要么已经被定罪。
法律专家称这一反复出现的主题是前所未有的，但鉴于这位前总统在赦免过程中的非正统做法，这也并非完全出乎意料。
代表寻求赦免的客户的律师玛格丽特·洛夫(Margaret Love)说，“特朗普总统绕过了正式而有序的司法部程序，转而支持非正式而相当混乱的白宫运作，在某些情况下依赖于他的个人观点，在其他情况下依赖于他认识的人或以各种方式接近他的人的建议。”前美国赦免律师是司法部任命的，帮助向总统提供赦免建议。
“所以可以预测，”洛夫说，“一些通过了那道宽松的铁手套的人会再次遇到麻烦。”
朋友和盟友
特朗普在任期间赦免的人包括数十名朋友和政治盟友。这份名单包括名人、议员和前助手，他们被判的罪行从诈骗到谋杀不等，其中包括四起私人军事承包商他们因在2007年巴格达的一次袭击中谋杀了包括两名儿童在内的17名伊拉克公民而入狱。
两位常青藤联盟学者的分析决定238项赦免中只有25项通过了赦免律师办公室，这是司法部内的一个小部门，负责处理赦免申请，审查每个案件的是非曲直，然后决定是否建议总统对一名罪犯采取行动。研究人员表示，这一数字代表了“历史低点”
“这个过程应该是公平的，应该是谨慎的，应该是准确的...这也应该是一个有助于预测谁不会再犯的过程，”拉里·库珀斯说，他在特朗普政府开始时担任了18个月的代理美国赦免律师。
前几届政府赦免的累犯率是不透明的，因为联邦机构不会在赦免被授予者获释后对他们进行跟踪。但在一项研究中，回顾了前总统巴拉克·奥巴马(Barack Obama)2014年的仁慈举措，该举措导致近1700名联邦毒品罪犯获得减刑，独立和两党美国量刑委员会只找到三个在2017年底再次被捕的人。A德州女人在2016年获得奥巴马对她的无期徒刑减刑后不到一年，她因盗窃指控再次被捕，并且另一个德州人在根据奥巴马2014年的宽恕倡议获得无期徒刑减刑后不到两年，他对毒品指控认罪。
Kupers说，根据新闻报道和其他可用的证据，继续犯罪的赦免被授予者的数量仍然“低得令人难以置信”。
然而，对于特朗普时代的赦免，专家表示，这个数字似乎过高。
特朗普的核心圈子
被赦免的人中主要是史蒂夫·班农，他是前白宫高级助手，也是川普最引人注目的政治盟友之一。
班农是被判有罪7月，他因拒绝在调查1月6日国会大厦袭击事件的众议院委员会前作证而藐视国会，被判入狱4个月。他还在纽约州面临指控，涉嫌欺诈“我们建造隔离墙”筹款活动的捐助者-在特朗普干预之前，他面临联邦指控总统赦免。班农对国家指控不认罪。
特朗普核心集团的另外两名著名成员，资深政治活动家罗杰·斯通和特朗普的第一任国家安全顾问迈克尔·弗林，也参与了正在进行的调查。两人都被前特别顾问罗伯特·穆勒·斯通起诉向国会撒谎，弗林被起诉向联邦调查人员撒谎，后来被川普赦免。
一名联邦上诉法官最近下令，弗林必须向亚特兰大地区的一名地区检察官提供证词，该检察官称弗林是特朗普试图推翻2020年总统大选的“必要和重要的证人”，据报道，调查1月6日事件的司法部检察官正在调查斯通涉嫌与袭击国会大厦的暴力极端分子的关系。
圣托马斯大学法学院(St. Thomas University Law School)教授、总统特赦专家马克·奥斯勒(Mark Osler)表示，特朗普时代的许多特赦对象——特别是那些因在为特朗普工作时犯下的罪行而被起诉的人，如斯通、班农和弗林——“是那些认为自己已经凌驾于法律之上的人。”
“特朗普在他们被指控或定罪后给予他们赦免，只会增强他们的权利感，”奥斯勒说。
在过去，美国总统会竭尽全力避免政治庇护的出现影响赦免过程。乔治·w·布什甚至撤销赦免批准后的第二天，被授予人的父亲在几个月前向共和党捐赠了近3万美元的消息被曝光。
美国广播公司新闻采访的一些专家指出，考虑到特朗普一再声称支持法律和秩序，特朗普的仁慈做法具有讽刺意味。“如果民主党想与无政府主义者、煽动者、暴徒、抢劫者和烧旗者站在一起，那是他们的事，但我作为你们的总统，不会成为其中的一部分，”特朗普说告知与会者在2020年共和党全国代表大会上。“我们必须永远有法律和秩序。”
特朗普还表示，如果他在2024年再次当选总统，他会“积极”赦免那些因参与1月6日袭击美国国会大厦而被定罪的人。
草率的方法
特朗普时代另一位著名的赦免对象是前底特律市长夸梅·基尔帕特里克(Kwame Kilpatrick ),他后来陷入了法律危机，他的欺诈刑期因减刑而缩短了20年，但这是谁呢据报道仍然存在因与公共腐败指控相关的未付赔偿而接受联邦调查，2013年，他因公共腐败指控入狱。代表基尔帕特里克的一名律师表示，前罪犯未偿还的赔偿款项很常见，但他承认，未能偿还这些款项可能会使基尔帕特里克处于法律危险之中。
乔纳森·布劳恩(Jonathan Braun)的十年毒品走私刑期因特朗普的减刑而缩短了九年，他正面临美国联邦贸易委员会和纽约州总检察长办公室的诉讼，指控他实施了一项针对小企业的掠夺性贷款计划。
根据纽约司法部长2020年6月提交的请愿书，布朗“骚扰，侮辱，诅咒和威胁”他的债务人。据称，他对一个小企业主说，“我要夺走你的女儿”，并对另一个人说:“我要让你流血。”在法庭上，布劳恩否认了这些指控，并要求审判。
这些诉讼发生在布劳恩减刑之前，但尽管诉讼仍在进行，他仍设法从特朗普那里获得减刑，“表明当你忽视正式程序而喜欢草率行事时会发生什么，”总统特赦专家奥斯勒说。
奥斯勒说:“一批训练有素、专门嗅出这类事实的分析师被边缘化了，其结果是可以预见的。”。
一些自获得赦免以来面临法律审查的人指责检察官对特朗普进行报复。在得知纽约州检察官对他提出的指控后，班农说，“这只不过是刑事司法系统的党派政治武器化。”
今年8月，联邦检察官表示，他们将寻求重新审判佛罗里达州养老院企业主菲利普·埃斯福梅斯(Philip Esformes)，他在2019年的审判中受到六项指控，此前他的20年欺诈罪判决被特朗普减刑Esformes法律团队成员称司法部“公然无视特朗普总统的赦免令是出于对他的敌意。”
曼哈顿的检察官还试图针对前特朗普竞选团队负责人保罗·马纳福特提出州抵押贷款欺诈指控2019年被定罪对类似的联邦指控-此举被广泛认为是确保Manafort即使在特朗普赦免他的联邦罪行的情况下也将面临正义的一种手段。马纳福特确实是被特朗普赦免2020年12月和2021年，纽约上诉法院援引该州的双重危险规则，裁定该州的指控应被驳回。
与此同时，美国赦免律师办公室表示，超过17，000名赦免申请人仍在等待批准。虽然专家们一致认为赦免程序急需彻底改革——许多人建议将其从司法部的官僚机构中移除，并纳入其自己的办公室——但该机构及其原则仍得到广泛支持。
奥斯勒说，他担心特朗普的宽大处理方式和随后对一些受益人的法律痛苦可能会对这一过程造成持久的伤害。
奥斯勒说:“这可能会让那些真正、非常、完全应该得到宽恕的人失去宽恕。”。
Trump-era pardon recipients are increasingly back in legal jeopardy
In February, former newspaper executive Kenneth Kurson pleaded guilty to cyberstalking his ex-wife. Months later, rapper Kodak Black was arrested on felony drug charges in Florida before pleading not guilty. And in October, jurors found political operative Jesse Benton guilty of illegally funneling Russian money into a group aligned with former President Donald Trump.
The trio's circumstances may seem unrelated, but they share one notable link: All were previously granted clemency by Trump while he was in office.
And the list doesn't end there.
An ABC News analysis of the 238 people who were pardoned or had their sentences commuted during the Trump administration found at least ten who have since faced legal scrutiny -- either because they are under investigation, are charged with a crime, or are already convicted.
Legal experts call this recurring theme unprecedented -- but not entirely unexpected, given the former president's unorthodox approach to the pardon process.
"President Trump bypassed the formal and orderly Justice Department process in favor of an informal and fairly chaotic White House operation, relying in some cases on his personal views and in others on recommendations from people he knew or who gained access to him in various ways," said Margaret Love, a lawyer who represents clients seeking pardons and a former U.S. Pardon Attorney, a Justice Department appointee who helps advise presidents on grants of clemency.
"So it might have been predicted," said Love, "that some who made it through that lax gauntlet were going to get in trouble again."
Friends and allies
Those pardoned by Trump during his term in office included dozens of friends and political allies. The list included celebrities, lawmakers and former aides who had been convicted of crimes ranging from fraud to murder -- including four private military contractors who were in prison for murdering 17 Iraqi citizens, including two children, in a 2007 attack in Baghdad.
An analysis by two Ivy League academics determined that just 25 of those 238 pardons went through the Office of the Pardon Attorney, a small enclave within the Justice Department that fields clemency applications and examines the merits of each case before deciding whether to recommend a convict for presidential action. The researchers said that figure represented "an historic low."
"The process is supposed to be fair, it's supposed to be careful, it's supposed to be accurate ... and it's also supposed to be a process that helps predict who is not going to recidivate," said Larry Kupers, who served as the Acting U.S. Pardon Attorney for 18 months at the beginning of the Trump administration.
Recidivism rates from previous administrations' clemencies is opaque, as federal agencies don't keep tabs on clemency grantees after their release. But in one study reviewing former President Barack Obama's 2014 clemency initiative, which led to sentence commutations for nearly 1,700 federal drug offenders, the independent and bipartisan U.S. Sentencing Commission found only three who had been rearrested by the end of 2017. A Texas woman was rearrested on theft charges less than a year after earning an Obama commutation on her life sentence in 2016, and another Texan pleaded guilty to drug charges less than two years after earning a life sentence commutation under Obama's 2014 clemency initiative.
Based on news accounts and other available evidence, the number of clemency grantees who have gone on to commit additional crimes remains "incredibly low," Kupers said.
For Trump-era pardons, however, experts said the numbers seem disproportionately high.
Trump's inner circle
Chief among those pardoned is Steve Bannon, a former senior White House aide and one of Trump's highest-profile political allies.
Bannon was found guilty in July of contempt of Congress for his refusal to testify before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, and was sentenced to four months in prison. He also faces charges in New York State for allegedly defrauding donors to the "We Build the Wall" fundraising campaign -- the same allegations for which he faced federal charges before Trump intervened with a presidential pardon. Bannon has pleaded not guilty to the state charges.
Two other notable members of Trump's inner circle, veteran political operative Roger Stone and Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, are also involved in ongoing investigations. Both were prosecuted by former special counsel Robert Mueller -- Stone for lying to Congress, Flynn for lying to federal investigators -- and were later pardoned by Trump.
A federal appellate judge recently ordered that Flynn must provide testimony to an Atlanta-area district attorney who called Flynn a "necessary and material witness" to Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and Justice Department prosecutors investigating the events of Jan. 6 are reportedly examining Stone's alleged ties to violent extremists who attacked the Capitol.
Mark Osler, a professor at St. Thomas University Law School and an expert on presidential clemency, said many of the Trump-era clemency recipients -- particularly those who were prosecuted for crimes they committed while working for Trump, like Stone, Bannon, and Flynn -- "were people who thought they were above the law already."
"And Trump, by giving them a pardon after they'd been charged or convicted of a crime, only enhanced that sense of entitlement," Osler said.
U.S. presidents have, in the past, go to lengths to avoid the appearance of political patronage tainting the clemency process. George W. Bush went so far as to revoke a pardon one day after granting it, after it came to light that the grantee's father had donated almost $30,000 to the Republican Party just months earlier.
Some experts ABC News spoke with noted the irony of Trump's clemency practices, considering his repeated claims to support law and order. "If the Democratic Party wants to stand with anarchists, agitators, rioters, looters, and flag-burners, that is up to them, but I, as your president, will not be a part of it," Trump told attendees at the 2020 Republic National Convention. "We must always have law and order."
Trump has also suggested that he would look "favorably" at pardons for those convicted for their participation in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, if reelected to the White House in 2024.
'A slapdash approach'
Another notable Trump-era clemency recipient who has since fallen back into legal jeopardy is former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, whose fraud sentence was cut 20 years short by a commutation -- but who reportedly remains under federal investigation for unpaid restitution tied to the public corruption charges that in 2013 landed him in prison. A lawyer who has represented Kilpatrick said that outstanding restitution payments for ex-convicts are common, but acknowledged that failure to repay them could leave Kilpatrick in legal jeopardy.
And Jonathan Braun, whose ten-year drug smuggling sentence was cut nine years short by a Trump commutation, is facing lawsuits from the Federal Trade Commission and the New York attorney general's office for allegedly running a predatory loan scheme targeting small businesses.
Braun "harassed, insulted, swore at, and threatened" his debtors, according to a June 2020 petition filed by the New York attorney general. He allegedly told one small business owner, "I will take your daughters from you," and told another: "I am going to make you bleed." In court, Braun has denied these claims and requested a trial.
The lawsuits predate Braun's sentence commutation, but that he still managed to secure a commutation from Trump in spite of the active suits "shows what happens when you ignore the formal process in favor of a slapdash approach," said Osler, the presidential clemency expert.
"A trained staff of analysts who specialize in sniffing out facts like this was sidelined, with predictable results," Osler said.
Some who have faced legal scrutiny since securing clemency have accused prosecutors of pursuing vendettas against Trump. After learning of the charges filed against him by New York state prosecutors, Bannon said, "This is nothing more than a partisan political weaponization of the criminal justice system."
And in August, after federal prosecutors suggested they would seek to re-try Philip Esformes, a Florida-based nursing home business owner, on six hung counts from his 2019 trial after his 20-year fraud sentence was commuted by Trump, a member of Esformes' legal team said the Justice Department's "flagrant disregard of President Trump's clemency order is motivated by acrimony towards him."
Prosecutors in Manhattan also attempted to target former Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort on state mortgage fraud charges after he was convicted in 2019 on similar federal charges -- a move widely seen as a means to ensure Manafort would face justice even in the event that Trump pardoned him for the federal offenses. Manafort was indeed pardoned by Trump in December 2020 -- and in 2021 a New York appeals court ruled that the state charges should be tossed, citing the state's double jeopardy rule.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Pardon Attorney's office says more than 17,000 applicants for clemency remain pending. And while experts agree that the clemency process is in desperate need of an overhaul -- many suggest removing it from the Justice Department's bureaucracy and into its own office -- there remains widespread support for the institution and its principles.
Osler said he's concerned that Trump's approach to clemency and the subsequent legal travails for some beneficiaries could cause lasting harm to the process.
"It could sour clemency for people who really, deeply, richly deserve it," Osler said.
