'Beat it until it's dead': Ex-prosecutor says this one pardon may be Trump's Achilles heel



This week, President Donald Trump granted several notable pardons to former elected officials, wealthy supporters and celebrities. But one former federal prosecutor is zeroing in on one pardon in particular that he argues exposes Trump's populist brand as hollow.

During a recent interview with journalist Jim Acosta (formerly of CNN), former assistant U.S. Attorney Glenn Kirschner — who prosecuted cases in the prestigious District of Columbia office during both the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations — argued that the near-constant drumbeat of news from Trump's second term has had a discouraging effect on Americans. However, he said that telling Americans one of Trump's recent pardons has the power to severely damage Trump's credibility with mainstream Americans.

In the segment, Kirschner made the case that the pardon of former nursing home executive Paul Walczak stands out among Trump's other pardons as perhaps the most egregious. And he said Democrats could stand to reap significant political gains in upcoming elections by repeatedly harping on the Walczak case, in which Trump issued a pardon after Walczak's mother attended a $1 million per-plate fundraiser for a Trump-affiliated group.

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"We have to focus in one thing, and we have to beat it until it's dead, and get the people to understand what it really means," Kirschner said.

Kirschner reminded viewers that Trump repeatedly promised to "protect Social Security" and to "back the blue [law enforcement]" while running for the presidency, before walking through the Walczak case. As the head of a Florida-based healthcare company that ran long-term care facilities, Walczak was convicted of failing to pay employment taxes and failing to file several years of individual tax returns. He was also ordered to pay more than $4 million in restitution. However, Kirschner said that Trump's pardon of Walczak betrayed both of those key campaign promises.

"What he was doing was taking Social Security, taking Medicare, taking Medicaid out of his salary, out of the payments he was making to nurses and healthcare employees, and what was he doing with it? Not delivering it to the United States government as he was required by law to do," Kirschner said. "He is lavishing himself with private jets, he's buying himself a $2 million yacht."

"All of federal and local law enforcement agencies ... 'the blue' investigated these crimes for years," he continued. "Donald Trump pardons him. He doesn't only pardon him from his jail term, he says 'I am killing this court order that requires you to pay back the $4.4 million that you owe the federal government in Social Security.' So let's put it to the test. Protecting Social Security? My a--! Backing the blue? My a--. The blue is the one that investigated and helped bring charges in this case!"

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Watch the segment below, or at this link.

- YouTube www.youtube.com



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