INVESTIGATIVE REPORT — March 25, 2026
THE FRAUD DOUBLE STANDARD:
TRUMP’S MINNESOTA CRUSADE AND HIS PARDON RECORD
As the president leads a high-profile crackdown on alleged fraud in Minnesota’s Somali community, a review of his clemency record reveals he has pardoned or commuted sentences for more than a billion dollars in fraudulent schemes — almost all by wealthy, well-connected, and predominantly white Americans.
It appears Trump’s penchant to go after fraud is stoked by large and loud publicity that helps foment racism while white collar criminals get a Trump pardon for their fraud … all while North Dakota’s congressional delegation US Rep. Julie Fedorchak (R), US Sen. Kevin Cramer (R), and US Sen. John Hoeven remain silent and complicit.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
PART ONE: MINNESOTA’S LONG FRAUD HISTORY
Seeds of a Scandal: How Minnesota Became Ground Zero
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Long before a 23-year-old YouTuber with a camera and an anti-immigrant agenda knocked on the doors of Minneapolis daycare centers, the fraud problem in Minnesota had already been building for nearly a decade — spawning one of the largest pandemic-era financial crimes in American history.
The story traces back at least to 2018, when Fox 9 in Minneapolis aired a report alleging that more than $100 million had been siphoned from Minnesota’s Child Care Assistance Program (CCAP), a safety-net program designed to help low-income parents pay for childcare while they work or attend school. The allegations, originating with former state investigator Scott Stillman, pointed specifically at fraud concentrated in the Somali-American community. State auditors were dispatched. Investigations were opened. Prosecutions trickled forward — but the largest wave of criminality was still to come.
The epicenter would turn out to be a nonprofit called Feeding Our Future. Founded in 2016 by Aimee Bock — a white woman — the organization claimed to operate more than 200 federal child nutrition program sites across Minnesota, purportedly distributing meals to thousands of children each day during the COVID-19 pandemic. In reality, according to federal prosecutors, Feeding Our Future was a vehicle for a massive fraud that became the single largest pandemic-era financial crime in the United States.
Federal agents raided Bock’s home and the nonprofit’s offices in January 2022. By September of that year, then-U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced a sweeping indictment, calling it “an egregious plot to steal public funds meant to care for children in need.” The scheme involved upward of 75 defendants who submitted fake meal count sheets and invoices, raking in millions in administrative fees and kickbacks.
Trial exhibits showed defendants celebrating a honeymoon in the Maldives with champagne, wiring funds to Kenya and Turkey, and buying entire buildings in Nairobi. More than 60 people have since pleaded guilty or been convicted. In March 2025, a federal jury found Bock herself guilty of seven federal charges including bribery. The fraud amount tied to the scheme is estimated at approximately $250 million.
ENTER THE VIRAL VIDEO
On December 26, 2025, everything exploded. A late-to-the-party 23-year-old conservative content creator named Nick Shirley posted a 43-minute YouTube video in which he visited several Minneapolis daycare centers run by Somali Americans, found some locked or with few visible children, and then prematurely declared it fraud. The video was amplified by Vice President JD Vance and tech billionaire Elon Musk and racked up more than 135 million views on Twitter alone.
The impact was swift and, critics argue, disproportionate. The Trump administration froze all federal childcare funding to Minnesota. ICE launched a targeted operation — “Operation Metro Surge” — specifically focused on undocumented Somali immigrants. President Trump publicly claimed, without evidence, that “up to 90%” of the Minnesota fraud was caused by people who arrived “illegally” from Somalia. He called Minnesota a “hub of fraudulent money laundering activity.”
What investigators actually found tells a different story. State investigators visited the daycare centers prominently featured in Shirley’s video and found them operating as expected. Some had licensing violations related to cleanliness and recordkeeping — none of the violations were for fraud. One center featured in the video, Mako Childcare Center, had been closed since 2022. Shirley filmed another daycare before its noon opening. Federal investigators told CBS News that childcare is only “vaguely” a priority for prosecutors. The real investigative focus is on more than a dozen other social service programs. Former U.S. Attorney Andy Luger, who led the Feeding Our Future prosecution, stated directly: “There was never any evidence that this money went to fund terrorism.” Multiple federal investigators confirmed to CBS News that there is no evidence taxpayer dollars were directly funneled to al-Shabaab — though federal officials acknowledge indirect pathways cannot be fully ruled out.
The broader Somali community — Minnesota’s largest, with approximately 108,000 residents, the vast majority U.S. citizens — faced a wave of threats, harassment, break-ins, and bomb threats at daycare facilities. Community leaders noted that while some members of their community had indeed committed crimes and faced prosecution, collective punishment of an entire ethnic group based on loosely substantiated allegations was both unjust and dangerous.
“The Somali community in the Twin Cities is overwhelmingly made up of hardworking families, small business owners, healthcare workers, students, and taxpayers,” said Jaylani Hussein, executive director of CAIR-Minnesota. “There’s a few bad apples … that committed crimes and broke the law. But at the same time, you can’t do a collective punishment.”
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
PART TWO: THE PARDON RECORD
While Targeting One Community, Trump Forgave Another
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Against the backdrop of this anti-fraud crusade, a review of President Trump’s second-term clemency record reveals a striking contrast: he has used his pardon power to wipe clean the records of dozens of wealthy, mostly white Americans convicted of financial crimes — and in most cases erased the obligation to repay their victims.
An NBC News analysis of Trump’s 88 individual pardons through January 2026 found that more than half went to white-collar criminals convicted of offenses including money laundering, bank fraud, and wire fraud. Roughly half of all pardon recipients were business executives or politicians. According to former U.S. Pardon Attorney Liz Oyer, who tracks the pardons in a database, Trump’s clemency actions have collectively deprived fraud victims of more than $1.3 billion in restitution.
A viral list circulating on social media showed 14 individuals pardoned by Trump and the associated fraud amounts. That list has been reviewed and confirmed as accurate in its descriptions — every person named was a real convicted fraudster who received clemency from President Trump. However, the list is far from complete. What follows is a comprehensive accounting, including major cases the list omits.
THE VERIFIED LIST — CASE BY CASE
Jason Galanis — ~$200M+
Crime: Securities fraud, investment adviser fraud, tribal bond scheme. Clemency: Sentence commuted, March 2025. A court had ordered $84.8 million in restitution; Galanis walked free still owing approximately $80 million to union pension funds for transit workers, longshoremen, and city employees, as well as to the Oglala Sioux tribe. He then attempted to sue to claw back $2 million he had already paid to victims — a motion a federal judge denied.
Joseph Schwartz — ~$38M
Crime: Employment tax fraud and Medicaid fraud at Skyline Healthcare nursing homes. Clemency: Pardoned, November 14, 2025. Schwartz paid approximately $960,000 to lobbyists for pardon advocacy and served only 3 months of a 3-year federal sentence. He was still required to serve a separate Arkansas state sentence and reported to state prison December 29, 2025.
Lawrence Duran — ~$205M billed; ~$87M paid
Crime: The largest therapy-related Medicare fraud in U.S. history at the time of his conviction — submitting fraudulent claims for mental health services never rendered. Clemency: Sentence commuted, May 2025. Duran had served 14 years of a 50-year sentence. A restitution order of $87.5 million was wiped out.
Carlos Watson — ~$60M investor fraud
Crime: Securities fraud and wire fraud through Ozy Media. Watson orchestrated a scheme in which an employee impersonated a YouTube executive on a call with Goldman Sachs in order to secure a $40 million investment. Clemency: Sentence commuted, March 2025. Nearly $37 million in restitution was erased.
Trevor Milton — ~$600M+ potential investor losses
Crime: Wire fraud and securities fraud as founder of Nikola, the electric vehicle company. Milton made sweeping false claims about the company’s technology — including staging a video of a truck “driving” that was actually rolling downhill. Sentenced to 4 years. Clemency: Full pardon, March 2025. Prosecutors had sought $600 million or more in restitution; Milton was pardoned before the judge could order it. When asked in a local news interview whether he would repay defrauded investors, Milton said flatly: “I wouldn’t pay them back.”
Todd Chrisley — ~$30M bank fraud
Crime: Bank fraud and tax evasion. The reality TV star submitted fake financial documents to banks to fraudulently obtain loans. Clemency: Pardoned, May 2025. After his release, Chrisley bragged publicly that “the feds got f***ed.” His daughter Savannah had spoken at the Republican National Convention lobbying for a pardon.
Julie Chrisley — ~$30M bank fraud (joint with Todd)
Crime: Same bank fraud and tax evasion scheme as her husband. Clemency: Pardoned, May 2025. The combined restitution order of $22 million or more was wiped out.
Devon Archer — ~$60M tribal bond scheme
Crime: Fraud in the same Oglala Sioux tribal bond scheme as Jason Galanis, which defrauded a Native American tribe and pension funds. Archer was Hunter Biden’s former business partner and had testified in the House Republican investigation into the Biden family. Clemency: Full pardon, March 2025 — meaning not only was his sentence eliminated, his conviction was erased from the record.
George Santos — ~$44K–$1M+ (multiple fraud schemes)
Crime: Campaign fraud, identity theft, wire fraud, and embezzlement. Santos, the former U.S. Representative expelled by the House of Representatives, ran multiple overlapping schemes including stealing from his own campaign donors. Clemency: Sentence commuted, October 2025, after serving 3 months of a 7-year sentence. Trump praised Santos for “always voting Republican.”
Michele Fiore — ~$70K charity fraud
Crime: Wire fraud — stole approximately $70,000 from a memorial fund set up for a slain Las Vegas police officer, diverting money meant for the officer’s family to pay for her own cosmetic surgery and personal expenses. The former Las Vegas city councilwoman faced up to 140 years in prison. Clemency: Pardoned, April 2025. Trump cited her “outspoken conservative views” in the pardon statement.
Brian Kelsey — ~$90K campaign finance fraud
Crime: Conspiracy to defraud the United States through illegal campaign finance violations as a Tennessee state senator. Clemency: Pardoned, March 2025, just 15 days into a 21-month sentence. Three Republican members of Congress personally lobbied Trump for the pardon.
Scott Jenkins — ~$75K bribery
Crime: Bribery — the Virginia sheriff sold law enforcement deputy badges to unvetted individuals, including a convicted felon, in exchange for cash and campaign contributions. Clemency: Pardoned, May 2025. Trump called Jenkins “a wonderful person, who was persecuted by the Radical Left.”
Paul Walczak — ~$10M+ tax fraud
Crime: Withheld employee payroll taxes from workers at his businesses and used the money to bankroll a lavish personal lifestyle. Clemency: Pardoned, April 2025. Walczak never served a single day in prison. His mother donated $1 million at a Mar-a-Lago fundraiser before the pardon was granted, according to the Campaign Legal Center. A $4.4 million restitution order was erased.
Adriana Camberos — ~$1M+ counterfeit/fraud (first case); $25M–$49M (second case)
Crime: Camberos has twice been convicted of fraud — first in 2016 for selling counterfeit energy drinks and again for a separate mail and wire fraud scheme involving the diversion of wholesale goods worth tens of millions of dollars. Clemency: Her first sentence was commuted by Trump in January 2021. After reoffending, she was convicted again and pardoned a second time on January 15, 2026. She is a repeat offender who has now been pardoned by the same president twice.
SIGNIFICANT CASES NOT ON THE LIST
The viral list, while accurate, misses some of the most consequential fraud pardons of Trump’s second term.
Philip Esformes — ~$1.3 billion
Esformes ran what the FBI described as the largest criminal healthcare fraud case ever brought against an individual in U.S. history — a scheme that stole approximately $1.3 billion from Medicare and Medicaid. He was first pardoned by Trump in his first term and received further clemency consideration in his second. The Daily Beast noted with pointed irony that this was “the exact programs Trump’s new task force is pledging to protect.”
Changpeng Zhao — $4 billion penalty
The founder of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, pleaded guilty to anti-money laundering violations and agreed to pay $4 billion in penalties — the largest corporate penalty in U.S. history at the time. He was pardoned in October 2025, one week after Donald Trump Jr. introduced Zhao’s lobbyist to Trump at a public event. Binance had previously taken steps that enriched the Trump family’s crypto startup, World Liberty Financial, by billions of dollars. When asked about the pardon, Trump claimed: “I have no idea who he is.”
Glen Casada and Cade Cothren — ~$52,000+ in taxpayer funds; broader fraud and conspiracy
The former Tennessee House Speaker and his chief of staff were convicted in May 2025 on 14 criminal counts including honest services fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States. Their case involved racist and sexist text messages, cocaine use in state buildings, and a shell company that received taxpayer funds. Both were pardoned by Trump in November 2025.
BY THE NUMBERS:
TRUMP’S PARDONS WIPE OUT $1.3 BILLION IN RESTITUTION
– $1.3 billion+: Estimated restitution wiped out by Trump pardons, depriving fraud victims of legally owed repayment
– More than 50% of Trump’s individual second-term pardons went to white-collar criminals
– $250 million: Estimated amount stolen in the Feeding Our Future scheme in Minnesota
– $9 billion: Total estimated fraud under investigation across all Minnesota social programs
ON THE PARDON PROCESS
Trump fired career pardon attorney Liz Oyer in March 2025 and replaced her with Ed Martin, a political loyalist who described the rationale for pardons as “No MAGA left behind.” Trump frequently bypassed the Office of the Pardon Attorney entirely in granting clemency. The Justice Department’s normal clemency process requires input from victims, prosecutors, and judges — and historically, the DOJ has not recommended pardons for people who still owe significant restitution. Trump departed sharply from all of these norms.
On pay-to-play concerns: Lobbyists told the Wall Street Journal that standard fees for pardon advocacy run approximately $1 million. Joseph Schwartz paid ~$960,000 to lobbyists. Paul Walczak’s mother donated $1 million to a Trump fundraiser before his pardon. Trevor Milton donated more than $1.8 million to Trump’s 2024 campaign. Changpeng Zhao’s company enriched the Trump family’s crypto business by billions.
The White House has consistently maintained that Trump’s fraud pardons are not about overlooking crime, but about correcting what it describes as the political weaponization of the justice system by the Biden administration. For each pardon, Trump or his staff characterized the defendant as a “victim” of overzealous prosecution. Critics note, however, that many of these cases — including Galanis, Duran, and the Chrisleys — were prosecuted entirely or in large part during Republican administrations, or under career prosecutors with no partisan motivation. The Chrisleys were actually indicted during Trump’s first term.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
PART THREE: THE CONTRADICTION
An Anti-Fraud Crusade With Selective Vision
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
In March 2026, President Trump announced a new anti-fraud task force, led by “fraud czar” Vice President JD Vance, and pointedly called out Minnesota as a case study. The announcement came as his administration continued prosecuting dozens of cases involving Somali Americans in that state. The contrast with his pardon record did not go unnoticed.
Former U.S. Pardon Attorney Liz Oyer, who was fired by Trump in March 2025, has been among the most vocal critics. In April 2025 Senate testimony, she accused the Justice Department of “ongoing corruption” and said leadership “appears to value political loyalty above the fair and responsible administration of justice.” She told the New York Times: “The war on fraud seems like a war on specific fraud committed by a specific kind of people.”
The numbers bear this out. The Feeding Our Future scheme in Minnesota involved approximately $250 million stolen, with more than 60 convictions secured. It is a genuine and serious crime, prosecuted under the Biden administration beginning in 2022 and continuing through the Trump administration. No serious person disputes that the defendants committed fraud.
But Trump has pardoned individuals who, in total, were responsible for amounts of fraud that dwarf the entire Minnesota scandal — and in many cases erased their victims’ legal right to repayment. Trevor Milton defrauded investors of an estimated $600 million or more. Philip Esformes stole approximately $1.3 billion from Medicare and Medicaid. Changpeng Zhao’s company agreed to pay $4 billion in penalties for enabling money laundering. Jason Galanis stole from union pension funds for transit workers, longshoremen, and city employees.
In total, a House Judiciary Democrats analysis found that Trump’s pardons and commutations had deprived victims of at least $1.3 billion in restitution — money that legally belonged to the people who were defrauded, money that would have helped whole pension funds, small businesses, investors, and government programs.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CONCLUSION: TWO DEFINITIONS OF FRAUD
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
What emerges from a close examination of both the Minnesota scandal and Trump’s pardon record is a portrait of two different definitions of fraud — applied based not on the size of the crime, but on the identity and connections of the perpetrator.
The fraud in Minnesota was real. The Feeding Our Future convictions represent genuine criminal conduct, the theft of public funds meant to feed children, carried out by people who used the money to buy luxury real estate and take vacations in the Maldives. The prosecutions that began in 2022 were appropriate, and justice was served in dozens of cases. The Somali community itself has acknowledged this.
But the fraud prosecuted in courtrooms across America — fraud involving far larger sums, fraud targeting pension funds and Medicare and ordinary investors — has been systematically pardoned, and its perpetrators have been handed back their freedom with a presidential declaration that they were the real victims all along.
The list circulating on social media is accurate as far as it goes. Every person on it is a real convicted fraudster who received clemency from President Trump. But it represents only a fraction of a broader pattern — one that, by the math of the pardons alone, has transferred more than a billion dollars in legal obligations away from criminals and onto their victims.
When the president stands before a microphone and vows to crack down on fraud, it is worth asking: which fraud, exactly? Committed by whom? And for whose benefit?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
TRUMP FRAUD: TWO DEFINITIONS OF FRAUD
A Running Account of Trump’s Legal Judgments, Convictions, and Settlements
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
And besides, if Trump is so adamant about calling out fraud, let’s remind readers of his list:
Over the course of several decades, Donald Trump — businessman, television personality, and twice-elected president — has amassed a legal record unlike any other figure in American public life. What follows is a compiled account of the cases where courts, juries, and regulators found wrongdoing, extracted penalties, or secured convictions.
TRUMP UNIVERSITY — $25 million settlement (2016–2018)
Trump University operated as what New York’s Attorney General described as a bait-and-switch scheme, in which more than 5,000 people were allegedly misled into paying up to $35,000 to learn Trump’s real estate investment techniques. In November 2016, Trump agreed to pay $25 million to settle two class-action lawsuits and a New York civil suit — $21 million to class-action participants, $3 million to New Yorkers outside the class actions, and a penalty of up to $1 million for running an unlicensed university. Trump did not admit wrongdoing, but the New York AG called it a settlement that would recover about 90 percent of the costs paid by attendees.
THE TRUMP FOUNDATION — $2 million judgment + dissolution (2019)
A New York judge ordered Trump to pay $2 million in damages after finding that money raised at a 2016 veterans’ fundraiser “was used for Mr. Trump’s political campaign and disbursed by Mr. Trump’s campaign staff.” In the November 2019 settlement, Trump acknowledged that the veterans’ fundraiser had been a campaign event and that his campaign had been given full control of the raised funds. As part of the settlement, Trump was required to agree to 19 admissions acknowledging his personal misuse of foundation funds. The foundation was dissolved by court order.
TRUMP ORGANIZATION — 17 criminal convictions (2022)
The Trump Organization’s two subsidiary companies were convicted of 17 charges including tax fraud in a trial in late 2022, after prosecutors alleged the organization had conducted a 15-year “scheme to defraud” the government.
NEW YORK CIVIL FRAUD — $355 million judgment (2024, partially overturned on appeal)
In 2022, New York Attorney General Letitia James brought a civil lawsuit against Trump and top executives at the Trump Organization, alleging they exaggerated his wealth to lenders and insurers to obtain better loan terms. In February 2024, Judge Arthur Engoron found that Trump had committed fraud and ordered him to pay $355 million in penalties — a figure that exceeded $520 million with accrued interest before an appeals court intervened. That appeals court threw out the massive financial penalty, ruling it violated the Constitution’s ban on excessive fines, while narrowly endorsing the lower court’s finding that Trump had engaged in fraud by padding his wealth on financial statements. Bans on Trump and his sons from serving in corporate leadership were left in place.
E. JEAN CARROLL — $88+ million in civil liability (2023–2024)
In May 2023, a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing and defaming Carroll, ordering him to pay her $5 million. In January 2024, a separate jury directed Trump to pay Carroll an additional $83.3 million for defamatory comments he made about her. Both judgments are on appeal.
HUSH MONEY / FALSIFIED BUSINESS RECORDS — 34 felony convictions (2024)
Trump was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels as hush money; with costs related to the transaction included, the payments totaled $420,000. On May 30, 2024, a Manhattan jury found Trump guilty on all 34 counts, making him the first U.S. president to be convicted of felony crimes. On January 10, 2025, the judge sentenced Trump to an unconditional discharge — no jail time, fines, or probation. Trump is appealing.
FEDERAL ELECTION INTERFERENCE & CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS — Dismissed because sitting president cannot be prosecuted
Special counsel Jack Smith charged Trump in August 2023 with conspiring to overturn the results of his 2020 election loss. Smith moved to drop the case after Trump won reelection, citing longstanding Justice Department policy that sitting presidents cannot face criminal prosecution. Similarly, charges that Trump illegally retained classified documents at Mar-a-Lago and then obstructed government demands to retrieve them were dismissed — first by a judge on procedural grounds, and ultimately dropped entirely after Trump’s reelection.
GEORGIA ELECTION RACKETEERING —Dismissed because sitting president cannot be prosecuted (2025)
In August 2023, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis charged Trump and 18 others with participating in a scheme to illegally overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. A judge ordered the case dismissed in its entirety in November 2025 after a new prosecutor declined to pursue charges following Trump’s return to the White House.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Totaling the cases where payments were actually made or convictions secured: the Trump University settlement cost $25 million; the Foundation fraud judgment cost $2 million plus dissolution; the Carroll sexual abuse and defamation verdicts amount to roughly $88 million; and the civil fraud case — though its largest penalties were overturned on appeal — produced a confirmed judicial finding of fraud. The Trump Organization itself carries 17 criminal convictions.
From 1973 through his first election in 2016, Trump and his businesses were involved in over 4,000 legal cases in U.S. federal and state courts — a volume exceeding that of several major real estate moguls combined, according to reporting at the time.
What is notable, legally, is the gap between findings of wrongdoing and consequences actually served. Trump remains the only U.S. president in history to have been criminally convicted — and the only one to have been sentenced to nothing at all.
All figures reflect court records, settlements, and official government filings. Cases currently on appeal may result in further changes.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
SOURCES & REFERENCES
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
— NBC News analysis of Trump second-term pardons (Jan. 2026)
— House Judiciary Democrats — $1.3B restitution analysis (June 2025)
— Former U.S. Pardon Attorney Liz Oyer — Senate testimony (April 2025)
— Campaign Legal Center — “Inside the Pardon Playbook” (March 2026)
— ABC News — “Pardons shortchanged fraud victims” (June 2025)
— CBS News — “What we know about Minnesota fraud” (Dec. 2025)
— PBS NewsHour — Federal probe of MN childcare (Dec. 2025)
— CNN — Key figures in Minnesota fraud controversy (Jan. 2026)
— 19th News — Childcare fraud Minnesota fact check (Jan. 2026)
— Tribal Business News — Galanis commutation (March 2025)
— Arkansas Times — Schwartz prison reporting (Dec. 2025)
— Skilled Nursing News — Schwartz pardon report (Nov. 2025)
— The Daily Beast — “Trump’s Fraud Double Standard” (March 2026)
— Wikipedia — List of clemency grants, second Trump presidency
— Governor Newsom’s office — Trump Criminals tracker (Jan. & March 2026)
— Minnesota Star Tribune — Feeding Our Future trial coverage
— New York Times — Pardon process and Liz Oyer reporting