{"id":370030,"date":"2025-11-10T21:18:25","date_gmt":"2025-11-10T21:18:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/370030\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T21:18:25","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T21:18:25","slug":"trump-pardons-rudy-giuliani-and-others-official-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/370030\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump pardons Rudy Giuliani and others, official says"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump<\/a> has pardoned his former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, his onetime chief of staff Mark Meadows<\/a> and others accused of backing the Republican\u2019s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. <\/p>\n

The \u201cfull, complete, and unconditional\u201d pardon for dozens of Trump allies are largely symbolic. It applies only to federal crimes, and none of the people named in the proclamation were ever charged federally over the bid to subvert the election won by Democrat Joe Biden<\/a>. It doesn\u2019t affect state charges, though state prosecutions stemming from the 2020 election have hit a dead end or are just limping along<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The move, however, underscores Trump\u2019s continued efforts to promote the idea that the 2020 election was stolen<\/a> from him even though courts around the country<\/a> and Trump\u2019s own attorney general<\/a> at the time found no evidence of fraud that could have affected the outcome. Reviews<\/a>, recounts<\/a> and audits<\/a> of the election in the battleground states<\/a> where Trump contested his loss also affirmed Biden\u2019s victory<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s recent action follows the sweeping pardons of the hundreds of Trump supporters charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot<\/a> at the U.S. Capitol, including those convicted of attacking law enforcement.<\/p>\n

Ed Martin, the Department of Justice\u2019s point-man on pardons and a former lawyer for Jan. 6 defendants, linked his announcement of the pardons to a post on X that read \u201cNo MAGA left behind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dozens of Trump allies received pardons<\/p>\n

Among those also pardoned were Sidney Powell<\/a>, an attorney who promoted baseless conspiracy theories<\/a> about a stolen election, John Eastman<\/a>, another lawyer who pushed a plan to keep<\/a> Trump in power, and Jeffrey Clark<\/a>, a former Justice Department official who championed Trump\u2019s efforts to challenge his election loss.<\/p>\n

Also named were Republicans who acted as fake electors<\/a> for Trump and were charged in state cases accusing them of submitting false certificates that confirmed they were legitimate electors despite Biden\u2019s victory in those states.<\/p>\n

The proclamation explicitly says the pardon does not apply to the president himself, who has continued to repeat the lie<\/a> that the 2020 election was stolen from him, used that falsehood to argue for sweeping changes in the way the country votes<\/a> and demanded his Department of Justice investigate the vote count that led to his loss.<\/a><\/p>\n

The pardon described efforts to prosecute the Trump allies as \u201ca grave national injustice perpetrated on the American people\u201d and said the pardons were designed to continue \u201cthe process of national reconciliation.\u201d Giuliani and others have denied any wrongdoing, arguing they were simply challenging an election they believed was tainted by fraud.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese great Americans were persecuted and put through hell by the Biden Administration for challenging an election, which is the cornerstone of democracy,\u201d White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an emailed statement.<\/p>\n

Those pardoned were not prosecuted by the Biden administration, however. They were charged only by state prosecutors who operate separately from the Justice Department.<\/p>\n

An Associated Press investigation<\/a> after the 2020 election found 475 cases of potential voter fraud across the six battleground states<\/a>, far too few to change the outcome.<\/p>\n

Impact of the pardons is limited <\/p>\n

Giuliani, a former New York City mayor, was one of the most vocal supporters of Trump\u2019s unsubstantiated claims<\/a> of large-scale voter fraud after the 2020 election. He also is an example of the limited impact of the pardons. <\/p>\n

Giuliani has been disbarred<\/a> in Washington, D.C., and New York over his advocacy of Trump\u2019s bogus election claims and lost a $148 million defamation case<\/a> brought by two former Georgia election workers whose lives were upended by conspiracy theories he pushed. Since pardons only absolve people from legal responsibility for federal crimes, they\u2019re unlikely to ease Giuliani\u2019s legal woes.<\/p>\n

Ted Goodman, a spokesperson for Giuliani, said the former mayor \u201cnever sought a pardon but is deeply grateful for President Trump\u2019s decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMayor Rudy Giuliani stands by his work following the 2020 presidential election, when he responded to the legitimate concerns of thousands of everyday Americans,\u201d Goodman said in an emailed statement. <\/p>\n

While the pardons may have no immediate legal impact, experts warned they send a dangerous message for future elections. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a complete abdication of the responsibility of the federal government to ensure we don\u2019t have future attempts to overturn elections,\u201d said Rick Hasen, a UCLA law professor. \u201cUltimately, the message it sends is \u2018We\u2019ll take care of you when the time comes.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Some pardoned were co-conspirators in Trump\u2019s federal case<\/p>\n

Trump himself was indicted on federal felony charges<\/a> accusing him of working to overturn his 2020 election defeat, but the case brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith was abandoned<\/a> in November after Trump\u2019s victory over Democrat Kamala Harris because of the department\u2019s policy against prosecuting sitting presidents. Giuliani, Powell, Eastman and Clark were alleged co-conspirators in the federal case brought against Trump but were never charged with federal crimes.<\/p>\n

Giuliani, Meadows and others named in the proclamation had been charged by prosecutors in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin over the 2020 election, but the cases have repeatedly hit roadblocks<\/a> or have been dismissed. A judge in September dismissed the Michigan case against 15 Republicans accused of attempting to falsely certify Trump as the winner of the election in that battleground state.<\/p>\n

Eastman, a former dean of Chapman University Law School in Southern California, was a close adviser to Trump in the wake of the 2020 election and wrote a memo laying out steps Vice President Mike Pence could take<\/a> to stop the counting of electoral votes while presiding over Congress\u2019 joint session on Jan. 6 to keep Trump in office.<\/p>\n

Clark, who is now overseeing a federal regulatory office, also is facing possible disbarment<\/a> in Washington over his advocacy of Trump\u2019s claims. Clark clashed with Justice Department superiors over a letter he drafted after the 2020 election that said the department was investigating \u201cvarious irregularities\u201d and had identified \u201csignificant concerns\u201d that may have affected the election in Georgia and other states. <\/p>\n

Clark said in a social media post Monday that he \u201cdid nothing wrong\u201d and \u201cshouldn\u2019t have had to battle this witch hunt for 4+ years.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press reporter Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump has pardoned his former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, his onetime chief of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":370031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[5643,11029,84,69,79430,90,10104,57,4353,88,178492,82,178459,27593,8133,90048,178461,168300,214,617,405,403,50,11290,5217,130635,2830,80,178493,70105,91086,106407,89,94,61,322,67,132,68,93,14831,1398],"class_list":{"0":"post-370030","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az-state-wire","11":"tag-district-of-columbia","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-ed-martin","14":"tag-elections","15":"tag-ga-state-wire","16":"tag-general-news","17":"tag-georgia","18":"tag-jack-smith","19":"tag-jeffrey-clark","20":"tag-joe-biden","21":"tag-john-eastman","22":"tag-kamala-harris","23":"tag-karoline-leavitt","24":"tag-law-and-order","25":"tag-mark-meadows","26":"tag-michael-pence","27":"tag-michigan","28":"tag-nevada","29":"tag-new-york","30":"tag-new-york-city","31":"tag-news","32":"tag-nv-state-wire","33":"tag-pa-state-wire","34":"tag-pardons-and-commutations","35":"tag-pennsylvania","36":"tag-politics","37":"tag-rick-hasen","38":"tag-rudolph-giuliani","39":"tag-sidney-powell","40":"tag-ted-goodman","41":"tag-u-s-democratic-party","42":"tag-u-s-department-of-justice","43":"tag-u-s-news","44":"tag-u-s-republican-party","45":"tag-united-states","46":"tag-unitedstates","47":"tag-us","48":"tag-washington-news","49":"tag-wi-state-wire","50":"tag-wisconsin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}