President Trump issued 11 pardons on Friday, among them one for Adam Kidan, the convicted former business associate of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, a White House official told The Post.
Kidan was handed a 70-month prison sentence in 2006 after admitting to conspiracy and fraud charges tied to a scheme with Abramoff to buy SunCruz Casinos for $147.5 million using a falsified wire transfer document.
Since then, Kidan has rebuilt his career as an entrepreneur, launching several staffing firms and emerging as a significant donor to Republican causes.
Most of the other pardons went to people convicted of interfering with vehicle emissions-control systems, including selling “defeat devices” and “tuners” designed to boost engine performance in violation of the Clean Air Act.
Earlier Friday, Trump had previewed the move on Truth Social, saying he planned to pardon six people convicted under the Biden administration for “fixing their car.”
“It is my Great Honor to have just signed Pardons for six people who were persecuted by the Biden Administration, and were in, or being sent to, prison, for ‘fixing their car,’” the president wrote on Truth Social. “While I know this sounds ridiculous, it is nevertheless a fact, and part of the Weaponization and Stupidity that our Country had to endure during four long years of Sleepy Joe Biden.
“I AM SETTING THEM ALL FREE, RIGHT NOW!”
Kidan’s pardon appears to be one of just two included in Friday’s action that were not connected to environmental offenses.
Jack Harvard, who was convicted of bank fraud charges in Texas in the 1980s and now runs the Texas Safari Ranch in Clifton, is the other.
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The complete list of Friday’s pardons, including descriptions of their cases provided by the White House, below:
- Joshua Davis – Biden’s Department of Injustice targeted American businesses like Mr. Davis’s, who safely modified vehicles in good faith and circumvented cumbersome emissions controls regulations. President Trump has relieved consumers from these regulatory burdens; thus, there is no need for Mr. Davis to still be on probation, but to be pardoned.
