Some conservatives are expressing concerns that President Donald Trump’s recent decisions to grant pardons and commute sentences might damage his reputation and potentially lead to legal issues down the line.

Conservative commentator Mike Cernovich voiced his apprehensions on X, stating, “If there’s anyone close to Trump who actually cares, they need to intervene regarding the pardons.”

Cernovich’s criticism followed the president’s recent pardon of Texas Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar, which took place on Wednesday.

He further commented, “Corrupt individuals are having their cases dismissed and sentences commuted; it’s completely out of control.”

Congressman Cuellar and his wife, Imelda, faced charges from the Department of Justice for bribery and working as foreign agents in a purported $600,000 shell company scheme linked to businesses in Mexico and Azerbaijan. The Cuellars have maintained their innocence.

In his statement announcing the pardon, Trump argued that the Texas Democrat had been unjustly targeted by former President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice. Cuellar had been scheduled to go to trial next year.

Between his two terms so far, Trump has granted clemency, meaning pardons or commutations, to around 1,700 people, including around 1,500 January 6th Capitol riot defendants. 

Biden, in his single term, granted clemency to over 4,200 individuals, including his family and scores of US officials. President Barack Obama granted around 1,920 clemency actions. 

Some conservatives are warning that Trump’s many pardons could lead to his downfall

The president shockingly pardoned sitting Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar on Wednesday to the surprise of many congressional Republicans 

‘President Trump has exercised his constitutional authority to issue pardons and commutations for a variety of individuals,’ White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told the Daily Mail. 

The spokeswoman noted how Biden ‘pardoned and commuted sentences of violent criminals including child killers and mass murderers– and that’s not to mention the proactive pardons he ‘signed’ for his family members like Hunter on his way out the door.’ 

Though some of Trump’s supporters are warning him that the pardons could push the president’s supporters away. 

‘I voted for Trump, drove support for him, and am glad each day I did,’ Cernovich wrote in another post. ‘The pardons will be his downfall if this isn’t handled immediately.’ 

It was recently announced by the DOJ that the president granted clemency to former real estate executive Tim Leiweke despite the businessman getting indicted by the president’s DOJ for an alleged rigged bidding scheme in July. 

The president also recently pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras, who was sentenced to 45 years in prison last year for drug trafficking.  Trump has been slammed for releasing the convicted trafficker while bombing alleged Venezuelan drug boats in the Caribbean. 

‘I voted for Trump and support most of what he’s doing, but it’s hard to shake the feeling that all it takes to get a pardon from Trump is some combination of knowing the right people or being a celebrity or some high profile white collar case,’ Scott Morefield, a writer for the right-leaning Town Hall, posted on X.  

‘God forbid some sort of pay for play proof emerges. No matter what, these are increasingly a bad look and giving fodder for Democrats … An entirely self-inflicted wound.’

‘If there’s anyone close to Trump who actually gives a s***, they need to do an intervention on the pardons,’ conservative pundit Mike Cernovich, shown above, posted on X

The most recent pardon of Cuellar even shocked the president’s allies in Congress. 

‘I didn’t know anything about it,’ Speaker of the House Mike Johnson told Axios when asked whether Trump tipped him off to the surprise pardon. 

Another House Republican, Rich Hudson, who is responsible for the House GOP’s campaign apparatus, told the outlet the pardon does not make his job any easier. 

Democrats have obviously been sounding off about the myriad clemency actions, too.

‘The pardons Trump is handing out are a huge, growing scandal that not enough people are talking about,’ Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy said this week. 

‘This is a money making operation – for Trump, his family, his crypto pals, and the Trump-affiliated lobbyists and grifters who the pardon seekers pay.’