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NYT claims Trump selling pardons
Poast new message in this thread
Date: May 27th, 2025 3:55 PM Author: peach comical garrison getting hard to defend, but at the same time, NYT only digs deep with Trump, turned blind eye to Biden.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/us/politics/trump-pardon-paul-walczak-tax-crimes.html
Trump Pardoned Tax Cheat After Mother Attended $1 Million Dinner Paul Walczak’s pardon application cited his mother’s support for the president, including raising millions of dollars and a connection to a plot to publicize a Biden family diary.
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984 Paul Walczak in a gray suit and blue striped tie. Paul Walczak in 2011. His recent pardon by President Trump spared him from having to pay nearly $4.4 million in restitution and serving 18 months in prison.Credit...Bill Ingram/Palm Beach Post/USA TODAY NETWORK, via Imagn Images Kenneth P. Vogel By Kenneth P. Vogel Kenneth P. Vogel has reported on presidential pardons. He reported from Washington. May 27, 2025 Updated 12:09 p.m. ET As Paul Walczak awaited sentencing early this year, his best hope for avoiding prison time rested with the newly inaugurated president.
Mr. Walczak, a former nursing home executive who had pleaded guilty to tax crimes days after the 2024 election, submitted a pardon application to President Trump around Inauguration Day. The application focused not solely on Mr. Walczak’s offenses but also on the political activity of his mother, Elizabeth Fago.
Ms. Fago had raised millions of dollars for Mr. Trump’s campaigns and those of other Republicans, the application said. It also highlighted her connections to an effort to sabotage Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s 2020 campaign by publicizing the addiction diary of his daughter Ashley Biden — an episode that drew law enforcement scrutiny.
Mr. Walczak’s pardon application argued that his criminal prosecution was motivated more by his mother’s efforts for Mr. Trump than by his admitted use of money earmarked for employees’ taxes to fund an extravagant lifestyle. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Still, weeks went by and no pardon was forthcoming, even as Mr. Trump issued clemency grants to hundreds of other allies.
Then, Ms. Fago was invited to a $1-million-per-person fund-raising dinner last month that promised face-to-face access to Mr. Trump at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla.
Less than three weeks after she attended the dinner, Mr. Trump signed a full and unconditional pardon.
It came just in the nick of time for Mr. Walczak, sparing him from having to pay nearly $4.4 million in restitution and from reporting to prison for an 18-month sentence that had been handed down just 12 days earlier. A judge had justified the incarceration by declaring that there “is not a get-out-of-jail-free card” for the rich. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
The pardon, however, indicated otherwise. The case of Ms. Fago and Mr. Walczak is the latest example of the president’s willingness to use his clemency powers to reward allies who advance his political causes, and to punish his enemies.
Image Elizabeth Fago wearing a blue print top. Mr. Walczak’s mother, Elizabeth Fago, in 2018. She raised money for Mr. Trump’s campaigns. Credit...Nick Mele/Patrick McMullan, via Getty Images Mr. Walczak’s pardon application was described to The New York Times by a person who received it but was not authorized to share.
Ms. Fago, Mr. Walczak and his lawyer did not respond to questions.
A White House official echoed the framing in Mr. Walczak’s application, asserting in a statement to The Times that he was “targeted by the Biden administration over his family’s conservative politics.”
A $2 Million Yacht
Mr. Walczak, 55, joined his mother’s nursing home business after dropping out of college, eventually becoming chief executive. After she sold the company in 2007, they invested $18 million in a new nursing home venture based in South Florida, where they lived a luxurious lifestyle.
By 2011, prosecutors said, Mr. Walczak had stopped paying employment taxes.
Between 2016 and 2019, they said, he withheld more than $10 million from the paychecks of the nurses, doctors and others who worked at his facilities under the pretext of using it for their Social Security, Medicare and federal income taxes. Instead, he used some of the money to buy a $2 million yacht and to pay for travel and purchases at high-end retailers, including Bergdorf Goodman and Cartier, prosecutors said. Editors’ Picks
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He was charged in February 2023 with 13 counts of tax crimes.
By the time he pleaded guilty to two of the counts and agreed to pay the restitution on Nov. 15, 2024, Mr. Trump had been elected for a second term in the White House.
The family had reason to believe the incoming president might look fondly on a pardon application.
Ms. Fago, 74, had helped host at least three fund-raisers for Mr. Trump’s campaigns. She and her son Joey Fago (Mr. Walczak’s half brother) and his wife attended V.I.P. events at Mr. Trump’s 2017 and 2025 inaugurations, according to social media posts, including one in which she was shown posing with Mr. Trump.
An ‘Unbelievable’ Diary Image A man in a gray suit and red tie walks outside next to Aimee Harris, who is wearing a dark jacket and white top. Aimee Harris, right, discovered Ashley Biden’s diary.Credit...Jefferson Siegel for The New York Times During Mr. Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign, Ms. Fago tried to help the candidate in other ways.
Ashley Biden had left her diary and other belongings in a house where she had been staying in Delray Beach, Fla., when she moved to Philadelphia during the campaign, telling a friend that she planned to return to retrieve the belongings later. A woman who moved in, Aimee Harris, discovered the diary and enlisted Robert Kurlander, a longtime friend and former housemate, to help sell it.
Mr. Kurlander contacted Ms. Fago. When she was first told of the diary, she said she thought it would help Mr. Trump’s chances of winning the election, according to people familiar with the situation who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the matter. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Mr. Kurlander and Ms. Harris brought Ms. Biden’s diary to a September 2020 fund-raiser at Ms. Fago’s home in the exclusive Admirals Cove community of Jupiter, Fla. The featured guests were Mr. Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. and the younger Mr. Trump’s girlfriend at the time, Kimberly Guilfoyle.
At the fund-raiser, the diary was shown to Caroline Wren, the campaign finance consultant who helped organize the event.
Trump Administration: Live Updates Updated May 27, 2025, 2:22 p.m. ET13 minutes ago Trump threatens California over transgender athletes’ participation. E.E.O.C. won’t pay state regulators for some discrimination claims. The U.S. will receive a ‘golden share’ in a steel deal. “So I go back there, I start reading through it, and there was just unbelievable stuff,” Ms. Wren recalled last year on a podcast. “I contacted the campaign attorneys, and then that campaign attorneys said, ‘Be very careful, don’t take possession of this.’ They wrote up a whole memo and then they contacted the F.B.I. and said, ‘You need to come pick this up immediately.’”
The F.B.I. did not retrieve the diary. Instead, Mr. Kurlander and Ms. Harris entered negotiations to provide it to Project Veritas, a Trump-allied undercover media group that had been tipped to the diary’s existence by Stephanie Walczak, Ms. Fago’s daughter. Image Robert Kurlander, wearing a dark suit and a blue checked shirt, stands in front of a stone building. Robert Kurlander pleaded guilty in 2022 and admitted to conspiring to steal, transport and sell Ms. Biden’s diary.Credit...Jefferson Siegel for The New York Times ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
The Justice Department during Mr. Trump’s first term opened an investigation into the matter after a representative of the Biden family reported to federal authorities before the 2020 election that several of Ms. Biden’s personal items had been stolen in a burglary.
Ms. Fago and other family members spent election night 2020 at a White House watch party. After Mr. Trump lost, they were invited back the next month to attend a White House Christmas party.
During his final weeks in office, Ms. Fago was among a slew of loyalists tapped by Mr. Trump for appointment to government boards and commissions. She resisted an effort by the Biden administration to rescind her appointment to the National Cancer Advisory Board, according to her son’s pardon application, which said that she told a board representative that Mr. Biden did not have the right to remove her.
The scrutiny of the diary matter continued when Mr. Biden took office.
In November 2021, investigators obtained a search warrant related to a Project Veritas official that sought information about “potential co-conspirators,” including communications with Ms. Fago, Ms. Walczak, Mr. Kurlander, Ms. Harris and others “about obtaining, transporting, transferring, disseminating or otherwise disposing of Ashley Biden’s stolen property.”
Mr. Kurlander and Ms. Harris would later plead guilty, admitting to conspiring to steal, transport and sell the diary to Project Veritas. Ms. Harris was sentenced to one month in prison. Mr. Kurlander is scheduled to be sentenced next month. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
A New Hope
When Mr. Trump won the presidency for a second time, it offered hope to Project Veritas, Ms. Fago and Mr. Walczak.
In January, with Mr. Trump preparing to move back into the White House, Ms. Fago and her family traveled to Washington for the inauguration. They got V.I.P. access to the Trump Victory rally at the Capital One Arena in Washington.
On Feb. 5, Mr. Trump’s Justice Department said it was closing the investigation into the diary. Ms. Fago and Ms. Walczak were not charged, nor was anyone from Project Veritas.
In the meantime, a pardon application was submitted on Mr. Walczak’s behalf. It suggested that Donald Trump Jr., as well as Ms. Guilfoyle and other Trump allies, supported his clemency.
They all agreed, according to the application, that the only reason Mr. Walczak was prosecuted criminally was that he was the son of a prominent Trump supporter. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Ms. Guilfoyle declined to comment. Mr. Trump did not respond to a request for comment.
The application cited Mr. Biden’s justification for issuing a sweeping pardon to his son Hunter Biden for tax and gun crimes in December. The elder Mr. Biden had claimed in a statement that Hunter “was singled out only because he is my son.”
As Ms. Fago and Mr. Walczak awaited word on the pardon, she was invited to the Mar-a-Lago fund-raiser with Mr. Trump.
An invitation billed it as an intimate “candlelight dinner” with “very limited” space available to people who paid $1 million each. It was sponsored by MAGA Inc., a political action committee that can accept unlimited donations to support candidates and causes backed by Mr. Trump.
The ask was far more than her previous largest federal donation on record — $100,000 to the Republican National Committee in 2002 — and dwarfed the more than $12,000 she had directly donated to Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign committees.
Two people briefed on the candlelight dinner said that Ms. Fago attended. It is not clear whether she donated to MAGA Inc., or how much. ADVERTISEMENT SKIP ADVERTISEMENT
Representatives for MAGA Inc. did not respond to questions. The group has until the end of July to disclose the identities of donors from the first half of this year, which will most likely include those who paid to attend the dinner.
In a brief interview, Joey Fago downplayed the significance of his mother’s connection to the diary saga.
“There was like hundreds of pardons,” he said. “I’m sure there’s plenty of other people you can write about.”
The White House official cited the Biden administration’s effort to oust Ms. Fago from the cancer board as evidence of the political motivations that contributed to Mr. Trump’s decision to issue the pardon.
After Mr. Walczak was pardoned in the tax case, he celebrated with his mother and family while wearing a red Trump-style hat reading “Make Paul Great Again,” according to a social media post capturing the celebration.
In the post, Joey Fago wrote, “What God has ahead of you, is greater than what is behind you,” along with the hashtag “MAGA.”
Michael S. Schmidt, Adam Goldman and Devon Lum contributed reporting. Kenneth P. Vogel is based in Washington and investigates the intersection of money, politics and influence.
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Date: May 28th, 2025 12:33 PM Author: Fear-inspiring slippery therapy all good goyim sell for their (((masters))) (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48967709) |
Date: May 27th, 2025 4:27 PM Author: green french meetinghouse kitty The guy pardoned Kwame Kilpatrick in his first term. There was no story of redemption or some miscarriage of Justice that could be argued. Just a straight up pay for play. Don’t need to read the article to know how trump operates. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48965586) |
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Date: May 27th, 2025 4:38 PM Author: aqua metal base you pee sitting down and fart cum from your asshole. go the fuck back you foreign weirdo. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48965615) |
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Date: May 27th, 2025 8:55 PM Author: Burgundy business firm Is this true (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48966288) |
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Date: May 27th, 2025 8:58 PM Author: aqua metal base letting his wife’s bull finish in his ass is confirmed. The pee thing is just an assumption. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48966291) |
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Date: May 27th, 2025 4:30 PM Author: nighttime flesh personal credit line Extremely fucked up that the guy doesn’t even have to pay restitution. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48965592) |
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Date: May 28th, 2025 1:05 PM Author: Titillating Drunken Temple Stain yes, the article was tldr but did see that expect a crime victim could still seek restitution by a civil suit are sols tolled at all? but if the victim here is the irs/government, can they also file a civil suit to get paid? |
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Date: May 27th, 2025 4:30 PM Author: Vigorous kitchen foreskin libs: yes the Biden Crime Family had a network of shell companies and millions poured into the various entities and was shuffled around following Hunter and Jim's invocation of Joe's name but you can't trace any specific dollar from foreigners to Joe's personal wallet.
also libs: someone attended a campaign event and then their child was pardoned and therefore Trump personally sold the pardon. |
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Date: May 27th, 2025 4:33 PM Author: Burgundy business firm (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48965601) |
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Date: May 27th, 2025 8:25 PM Author: heady slap-happy ticket booth mental disorder You are a retarded homosexual determined to find BOTH SIDES in every obvious claim about Trump (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48966242) |
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Date: May 27th, 2025 8:35 PM Author: electric candlestick maker This was all proven following a lengthy and thorough congressional investigation by Jim Jordan, iirc.
I forget exactly why they didn't impeach the Big Guy for this. I think they decided it was "too close to the election" or something. |
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Date: May 27th, 2025 9:46 PM Author: Vigorous kitchen foreskin none of that is disputed by anyone.
David Garrow, a dyed in the wool lefty who wrote the definitive bio of Obama and the Pulitzer-prize winning bio of MLK Jr., had this to say:
"But by far the most powerful tome I perused this year is a privately published 640-page Report on the Biden Laptop, authoritatively compiled by Garrett Ziegler and available on the web from his 501c3, "Marco Polo." It's a transfixing window into the entire Biden family, and the scale of human depravity it relentlessly details is unforgettably disgusting." |
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Date: May 28th, 2025 12:21 AM Author: electric candlestick maker So we're just going to let them keep the $10M bribe from Ukraine? I voted for Trump because he said he was going to be "tough on crime." Did I get tricked?? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48966695) |
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Date: May 28th, 2025 10:03 AM Author: Vigorous kitchen foreskin Hunter got a free pass for literally dozens of serious crimes. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48967162) |
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Date: May 27th, 2025 9:52 PM Author: green french meetinghouse kitty (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48966391) |
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Date: May 28th, 2025 8:49 AM Author: aqua metal base get a life you old as fuck mormom weirdo (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48966981) |
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Date: May 27th, 2025 4:33 PM Author: Fragrant iridescent church kikes kvetching about chill fratty indulgences (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48965603) |
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Date: May 27th, 2025 4:35 PM Author: Misunderstood sienna coldplay fan new version Clinton did this all the time, e.g. Marc Rich (b. Marcell David Reich) (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48965606) |
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Date: May 27th, 2025 4:44 PM Author: henna adventurous bawdyhouse famous landscape painting lol (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48965631) |
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Date: May 27th, 2025 8:25 PM Author: heady slap-happy ticket booth mental disorder No shit (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48966243) |
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Date: May 27th, 2025 8:28 PM Author: Nudist Dark Yarmulke Of course he’s selling pardons. SCOTUS said he could. So why the fuck wouldn’t he? His entire shtick is to enrich himself.
Interestingly, SCOTUS did NOT say it’s legal to PAY for a pardon, and I suspect several people will go to jail for doing it. |
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Date: May 28th, 2025 8:57 AM Author: spruce seedy dingle berry principal's office wdm? is there a case, maybe this one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_v._United_States (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48966993) |
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Date: May 28th, 2025 11:34 AM Author: aqua metal base get off the internet you retarded pedo dork (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48967443) |
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Date: May 27th, 2025 8:38 PM Author: Multi-colored hell "NOOO NOOOO NOOOOOOO patronage and the friend-enemy disinction are only good when we do it NOOOOOOOO" (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48966257) |
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Date: May 27th, 2025 8:54 PM Author: Burgundy business firm (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48966285) |
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Date: May 27th, 2025 8:55 PM Author: Citrine center (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48966286) |
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Date: May 27th, 2025 10:03 PM Author: chestnut doobsian dilemma I think the guy should probably be in jail if he really did just purposefully avoid paying taxes.
But it's easy to see how this happens. The mom pays $1mm to talk to Trump. She tells Trump the Biden family is targeting her and her family for trying to tell the truth to America about the diary (completely true).
Trump says he'll fix it.
If libs don't like the results then Biden shouldn't have tried to charge them with a crime for a pretty clear question on freedom of speech/press. |
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Date: May 28th, 2025 9:09 AM Author: stirring sadistic heaven He’s not selling them. He is just prioritizing giving pardons to patriots who love this country and are making it great again by spending money on his campaign and his family’s unrelated cryptocurrency investment ventures. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48967025) |
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Date: May 28th, 2025 10:34 AM Author: tripping cocky school cafeteria L'Chaim! What a macher! (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48967271) |
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Date: May 28th, 2025 11:35 AM Author: Cerebral turquoise office party of the first part Ah.. flashbacks to the Clinton pardoning Marc Rich after his wife donated 450k to the Clinton library.
Adjusting for inflation, who got more out of it, Trump or Clinton? |
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Date: May 28th, 2025 11:41 AM Author: Misunderstood sienna coldplay fan new version Sorry do you mean Marcell Reich? (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48967475) |
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Date: May 28th, 2025 12:47 PM Author: Magenta hairraiser space This is a prime example of why a news organization should stay as non partisan as possible. Like anyone gives a fuck what the nyt says after the hunter and Biden bullshit. (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48967786) |
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Date: May 28th, 2025 1:07 PM Author: Titillating Drunken Temple Stain (http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5730402&forum_id=2).#48967885) |