>> Donald Trump has just issued 20 pardons and commutations and they're not likely to be his last
before leaving office on January 20th. Among those who were pardoned included people who had been
caught up in the Muller investigation into Russian meddling in the election. There are also
three Republican members of Congress who had been convicted of some pretty serious crimes.
They're also being treated preferentially by Donald Trump. I'll get to them in just a minute.
But I'll start off with people like George Papadopoulos, who was a foreign policy
adviser to Trump's 2016 campaign and pleaded guilty in 2017 to making false statements
to federal investigators as part of the Russia investigation.
Again, he's been pardoned by Donald Trump. Also pardoned was Alex Vander Swan. He's a lawyer who
also pleaded guilty to the same charge in 2018 in connection to the special counsel's inquiry. Both
men served short prison sentences. Trump's pardon list also included four former US service members
who are convicted of killing Iraqi civilians while working as contractors back in 2007.
One of them Nicholas Slaton or Slaton has been sentenced to life in prison after the
Justice Department had actually gone to great lengths in order to prosecute and
convict him. He had actually been a contractor for the controversial
company Blackwater and was sentenced for his role in killing 17 Iraqi citizens civilians.
That was a massacre that made big news in 2007. Also the three former
members of Congress who have been pardoned by Donald Trump include
Duncan Hunter of California, Chris Collins of New York, and Steve Stockman of Texas. Duncan Hunter,
if you guys can recall was misusing campaign funds for all sorts of ridiculous personal things.
He was actually set to serve his 11 month prison sentence next month, he actually pleaded guilty
in 2019 to one charge of using or misusing his campaign funds. In regard to Collins, he's an
early endorser of Donald Trump's. He's serving a 26 month sentence after pleading guilty in
2019 to charges of making false statements to the FBI and to conspiring to commit securities fraud.
Stockman was convicted in 2018 on charges of fraud and money laundering
and was serving a ten year sentence. So we'll give you guys more details as we learn them.
This is a late breaking story, but it gives you a sense of the type of criminals and murderers
that Donald Trump is interested in pardoning as long as they remain loyalists to him.
>> Yeah, so let me break down a couple of things here. First on this list is Duncan Hunter as Ana
mentioned. And so Duncan if you remember took campaign contributions and then used them for
his own personal purposes and then lied about it as if he was helping veterans.
I mean, it was a thousand despicable things Duncan Hunter did. But to me,
the one that really was, I mean he flew his pet bunny rabbit across the country
on your dime. He's such a terrible, terrible person. Trump sees a terrible guy like that,
that misused the campaign contributions, he thinks that's one of my own right there.
I love that guy. But the most despicable thing he did was he pretended to be
helping veterans and instead used it to buy outfits for himself, golf outings, etc,
and wrote down helping veterans. Okay, and by the way, who does that? Donald Trump does that.
And so Donald Trump, we just gave you the story yesterday.
It looks like Kushner set up a shell company and put $415 million of campaign contributions into it
and nobody knows what happened to that money. So, hey, look at that. What a coincidence, he
pardons Duncan Hunter for a campaign contribution crime and who else? In the past,
earlier in his administration, he also pardoned Dinesh D'Souza, why?
Campaign contribution crime, okay? Look at all the people he pardoned, Bernie Kerik, tax fraud.
Who might have done tax fraud, Donald Trump. Scooter Libby, obstruction
of justice, who might have done it, Trump. >> I'm sorry.
>> Yes. >>
I'm sorry to interrupt you, but we're getting a flood of more details into the story.
So Kaitlin Collins from CNN tweeted this. Moments after the White House announces pardons for former
GOP lawmakers and people tied to Mueller probe Trump says he doesn't want to sign the stimulus
deal his staff said he would sign. Demands stimulus checks be raised from $600 to $2,000,
which actually sounds pretty good, and claims he could stay in office, which sounds disastrous.
>> No, no, there's no staying in office. There's no stay, you lost the election you
goddamn loser. No, you will be escorted from the building. That's what's gonna happen
to your loser. Have you ever seen a child whine like this? And hey, listen, look, we are fair.
Any time, even in the midst of him trying to do a coup and pardoning a bunch of thugs and
criminals because he's a mobster, you wanna do $2,000 in direct checks to the Americans?
I love it, and I'm in favor of it because we care about principles and we care about policy.
Now, you schmuck of schmucks, if you were really gonna insist on $2,000, why didn't you do it
earlier before they came to the agreement so that they could actually put it into the agreement?
Now you trash the agreement. No, they're gonna
go home because they gotta raise the donor money. It has nothing to do with Christmas.
They're all going to do fundraisers. They care about that 1,000 times more than helping you.
Now nobody's gonna get any money. He's like, I wanna do it so I could stay in office.
It's not a thing, man. You can't pass a policy after you've already lost and inauguration's a
month from now and say no, I've pardoned all the mobsters and so it's okay I'm gonna stay
in office. That's not a thing you moron of morons. Any Republican voter still with him,
I'm back at it, I know you're getting the wrong information.
I know you're ignorant and not just stupid. I know you're just getting brainwashed by Fox News,
Newsmax, all these guys and Trump himself, but you've gotta snap out of it. You're in a cult,
and the cult hates America. It's so ironic,
make America great again. Let's destroy American democracy.
Let's roll in the tanks and turn this into a dictatorship.
That's where you are now. Karl Rove is screaming on Fox News, you idiots, what are you doing?
Chris Christie's saying it. Yesterday, we told you, Pat Robertson's saying it.
Everyone with even two cells brain cells to rub together is saying, Trump you got to stop.
Hiraldo's one of his best friends. He's screaming on Fox News, you gotta stop. There is no such
thing as a martial law and all this nonsense that you're talking. You've lost your goddamn mind.
So now everybody, look guys, remember,
look at how disproportionate this is. Bill Clinton pardoned Mark Rich on his way out.
And Mark Rich was a donor to the Democratic Party. Was that corruption? Hell yes, it was corruption,
okay? Now, when Trump does the same, Michael Milken, one of the most corrupt guys we've
ever had in this country. It's giant, and then Conrad Black and all of these incredibly rich
white collar criminals, let alone the people who broke the law in order to help Trump,
and he pardons all them and Republicans are like, no, that's fine.
Mark Rich is outrageous, Trump pardoning all these monsters, thugs, criminals, totally fine. Make
America a dictatorship again. So that's where we are, in total insane la la land. I'm not kidding.
I know there's only a month left. They gotta go, they gotta use the 25th Amendment right now.
I'm not Pence has got to put the cabinet together. This guy's going to fire every general until he
finds a lunatic that says okay, roll in the tanks. Use the 25th amendment, if you're not
gonna use it now you're never gonna use it. We shouldn't even have it in the Constitution.
The President has clearly, clearly lost his mind. And then give everybody $2,000 direct checks.
>> No, I mean, people are predicting online that Trump might even pardon people like Dylan Roof,
which, I mean, I don't even want to think about that, makes me nauseous thinking about it.
But yeah, I mean the Blackwater contractors who killed Iraqi citizens, civilians, innocent people.
But why, why, why are you pardoning them?
What are you doing? What are you doing? >> Because he likes killing innocent people.
But guys, that's why your Republican voters are so horrible. They had 17 choices in 2016.
They said I want the monster. Remember what Trump said before the election?
He said, I don't just wanna kill terrorists, I wanna kill family members. He said he
wants to kill family members, innocent civilians. And the Republicans cheered,
standing ovation, kill the families, kill the families. And then what did he do? He got in,
he did drone strikes, killed the families, he did.
Obama was already terrible on drone strikes. Trump made it way worse. Isolationist my ass,
non-interventionist my ass. He did non-stop bombings, killed so many civilians
and then he locked up the kids in the cages, separated the families.
And now when he pardons all the murderers of civilians, who's gonna be surprised by that?
Look, that's not gonna convince Republican voters. The Republican voters signed up for that. They
love pardoning people who murdered civilians of other countries. But the rest of it,
you're theoretically against corruption. Remember you voted for Trump because you
wanted to drain the swamp? Now Trump has just pardoned the entire swamp.