The pardons followed President Trump’s pardons on the first day of his second term for approximately 1,600 people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
President Trump pardons Rudy Giuliani and others over 2020 election claims
President Donald Trump has pardoned former lawyer Rudy Giuliani and dozens of others in a sweeping clemency package related to 2020 election claims.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump has pardoned a number of allies, including his former personal lawyer and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, who were being charged and investigated for interfering in the 2020 election.
In what he called a “process of national reconciliation,” the latest pardons for more than 70 people followed President Trump’s pardons on the first day of his second term for about 1,600 people charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Others pardoned included Mark Meadows, Trump’s former White House chief of staff. Jeffrey Clark is a former assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice and currently works at the Office of Management and Budget. Kenneth Chesebro is a private attorney who previously advised Trump. The three men are facing state charges in Georgia related to election interference, and Chesebro has pleaded guilty.
“This proclamation ends the grave national injustices inflicted on the American people after the 2020 presidential election and continues the process of national reconciliation,” President Trump said in a Nov. 7 memo.
Ed Martin, Trump’s pardon attorney at the Department of Justice, announced the pardon in a social media post on November 9th. The pardon applies to “actions related to advising, preparing, organizing, executing, filing, supporting, voting, operating, participating in, or defending” the presidential slate of electors in the 2020 election, as well as “efforts to expose voter fraud,” the statement said.
“These great Americans were persecuted and put through hell by the Biden administration for challenging an election that is the bedrock of our democracy,” White House press secretary Caroline Leavitt said in a statement.
Federal pardons do not apply to state-level crimes. Many of the pardons were granted to people facing state-level indictments for election interference in Georgia and Arizona, including Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Meadows and Mr. Clark.
In Arizona, a state appeals court sent a case against Trump supporters back to a grand jury in 2024, citing complaints about the way evidence was presented to the first grand jury.
The Georgia case, which charges Trump and more than a dozen allies, is on hold pending a new prosecutor after the state Supreme Court fired Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis over her relationship with another prosecutor in the case.
Clark said Trump called him on Nov. 7 to inform him of the pardon, which he said he had not requested.
“I did nothing wrong when I questioned Georgia’s 2020 election, including drafting an unsent privileged letter urging Georgia officials to launch their own investigation and decide for themselves how to proceed,” Clark said in a social media post on Nov. 10. “I shouldn’t have had to fight this witch hunt for over four years.”
