President Trump issued 70 commutations and pardoned 73 people, including his former political strategist Steve Bannon, on early Wednesday in his final hours in office. Bannon had pleaded not guilty to charges that he defrauded donors in a “We Build the Wall” online fundraising campaign. “Mr. Bannon has been an important leader in the conservative movement and is known for his political acumen,” the White House said in the statement. Others among the list of 143 people included Elliott Broidy, a former top fundraiser for the president’s campaign who pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy relating to a secret lobbying campaign to influence the Trump administration for a foreign billionaire for millions of dollars, as well as rappers Lil Wayne and Kodak Black, who had pleaded guilty to a gun possession charge and a weapons charge, respectively. Trump commuted the sentence of former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and granted clemency to Paul Erickson,
President Donald Trump pardoned former chief strategist Steve Bannon as part of a flurry of clemency action in the final hours of his White House term that benefited more than 140 people, including rap performers, ex-members of Congress and other allies of him and his family.
Bannon, who was a key adviser in Trump’s 2016 presidential run, was charged last year with swindling Trump supporters over an effort to raise private funds to build the president’s wall on the US-Mexico border. He has pleaded not guilty