Outrage erupts over Trump pardons of convicted Blackwater murderers and corrupt GOP congressmen. The first of what may be many presidential pardons from Donald Trump’s final weeks in office shocked the military, veteran and national security communities. While the political press focused on Trump setting free two people who pleaded guilty in Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, George Papadopoulos and Alex van der Zwaan, here’s what we were stunned to see… They massacred civilians in Iraq 13 years ago, buton Tuesday evening, the White House announced Trump had pardoned the four former Blackwater contractors responsible for the murders of 17 people, including two boys aged 8 and 10, in 2007.