President Donald Trump has pardoned Brian Kelsey, a former Tennessee lawmaker who pleaded responsible to a marketing campaign finance scheme in 2022, after the Republican served simply two weeks of his 21-month jail sentence.
Kelsey said on social media after his launch Tuesday that he believed “God used Donald Trump to save lots of me from the weaponized Biden DOJ.”
“Could God bless America, regardless of the prosecutorial sins it dedicated in opposition to me, President Trump, and others the previous 4 years,” he added. “And God bless Donald J. Trump for Making America Nice Once more!”
Kelsey pleaded responsible in November 2022 to illegally transferring cash from his state Senate marketing campaign committee to a nationwide group that supported his failed 2016 bid for U.S. Congress, together with submitting false marketing campaign finance stories to hide the switch.
In March 2023, the Georgetown College-educated lawyer tried to reverse his plea, telling the judge he “was in a confused state mentally” when he pleaded responsible “and unable to completely take into account the ramifications.”
Kelsey initially dismissed the indictment as a “political witch hunt” and indicated he’d take the case to trial. However after a co-defendant pleaded responsible and started cooperating with federal authorities, he modified his tune.
In a associated growth, earlier this week the Trump administration gutted the Justice Division’s Public Integrity Part, according to NBC News. The unit prosecutes politicians accused of corruption.
A Justice Division spokesperson told The Associated Press it’s “taking a broad look” on the unit however wouldn’t verify any ultimate choices have been made.
The president is not any stranger to controversial pardons. Trump kicked off his second time period with a mass pardon of thousands of Jan. 6 defendants, lots of whom had been convicted of violent offenses.
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One such man, Andrew Taake, was sentenced to 6 years in jail for assaulting police on Jan. 6, then launched even though he also faces charges for allegedly soliciting a minor on-line.
One other, a 42-year-old Indiana man named Matthew Huttle, was shot and killed days after the pardon throughout what police say was an altercation throughout a site visitors cease.
A 3rd man pardoned by Trump, Daniel Ball, was immediately rearrested on an excellent warrant for a federal gun cost.
