President Trump issued his first prison commutation after lunch with Alan Dershowitz. The men talked about Mideast politics before Trump “asked me what else was on my mind, and I told him. I took advantage of the moment,” the longtime Harvard law professor recalled.
Dershowitz told the president about Sholom Rubashkin, a kosher meatpacking executive who was seven years into a 27-year prison sentence for financial crimes. Not long after, Rubashkin in December became the first — and so far only — person Trump released from prison.
“You have to appeal to his sense of injustice,” said Dershowitz, who often says on TV that Trump is treated unfairly in special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. “He feels he is now being subject to injustice, and so he’s very sensitive to injustices.”
Trump’s approach to clemency, exhibited with a flurry of recent statements and official actions, is markedly different from his recent predecessors, generating enormous excitement among inmates. Dershowitz believes just about anyone has a shot at bending Trump’s ear, even though most successful cases have been pushed by well-connected advocates.
“I think if you write a letter to the president and you set down the case in a compassionate way, I think his staff knows that he’s looking for cases of injustice. But you have to write it in a compelling way,” he said. “They have to write something that will catch the attention of someone on the president’s staff.”
So far, Trump has issued one prison commutation and five pardons. But the pace is quickening. Last week, he posthumously pardoned boxer Jack Johnson at the behest of “Rocky” actor Sylvester Stallone, saying Johnson’s early 1900s conviction was a race-motivated injustice. On Wednesday, Trump met in the Oval Office with celebrity Kim Kardashian, who lobbied him to release Alice Johnson, a grandmother jailed for life since 1996 on drug-dealing charges.
Early on Thursday, Trump tweeted that he would pardon conservative author Dinesh D’Souza, who pleaded guilty in 2014 to a campaign-finance felony. Hours later, Trump told reporters he was considering pardoning celebrity chef Martha Stewart and former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, the Illinois Democrat who allegedly tried to sell President Barack Obama’s Senate seat.
Although Johnson has not been given clemency, she remains optimistic.
“I’m feeling very hopeful after speaking with Kim about how well the meeting went with President Trump,” Johnson said in an email from prison Friday, facilitated by her longtime supporter Amy Povah, who leads the CAN-DO Foundation.
“Kim is my war angel and continues to be relentless in her pursuit of my freedom! The phenomenal outpouring of support and well wishes from the public has been a balm for my spirit,” Johnson said.
“I have strong reason to believe that President Trump is going to surprise many people,” said Povah, who attended a May 18 White House clemency event where Trump spoke in favor of second chances. “I’m tired of people attacking Trump at every turn.”
Dershowitz said there’s a method to the apparent madness of Trump’s clemency grants, which are a sharp break from the early-term stinginess of his recent predecessors.
“You have to make him say to himself, ‘There but for the grace of God go I, or other people I identify with.’ He has to feel the injustice. It’s not enough to get online with hundreds of other people showing a law was misapplied. There has to be a sense of gut injustice,” he said.
“This president may want to go down in history as somebody who has given pardons in places where other presidents would not have done it,” Dershowitz added.
If there’s anyone who would know Trump’s thinking on clemency, it’s Dershowitz. In addition to pushing Rubashkin’s release, he was consulted by Trump in advance of the recent pardons of D’Souza and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney who was convicted in 2007 but never imprisoned for making false statements.
“I said I thought they were both injustices, that there was a whiff of politics around the decision to prosecute D’Souza, and that I did not think Scooter Libby had committed perjury — I thought there was just a difference in recollection,” Dershowitz said.
“When I made the appeal on behalf of Rubashkin, I said, ‘You are a businessman, you understand what happens when the government and prosecutors manipulate the system and lower the value of your company in order to increase the value of losses and increase the sentence.’ As soon as I said that, he said, ‘I get that. I get that. I’ve been there,’” Dershowitz said. “He immediately glommed onto it because he understood the business implications of it … there wouldn’t have been any losses, or minor losses, but because the government drove the price down, it drove the sentencing guidelines way up.”
Rubashkin’s crimes were discovered after federal authorities raided his Iowa business in 2008 and arrested 389 illegal immigrants. The business went bankrupt, amplifying the magnitude of financial damage, which prosecutors said cost a bank and others $26 million.
Trump issued his first pardon in August to fellow immigration hardliner Joe Arpaio, who was awaiting sentencing for a misdemeanor contempt conviction. In March, Trump pardoned former Navy sailor Kristian Saucier, who was working as a garbage man after being released from prison for taking photos inside a nuclear submarine, an offense Trump often contrasted to Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified documents on a private email server.
“I’ve always thought President Trump would step up and finish the job that President Obama started but never completed,” said Michelle West, a clemency aspirant in prison for drug-related crimes since 1994. “My daughter, Miquelle West, went to the Obama White House for a clemency summit. In our wildest dreams we never thought that I would be passed over considering she was invited to attend.”
West said in an email relayed by Povah that “my daughter was 10 when I went to prison and I pray President Trump will consider me worthy of a second chance.”
Crystal Munoz, 11 years into a 20-year sentence for dealing marijuana, said that she, too, was hopeful, sending Povah the draft of a letter for Trump. Munoz, 38, gave birth to her youngest child in prison.
Connie Farris, a 73-year-old inmate jailed for mail fraud, said “I will never, never give up hope that our president will start releasing women such as myself and others. Please President Trump hear our cry.” Farris, seven years into a 12-year sentence, said her husband of 53 years suffers from muscular dystrophy and needs her support.
Although there’s significant hope stemming from Trump’s unconventional approach, there’s also some skepticism that everyday inmates can win a presidential reprieve.
“The problem is, the president’s process is a little haphazard, it seems, and a little ad hoc. And then you have this completely Byzantine dead-end of a process at the Justice Department,” said Kevin Ring, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums.
“I think people are encouraged that he’s going around the Justice Department to look at deserving cases, but it’s not clear that anybody has the ability to get in front of him — so sort of good news, bad news,” he said.
Ring said Dershowitz’s contention that anyone can win clemency with a letter is “a little naive.”
“There are people who buy lottery tickets every Friday and they’re optimistic because they don’t know the odds. And when people see a winner, that gives them hope,” he said.
Although Trump has generated significant hope, some people who provided reactions for this story expressed exasperation with their situation.
Michael Pelletier, a paralyzed inmate jailed for life since 2006 for importing Canadian marijuana into Maine, pointed out in an email that Maine now has legalized recreational marijuana. Canada is about to follow.
“The state of Maine, where I am from and was convicted, has now legalized recreational use of marijuana, so other people can now profit from selling pot without the consequences I’m currently faced with,” he said in an email shared by Povah. “I will die in prison if President Trump does not commute my sentence. Sometimes, I wonder if I’m dead already because I’m living in hell.”
Gary Clark, whose brother Rufus Rochel is seeking clemency from a 35-year drug sentence, which he has been serving since 1988, said in a message shared by FAMM that “I think Trump needs to grant clemency to more than just his friends.”
“Someone will have to put these files in Trump’s lap for there to be any hope,” Clark said.
