Drug kingpin freed by Trump faces new violent criminal charges

A drug dealer whom President Donald Trump controversially granted clemency to in 2021 once again faces violent criminal charges following a long string of other arrests in the intervening years.

According to The Daily Beast, Jonathan Braun "faces up to five years in prison if [convicted] for all of the new crimes," which include "allegedly swinging an IV pole at a hospital nurse, harassing a family nanny, and evading at least 75 tolls in his white Lamborghini and black Ferrari."

Braun, who has been arrested five times since being released and is currently under federal lockup, has also been found guilty of violating his parole.

Braun was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2019 for smuggling 220,000 pounds of marijuana. However, due to a combination of giving prosecutors valuable information about his loan sharking business and having connections to the Kushner family that helped him pull weight with the president, Trump commuted his sentence just before leaving office in 2021 — a highly controversial move at the time, with some observers saying it was "a sign that the president’s office had used its power to grant clemency arbitrarily," per The Beast.

The new allegations also come five months after Braun was arrested on suspicion of attacking his 3-year-old son and a guest in his home, although the judge in that case dismissed the charges for lack of evidence.

As part of the new allegations, Braun's nanny alleges that "after getting into an argument with his parents and wife, he barged into the nanny’s room, forced her onto the bed, put her in a headlock, and groped her as he pushed her hand over his genitals," according to The Beast. Braun denies all the new charges.

This is the latest in a long line of people Trump pardoned or commuted who went on to get in further legal trouble. A number of the Jan. 6 rioters Trump blanket pardoned have been re-arrested or convicted on various charges, including possession of illegal child material, and, in the case of Matthew Huttle, was shot dead by police while resisting arrest.