President Donald Trump was taunted Wednesday by a former senior official from his own administration for unwittingly handing Democrats a powerful "gift" through his "latest corrupt feat."
That former official is former Homeland Security Chief of Staff Miles Taylor, and Trump’s “latest corrupt feat,” as alleged by Taylor, was the president’s unprecedented use of his pardon authority, which historically has been used to pardon individuals but has since been utilized for entire corporations.
“Trump has extended clemency to nine companies and counting,” Taylor wrote Wednesday in an analysis published on his Substack. “As Bloomberg reports, the president has been wielding the pardon power in ways akin to a king granting favors to feudal landowners.”
Taylor pointed to a corporation pardoned earlier this month after Trump “erased a $750,000 penalty.”
Trump granted clemency to Diesel Freak LLC, a Michigan diesel shop owned by a man who, Taylor wrote, “became a cause célèbre in MAGA world for being a purported victim of Biden-era overreach.”
The idea of pardoning entire corporations was inspired in part by “King Charles II pardoning a company more than 300 years ago,” according to an insider who spoke with Bloomberg on the condition of anonymity.
Taylor's warning that the new precedent carried “staggering” implications for criminal liability also carried with it a silver lining.
“The only solace I have about the president granting what amounts to ‘super pardons’ is that he’s given us a gift,” Taylor wrote. “When power changes hands, he’s telling us exactly what to investigate. And he’s left much of it in the public records. Cheers, Mr. President.”
Republicans face an uphill battle in the upcoming midterms as Trump’s favorability craters to record lows, with analysts now favoring Democrats to retake control of the House.