Jared Kushner and Alan Dershowitz helped outside groups secure 27 pardons from Trump: report

According to a deep dive into the slew of pardons Donald Trump doled out before he lost the 2020 presidential election to now-President Joe Biden, the New York Times is reporting that over 10 percent of the recipients were the beneficiaries of help from Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and presidential defender Alan Dershowitz working in concert with two highly influential groups.

Along with allies of the president who were given a get out of jail free card by Trump as a parting gift before he was ousted from the Oval Office, the Times is reporting that 27 of the 238 total pardons were linked to a "pair of influential Jewish organizations that focus on criminal justice issues — the Aleph Institute and Tzedek Association."

The Times noted the relationship of Kushner and Dershowitz to the organizations while highlighting the crimes of just a few who were granted a presidential pardon.

"One hacked the computers of business rivals. One bribed doctors to win referrals for his nursing homes," the Times is reporting. "Another fled the country while he was on trial for his role in a fraud that siphoned $450 million from an insurance company, leading to its collapse. Still another ran a Ponzi scheme that plunged a synagogue into foreclosure."

The Times' Ken Vogel and Nicholas Confessore add, "The efforts to seek clemency for these wealthy or well-connected people benefited from their social, political, or financial ties to a loose collection of lawyers, lobbyists, activists and Orthodox Jewish leaders who had worked with Trump administration officials on criminal justice legislation championed by Jared Kushner."

"Over the years, at least four of those who received clemency or their families had donated to Aleph. Others or their allies and families had retained people like Mr. Dershowitz, who represented Mr. Trump in his first impeachment trial, Mr. Tolman and Mr. Muzin to press their cases before the Trump administration, often working in parallel with Aleph and Tzedek, according to public records and interviews," the report continues.

The report notes that Aleph and Tzedek had an extraordinary win rate when it came to getting the president's attention, while also noting that many supplicants had been convicted of white-collar financial crimes.

According to the Times, Kushner was deeply involved in the president's clemency program along with the sundry other problems the ex-president tasked him to solve.

"Mr. Kushner, Mr. Trump's son-in-law, spearheaded the sentencing overhaul effort in the White House, and also helped oversee the clemency process. He had become interested in criminal justice and developed ties to members of the loose network of allies on the issue after his father, Charles Kushner, was sentenced in 2005 to two years in prison for tax evasion, witness tampering and lying to the Federal Election Commission," the report states. "When Charles Kushner, a donor to Aleph, received a pardon from Mr. Trump in December, the White House cited Mr. Tolman's support for the decision."

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