Trump seems to pardon people for this very selfish reason: WaPo reporter

A new analysis conducted by the Washington Post's Aaron Blake has found that President Donald Trump has been very fond of pardoning convicted felons who also happen to double as ardent supporters of his presidency.

According to Blake's analysis, Trump has now pardoned ten different individuals during his presidency -- and eight of those pardons have "carried some political benefit for him."

The two most recent pardons were Conrad Black, a Trump-loving billionaire who was convicted on fraud charges back in 2007, and Patrick J. Nolan, a California Republican who pleaded guilty to racketeering in the 1990s and who has since grown close to the Trump family.

Other past pardons of Trump supporters include Dinesh D'Souza, who pleaded guilty to felony campaign finance violations; former Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was ruled to be in criminal contempt for a "willful" violation of an order to stop racial profiling within his department; and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former Bush administration official who was convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to federal investigators.

"The point isn’t that presidents don’t pardon their allies; they do," Blake comments. "But they often do it sparingly, late in their terms, and they mix it in with other pardons that don’t so clearly and obviously benefit themselves. Trump seems to have very little regard for the perception this creates."