A Justice department whistleblower on Saturday tore into President Donald Trump for what she described as a "staggering" decision to give a fraudster a "second chance."
During an episode of The Lincoln Project Podcast, former DOJ pardon attorney Liz Oyer argued that Trump's pardons were "fundamentally different" from others made in the past.
"He has pardoned quite a few individuals who committed fraud involving government programs, including Medicare and Medicaid," Oyer said. "He's also pardoned all manner of white collar frauds, including those that involve stealing money from investors."
Host and former GOP strategist Rick Wilson described the beneficiaries of Trump's "pay-to-play" pardons as "assertively terrible people who have exploited Americans."
Oyer went on to say, "The most staggering example is this man named Trevor Milton," the former Nikola Motors CEO, who defrauded investors with a clean energy truck that didn't work.
"Trevor Milton's investors lost almost $700 million in the process," Oyer explained. "And Milton got a full pardon from Donald Trump at the start of his second term in office after making a couple million dollars in political donations."
Milton is "already back in business" since his pardon, according to Oyer, who said the convicted fraudster has "now got a new startup in which he's trying to build autonomous aircraft." Milton's return to business is "really galling," Oyer added.
"This is a scam artist who's gotten a second chance at life thanks to Donald Trump," Oyer said. "One of the things that Milton has told the media that Trump said to him is, 'Trevor, you're cleaner than a baby's bottom now.' It just sounds insane, absurd, but this is the caliber of person that Donald Trump is pardoning."
Oyer, who was fired from the DOJ after refusing to recommend the reinstatement of actor Mel Gibson's rights to gun ownership, suggested that Trump "sees something of himself in these rich folks who have been prosecuted for committing frauds."