7/29/2019

PARDONS/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “President Trump granted clemency to seven men on Monday [7-29-19], including Ted Suhl, an Arkansas man convicted in 2016 of paying bribes to a state official. Mr. Trump commuted Mr. Suhl’s prison sentence and that of Ronen Nahmani, a Florida man convicted in 2015 of selling synthetic marijuana. The remaining men received pardons for convictions stretching back decades. Mr. Suhl, 54, was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2016 after a jury found him guilty of four out of six charges related to the bribes, according to reports at the time. Federal prosecutors had argued that the bribes, sometimes funneled through a church, were paid in order to increase Medicaid funding to his juvenile mental health counseling businesses…That commutation was encouraged by Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas and a longtime supporter of Mr. Trump, and Bud Cummins, a former federal prosecutor in the state. Mr. Nahmani, 44, was convicted in 2015 of conspiring to distribute synthetic marijuana in Florida.”

Niraj Chokshi and Heather Murphy, “Trump Grants Clemency to 7 Men in Cases Dating Back Decades,” The New York Times online, July 29, 2019