One of President Donald Trump’s pardons apparently came with a hefty price tag.
On Tuesday, the White House announced a slew of pardons and commutations for various white-collar criminals, including Paul Pogue, the founder of Pogue Construction, who pleaded guilty in 2010 for cheating the government out of over $473,000 in taxes and was sentenced to three years of probation.
Pogue made “significant charitable contributions,” according to the White House’s glowing praise of the ex-felon.
So did Pogue’s family — to the current occupant of the White House.
Federal Election Commission filings, first noted by the Daily Beast, show that Pogue’s son and daughter-in-law, Ben and Ashleigh Pogue, made four donations totaling a jaw-dropping $210,404.40 to the Trump Victory Committee, a joint fundraising committee between Trump’s 2020 campaign and the Republican National Committee, as recently as last fall.
Ben Pogue, who serves as the CEO of his father’s company, contributed $35,000 to the committee on August 12 last year, then he and Ashleigh each gave $50,000 several days later on August 15. Ben donated again on September 18 to the tune of $75,404.40.
Apparently feeling generous around that time, the couple also shelled out over $150,000 to the RNC’s separate fundraising committee, plus $11,200 to Donald J. Trump For President, Inc. late last year, according to the FEC’s records.
On August 12, Ben Pogue donated a sum total of $5,600 to Donald J. Trump For President, Inc. for Trump’s primary and general election campaigns. Pogue then gave the RNC $43,900 on August 15, $75,404.40 on September 18, then $28,137.60 on October 15.
Ashleigh Pogue made the same donation as her husband — $5,600 to Donald J. Trump For President, Inc. for Trump’s primary and general election campaigns — and one donation of $8,900 to the RNC, all on August 15.
The massive cash flows raise eyebrows even further when compared to the couple’s relatively modest donor history pre-2019. As the Daily Beast notes, the two weren’t quite as generous in years past.
Ben Pogue had donated sparingly before 2019, and his largest contribution was a mere $5,000 to former House Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) 2018 congressional campaign. His wife had made only one donation: $2,700 to former Sen. Rick Santorum’s (R-PA) ill-fated 2016 presidential campaign.
Neither the White House nor the Trump campaign responded to requests for comment.
Finest pardon money can buy
Suffice it to say the founders who gave the president pardon power never envisioned a president who would negate the justice system by selling “get out of jail free” cards to the highest bidder and to those who would commit crimes for him.
Selling pardons isn’t strictly illegal, of course, but if this were any other administration this move might actually have become a scandal. As it is, I fully expect Donald Trump will have knocked over a female reporter and urinated into her mouth on national TV at least once before summer. I also expect several Senate Republicans to publicly state that this was somehow justified (though Susan Collins will admit that she finds this behavior “worrisome”).