Pardon, schmardon: will tRump ever get around to Kevin Trudeau?

Imprisoned serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, aka KT, aka Katie on this Whirled, has been pleading for many months with the Orange Oaf of Office, #NotMyPresident Donald J. tRump, to commute the ten-year prison sentence Katie is serving for criminal contempt of court related to false claims he made about his fatuous diet book, and to grant him a full pardon. I've written about this several times on this blog.

So far Katie's pleas seem to have fallen on deaf ears, despite his fans and friends inundating the White House with multimedia begging and whining and shameless sycophancy. One of the Free Kevin Trudeau contingent apparently received a form letter from the White House acknowledging some communication or other, but that seems to be the extent of it. And Katie and his pals perked up a bit when Herr Twitler pardoned loathsome civil rights violator Sheriff Joe Arpaio (whom Katie professes to admire), but so far Katie continues to languish in the government sleepaway camp (Federal Prison Camp in Montgomery, Alabama) that he so fondly refers to as Camp Cupcake.

But look here, Katie and minions, maybe the time is ripe to step up the campaign. For tRump seems to be on a real pardon spree these days, with the latest-as-of-the-time-of-this-writing being conservative wingnut Dinesh D'Souza, a former intellectual turned troll who in 2014 entered a guilty plea for campaign finance fraud. In case you're not familiar with D'Souza, who is loved by conspiracy nuts and Obama/Clinton haters everywhere, Slate gives a brief recap of some of the highlights of his storied career.

Dinesh D’Souza is a right-wing writer and speaker who began his career as an ostensibly respectable intellectual but has since become the familiar kind of relentless alt-right goon-troll who suggests, for example, that the Charlottesville white supremacist rally was staged by liberals and that Barack Obama is a “gay Muslim.” (You can click here to read an interesting piece, pegged to a D’Souza book about how the modern Democratic Party owes its intellectual foundations to Nazism, about how he is able to market transparently ludicrous ideas persuasively.) In 2014 he pleaded guilty to circumventing campaign finance laws by funneling donations to an (unsuccessful) New York Senate candidate through straw donors. And now he’s getting pardoned by the president!

An opinion piece on CNN is just one of many noting a pardon pattern here.

The D'Souza pardon is all of a piece with two other presidential pardons made by Trump during his first 16 months in office. D'Souza, former Bush White House aide Scooter Libby and former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio were all seen, by some elements within the conservative movement/Trump's base, as martyrs -- people unfairly persecuted by some combination of out-of-control Democrats and the "deep state."

"Bravo! @realDonaldTrump," tweeted Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. "Dinesh was the subject of a political prosecution, brazenly targeted by the Obama administration bc of his political views. And he's a powerful voice for freedom, systematically dismantling the lies of the Left—which is why they hate him. This is Justice."

D'Souza himself played into that idea with a tweet of his own. "Obama & his stooges tried to extinguish my American dream & destroy my faith in America," he tweeted. "Thank you @realDonaldTrump for fully restoring both."

Somebody call the waaahhhhmbulance!
Rolling Stone goes a little further into the issue, pointing out that this pardon is just the latest example of Herr Twitler abusing his pardon power.

Typically, someone seeking a pardon applies for one and the application is heavily vetted by lawyers at the Department of Justice. Trump just went ahead and did it. "Nobody asked me to do it," the president said of his D'Souza announcement. "I read the papers. I see him on television." The same applied for the Arpaio and Libby pardons as well.

"None of these pardons has gone through the vetting process and gone through the pardoning attorneys at the Department of Justice," Griffin says. "These have all been cases in which the White House has circumvented the conventional procedures and norms about pardons."

Each of these three pardons is red meat for the base. They've got the fingerprints of Trump's vindictive streak all over them. But above all, these pardons signal a growing willingness by Trump and his White House to use the power of the pardon in troubling new ways and for the benefit of political allies in legal trouble.

But it may not be just a political thing; there's a celebrity motif going on here too (including, notably, a Celebrity Apprentice theme), for Drumpf hinted today that he will also pardon Martha Stewart, who, though a Democrat and professed Clinton supporter, hosted the 2005 Celebrity Apprentice spinoff series, The Apprentice: Martha Stewart. He also said he was seriously considering commuting the sentence of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich, who is serving 14 years for corruption and, though also a Democrat, was a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice in 2010.

And just yesterday Trump met in the White House with professional narcissist and personification of a hopelessly shallow culture Kim Kardashian, ostensibly to talk about "prison and sentencing reform," but mainly to hear her plea the case of a 63-year-old woman, Alice Marie Johnson, who was given a life sentence without parole for a first-time drug offense. I'm not saying that Johnson belongs in prison (she doesn't), or that Kardashian is wrong for embracing her cause (even predominantly useless celebrities are good for some things), but since she had Drumpf's ear anyway (and possibly his ogling eyeballs), I'm thinking that maybe she could have also tried to convince him that his support of the private prison industry is a really, really horrible thing. But I doubt that the conversation went that deep. As the writer of the New Yorker piece I linked to above noted:

What was most upsetting about Kardashian’s audience with Trump on Wednesday, then, was not its novelty. It was that, more than two years after Trump met with [Kardashian's husband Kanye] West, this type of meeting—this Boschian spectacle of horrors, this stand-in for the reflective, responsible work of actual public service—is, somehow, still happening.

While we're on the topic of horrible things, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is set to review Trump's pardon of the vile Sheriff Joe. If they uphold the pardon, it may go to the Supreme Court, and if it is upheld there... well, that could be another step towards the tyranny that wingnuts always feared under Obama but which is a looming reality under Drumpf.

But thinking about those things is kind of a downer, isn't it? (And to think that this Whirled was originally conceived as a humor blog...) Still, Kevin Trudeau's attempts to get Donald Trump's attention provide at least marginal comic relief in this grim reality show that we're all being forced to live thanks to a combination of ignorant voters, bigotry, hostile foreign meddling, and complicit news media who are taken in by celebrity. If Katie really wants to be freed and absolved by Cheeto Jesus, he needs to hitch his wagon to a real celeb.

And, sadly, former Apprentice contestant and long-time Trump brown-noser Troy McClain probably isn't an option. To begin with, as I've previously reported, several credible sources have indicated that Troy intensely dislikes Kevin, even though Troy benefited significantly from Trudeau's huge scam GIN (the Global Information Network). He continued to reap the rewards even after Kevin was sent to sleepaway camp and no longer had any involvement in GIN (on paper, anyway), and the GIN MLM scam had been pared down to a mere affiliate scheme. Troy, with the help of a few cohorts, had purchased GIN in 2014, and Troy was at the helm for a couple of years, re-branding it to something called "GINEvolve," though reportedly he was exceedingly unpopular among the remaining staff. But -- and I'd not yet reported this, and it's long overdue (mea culpa!) -- Troy departed GIN for presumably greener pastures late last summer when he and his cohort David Cohen sold their interest in GIN, and long-time Trudeau pals Blaine Athorn and Greg Kramer became the primary owners. So for several reasons, Troy probably isn't a guy that Katie could call on.

Still, he needs someone with some sort of celebrity connections that will capture the attention of the celeb-obsessed Thief Executive. It's not enough that Katie has been kissing up to Trump for years, and has expressed some of the right-wing, xenophobic views that Trump and his base seem to embrace. Katie's problem is that despite being a legend in his own mind and the minds of his addled loyalists, he is simply not quite enough of a celebrity to get the president's attention. If is serious about getting pardoned by Trump so he can go back to committing wide-scale consumer fraud with fewer restrictions than he has in Camp Cupcake, he needs to find himself a Kardashian or some equally insipid fame whore, and get that person to set up an appointment with Trump to plead Katie's case.

After all, as the writer in the article linked to in the previous sentence concludes, "Presentation is everything in the Trump White House, even for pardons." Maybe especially for pardons.

This post was updated June 1, 2018 to include information about the Celebrity Apprentice connections and about Troy McClain and GIN. ~ CC

Addendum, June 4, 2018 ~ It could very well be that Herr Twitler ends up pardoning himself before he gets around to pardoning poor Katie. "I am the State, and the State is me!" Tyranny much?
 
PS ~ If you haven't visited the Salty Droid blog lately because you despaired of ever seeing a new post there, you're in for a treat. Jason is blogging again, his latest being a nod to yet more Trump-related media mayhem.

PPS ~ For that matter, my UK pal Longdog is blogging again after a months-long absence, noting that the stupidest and most evil man in Scamworld, cancer quackadoodle and former Kevin Trudeau buddy Not-Doktor Leonard Coldwell, has once again changed his "credentials."

 PPPS ~ And while we're at it, an even more infrequent blogger, my husband Ron Kaye, recently wrote again on his RevRon's Rants blog. Show him a little love and send some comments.

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#FreeKevinTrudeau sucks up to Sheriff Joe

There is an October 21 update to this story at the end of this post.
~ CC
 
I've written before about the efforts of serial scammer Kevin Trudeau, aka KT, aka Katie, to persuade #NotMyPresident Donald J. Trump to free Katie from Federal sleepaway camp (aka Montgomery Federal Prison Camp in Alabama) and to pardon him. F'rinstance, I mentioned it back in February and in June.

The #FreeKevinTrudeau campaign continues, and you can track it on this site. In his most recent entreaty to Herr Drumpf, dated 15 September 2017, Katie blames Obama and Hillary for the mess he's in. And he invokes fellow faux-hero/martyr and ex-Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whom Trump did pardon back in August.

Citing criminal contempt charges against Arpaio, which of course Katie proclaimed to be totally unfounded, Katie brought up his own conviction for criminal contempt.

My “contempt” was I dared to express my First Amendment rights of free speech on TV when talking about one of my books. The fact that my views and opinions were “conservative”, exposed special interest and political corruption, and were listened to by over 50 million people made my “free speech” even more “offensive” to the Obama administration.

Yes, Katie is quite the First Amendment stuporhero. And later on in the letter...

I have also been relentless at exposing the “Deep State”, the swamp as you call it! This means I have pulled no punches at exposing the Clintons, Obama, and all the Establishment politicians who go to Washington broke and within a few years magically become multi-millionaires.

For this, I have been on the Clinton and Obama “hit list” for decades. It has been said that Hillary Clinton, while Secretary of State called me “politically dangerous” and “must be silenced”.

This is one of the first instances I've seen where Katie overtly plays the "Help, help, I'm being repressed because I'm conservative!" card. But he has been anti-immigrant/xenophobic for years, as noted in this June 2011 Whirled post.

And while we're on the topic of anti-immigrant xenophobes, here's a link to a suck-up letter that Trudeau penned directly to the loathsome Sheriff Joe shortly after the Drumpf pardon.

Dear Joe,

You are an American hero.

I just heard the great news that President Trump pardoned you!

CONGRATULATIONS!! I am SO happy for you!

You should now be given a medal by the President for all your service to America:
-for fearlessly enforcing the LAWS;
-and for fearlessly upholding the Constitution.

This is Kevin Trudeau, #1 NY Times bestselling author of 6 books (almost 50 million copies sold), former radio host, TV Celebrity, natural health freedom advocate, and promoter of Free Speech.

I am also a 100% Trump supporter and I have been a fan and outspoken vocal supporter of yours for years.

I watched you on Fox talk about your ordeal with the “Obama radical left judicial system and justice department”.

I watched in amazement at how a 50 year law enforcement professional, doing all he can do to protect the legal CITIZENS of America was unjustly targeted by the Obama Justice Department simply for doing his job.

And so on, and so forth, as Katie cleaves like a remora unto Sheriff Joe's sagging whatever.

You've probably read the horror stories about Sheriff Joe, but they're worth a mention here because, of course, they lend a truer context to Kevin Trudeau's shameless sycophancy. From a Washington Post article published shortly after the pardon:

As sheriff, Arpaio was known for a hostility toward undocumented immigrants that was functionally indistinguishable from hostility toward Latinos. He conducted sweeps of Latino neighborhoods and stops of Latino drivers in attempts to find undocumented immigrants. He held inmates in brutal and degrading conditions. He installed publicly accessible webcams so that the public could gawk at inmates, and one of those cameras showed female prisoners using the toilet. And he was a leading proponent of the racist lie that President Barack Obama was not a natural-born American citizen.

Arpaio’s entire claim to national recognition was based on his being a xenophobe, a racist and an officer of the machinery of government who relished wielding that machinery to degrade some of the most powerless members of our society.

And here's another WaPo link: a first-person account from a former inmate/victim of Arpaio.

The rules of the tent city were strict, arbitrary and brutally enforced. There are no newspapers allowed; Arpaio hated newspapers. The only food allowed for those of us in the work furlough program was the food in the vending machines, which was grossly overpriced.

During the sweltering summer, the temperature could reach 115 or 120 degrees. I was in the tents when we hit 120. It was impossible to stay cool in the oppressive heat. Everyone would strip down to their underwear. There was no cold water, only water from vending machines; and eventually, the machines would run out. People would faint; some had heatstroke. That summer, ambulances came about three times. One man died in his bed.

But the winter was even worse. During the winter, there were no heaters. Most jackets and heavily insulated pants weren’t allowed; they don’t want you to be comfortable...

...Arpaio saved worse abuse for others. Those who were in full detention had to wear pink socks, underwear and flip-flops. They ate peanut butter and bread, and the only other meal they received was baloney and bread. They also had the option of “slob,” which was an unknown, disgusting substance that looked like some kind of thick stew and tasted like cardboard. (The poor people in the work furlough program who couldn’t pay for vending-machine food had no choice but to eat it.)

And in the unintended irony department, given Herr Twitler's repeated threats to the free press in America -- which I've mentioned here previously, there's this August 4, 2017 post on the Free Katie site.

As I've also mentioned on previous posts, Katie and fans haven't limited their entreaties to Drumpf himself. Among others contacted, according to Trudeau's September 15 missive and several earlier posts on the web site and social media, the #FreeKevinTrudeau contingent have reached out to "KellyAnne Conway; John Kelly; Ivanka; Jared; Eric; Don Jr; Melania; Rudi Giuliani; Mike Huckabee; Carl Icahn; Sean Hannity; Andrew Napolitano; Janine Pirro; Laura Ingraham; Newt Gingrich; Jay Sekulow; and many others."

But so far, it seems that all of these communications have been for naught. Katie continues to languish in Camp Cupcake, waxing spiritual about his achievement of perfect peace and happiness out of one side of his mouth, while out of the other side he desperately begs some of the most despicable political figures in the U.S. -- and indeed in the world -- to free him so he can scam at large again. The more things change...

Important update, 21 October 2017: There's bad news for Sheriff Joe, but perhaps good news for some of those who have been harmed by him and might want to pursue legal action: on October 19, U.S. District Judge Susan Richie Bolton, stating that Trump's pardon of Arpaio does not "revise historical facts" of his case, refused to vacate her ruling that deemed Arpaio guilty of criminal contempt. From the NPR piece linked to above:

On Thursday, Bolton quoted Black's Law Dictionary to say that a pardon "releases the wrongdoer from punishment and restores the offender's civil rights without qualification." But she then added a further interpretation in her own words: "It does not erase a judgment of conviction, or its underlying legal and factual findings."

Citing legal precedents, Bolton said that while a pardon removes the threat of punishment, it does not "blot out guilt." Instead, she wrote in her decision, accepting a pardon implies a confession of guilt. Bolton also suggested that the timing of President Trump's pardon — when Arpaio had not appealed her verdict — played a role in her decision to preserve it.

This situation, noted NPR, could land Arpaio in a type of Catch-22 scenario in which he would be powerless to clear his name fully in the legal record despite the fact that Trump's pardon saved him from being punished by the legal system (thanks for nothing, Donny John!). Arapio attorney Jack Wilenchik indicated that the pardon had robbed Arpaio of a chance to appeal the ruling, leaving him open to future lawsuits. Couldn't happen to a better guy, as far as I'm concerned. Natch, Wilenchik has appealed the judge's order to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, so the story isn't over yet.

No matter what happens in the Appeals Court, and regardless of whether or not Arpaio is sued again, and no matter whether or not he is ever held fully accountable by the justice system for his systemized cruelty... none of this changes what Arpaio did and who he is. And it speaks volumes about both Trump and Trudeau's character (or complete lack thereof) that they continue to support Sheriff Joe and laud him as a hero.

Related on this Whirled:

• March 2016: Donald Trump and Kevin Trudeau: turds of a feather?
• March 2016: The devils at the crossroads of politix and Scamworld
• May 2016: Trump and his Trumpsters: like attracts like
• May 2016: Donald Trump's Scamworld playbook isn't unique
• July 2016: Trumpdeau redux: Kevin Trudeau is excited about Donald Trump's vibes
• October 2016: Back into the black hole of politix
• October 2016: Drumpf: the nakedest emperor of all
• November 2016: Politix and Scamworld on an extended honeymoon
• February 2017: Kevin Trudeau & cronies beg Trump to pardon & free serial scammer
• April 2017: The Whirled's still turning... (under the subhead, "Katie and pals are still begging Drumpf for mercy")
• June 2017: Kevin Trudeau still begging Donald Trump to free him from prison