The fact that a criminal is still the favorite candidate of law enforcement around the country says something profoundly disturbing about our system:
Ever since Donald J. Trump issued a series of pardons and commutations as he left office, he and his allies have defended his administration’s vetting of clemency candidates, claiming they went through a vigorous screening process.
But the case of one of those convicts — a New York drug dealer and predatory lender named Jonathan Braun, who had a history of violence and faced an array of other legal problems — has stood out and raised doubts about how rigorous the vetting was.
On Tuesday, the police on Long Island arrested Mr. Braun after he allegedly punched his 75-year-old father-in-law in the head. Mr. Braun struck his father-in-law twice as he tried to protect his daughter from Mr. Braun, who was chasing after her while the couple had an argument in their home, according to the Nassau County District Attorney’s office.
Mr. Braun’s wife, according to court documents, told police that Mr. Braun had assaulted her twice in the past five weeks. On July 17, the court documents said, Mr. Braun threw his wife off a bed onto the floor, “causing her substantial pain and bruising her legs.”
Last week, on Aug. 12, Mr. Braun threw her to the floor and punched her in the head multiple times “causing her substantial pain, bruising” to her arms, legs and head and causing her to feel dizzy, the documents said.
[…]
Asked about the arrest, Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, said the former president “wants criminals to spend time behind bars.” She did not respond to a follow-up question about whether Mr. Trump regretted giving Mr. Braun clemency.
[…]
Mr. Braun was among a parade of convicts who used connections, money and influence to seek pardons from Mr. Trump, who ran an often ad hoc process for considering clemency requests, largely bypassing an established Justice Department system.
In the final months of the Trump administration, while Mr. Braun was in a federal prison in New York State, Mr. Braun’s family made contact with the father of Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser, to try to get a commutation request before Mr. Trump. Mr. Kushner’s White House office ultimately drafted the language used in the news release to announce the commutation of Mr. Braun and others.
Kushner’s father is also a convicted felon so I guess this makes sense. Just a bunch of cons sticking together.
Apparently, Braun had a long history of violence and had been sued as a predatory lender. When Trump commuted his sentence he was supposed to be cooperating in a big predatory lending case that fell apart once he was set free.
It was just another day in the Law and Order president’s administration.