Thoughts on Trump's Pardon of Conrad Black

It comes as little surprise that President Trump saw fit to pardon Conrad Black. I've long thought of them as kissing cousins.


Both inherited their wealth, flaunted it and tell people how wonderful they are at every opportunity. The only difference is that Black fancies himself as something of a public intellectual and a historian. Unlike Trump, Black has actually written his own books. But to paraphrase Truman Capote, Black types rather than writes.


Growing up in Canada, Black was the bête noire of The Left and not without justification. After all this was a man who illegally raided the pension fund of unionized workers at the now defunct Dominion grocery store chain to the tune of $56 million (Cdn). What Black was using that money for Lord only knows.


But it shows a pattern of behavior. The sort of behavior which landed Black in jail a little over a decade ago after he embezzled funds from the Hollinger Company for his own personal benefit. A majority of the counts for which he was convicted were eventually vacated after the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals to review his case. Black remained a convicted criminal until President Trump's intervention.


Of course, Trump isn't the first President to issue a dubious pardon. President Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich comes to mind on account of his seven figure donations to the Democratic Party and six figure donations to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign and to the Clinton Library. Yet even if one is inclined towards Black's legal arguments one must pose these question. Would President Trump have pardoned Black if he had written "Barack Obama: A President Like No Other" instead of Donald Trump: A President Like No Other?


The fact that Trump pardoned Black's obstruction of justice conviction at a time when The Mueller Report strongly suggests that Trump did the same tells me the pardon was as much about himself as it was about Black. Of course, any decision Trump makes is first and foremost about himself. This is fine for a private citizen, but not the President of the United States.