President Trump has granted clemency to a big-time Baltimore drug trafficker, commuting his sentence. Oddly, Trump’s commutation order gets rid of any duty to pay restitution and fines that the trafficker might have had.
The trafficker had apparently been granted compassionate release by a liberal judge, after serving a decade in prison. But criminals should pay what they owe, especially restitution, after they get out of jail. The trafficker obviously evaded his tax obligations by living a lavish lifestyle on which he didn’t pay taxes.
The Baltimore Sun reports:
A Baltimore drug kingpin who built a multimillion-dollar narcotics empire and lived a lavish, celebrity-style lifestyle before his arrest was granted clemency by President Donald Trump in May,
Garnett Gilbert Smith, also known as Abdule Jones and Brian Slack, was 44 when he was convicted in 2014 in federal court of conspiring to distribute and possess with intent to distribute cocaine. Smith was sentenced to 25 years in prison, but Trump commuted it to time served with no further fines, restitution, supervised release or other conditions.
Before his arrest, Smith indulged in luxury, prosecutors said. He owned a fleet of high-end cars, stayed at the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at Gucci, Cartier and Louis Vuitton, according to court records.
On Feb. 21, attorneys for Smith filed a motion for compassionate release, and the court agreed.
“Mr. Smith’s sentence is excessive and disproportionate,” Chief Judge James K. Bredar wrote in granting his release. “Mr. Smith was given a 25-year … sentence for a non-violent drug offense. While the court is mindful of the scale of Mr. Smith’s drug operation, the lack of violence makes Mr Smith’s actions fundamentally different from those who participate in violence, particularly fatal violence.”
“I hope Congress will investigate how much Smith paid for the” clemency, said a prosecutor who helped prosecute Smith. At Smith’s sentencing, Gary Tuggle, the official in charge of DEA’s Baltimore office, called Smith “one of the largest cocaine and heroin dealers to be arrested by the DEA in recent history.”
In late November, Trump granted clemency to a CEO convicted of fraud, which wiped out his duty to pay $15 million in court-ordered restitution.
Recently, Trump pardoned a Texas Democratic Congressman indicted for corruption. As a result, Democrats will likely keep that seat in Congress. Political analysts say that Trump’s pardon of Congressman Henry Cuellar “inadvertently compromised” the Republican “party’s ability to flip one competitive seat by pardoning its congressman, Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar.” “Trump’s pardon of Cuellar” has shifted Cook Political Report’s rating of the race in Texas’ 28th Congressional district “from toss up to lean Democrat,” notes political analyst Erin Covey in the Cook Political Report.
