“Trump pardons a convicted fraudster for the second time,” reports The New York Times. “In 2021, a convicted fraudster named Adriana Camberos was freed from prison when President Trump commuted her sentence. Rather than taking advantage of that second chance, prosecutors said, Ms. Camberos returned to crime. She and her brother were convicted in 2024 in an unrelated fraud.” Now, Trump has pardoned her yet again, after yet more criminal activity.
This was just one of a “raft of pardons. Among the lucky recipients: a man whose daughter had given millions to a Trump-backed super PAC, a former governor of Puerto Rico, a former F.B.I. agent who had pleaded guilty in a political corruption case and a California woman whom the president had granted relief once before.”
Releasing people who commit crimes from prison results in more crimes.
When Italy released inmates early, that increased its crime rate a lot, according to a 2014 study. (See Alessandro Barbarino & Giovanni Mastrobuono, the Incapacitation Effect of Incarceration from Several Italian Collective Pardons, American Economic Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 1-37 (2014)). Other studies find similar results.
Criminals often commit more crimes after being released. Nationally, 81.9% of all state prisoners released in 2008 were subsequently arrested within a decade, including 74.5% of those 40 or older at the time of their release. (See Bureau of Justice Statistics, Recidivism of Prisoners in 24 States Released in 2008: A 10-Year Follow-Up Period (2008-2018), pg. 4, Table 4)).
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.
