What's behind Trump's pardoning spree?

Donald Trump went on a pardoning spree this week, granting clemency to gang leaders, reality TV fraudsters, and various white collar criminals. Among the colorful characters freed by the president were a conspicuous number of his own supporters and donors, prompting accusations of corruption and favoritism.Liz Oyer, a former pardon attorney at the Department of Justice who was fired from her post in the house-cleaning earlier this year, called Trump's use of pardons “unprecedented.”

- Richard Hall, The Independent

“This administration appears to be using pardons in a completely different and new way, which is to reward people who demonstrate political loyalty to the administration," she told PBS.There was a particular focus in the pardon list on financial crimes and fraud, both of which Trump has had experience defending himself against. But the president also included some that were more difficult to explain. Perhaps the most baffling of all was his decision to commute six life sentences given to Larry Hoover, a Chicago gang founder, for conspiracy, extortion, and drug charges in the 1970s. Hoover was the founder of the notorious Gangster Disciples and was described by prosecutors as “one of the most notorious criminals in Illinois history.” He was convicted again while in jail of running the gang from behind prison walls.

Hoover, now 74, has since renounced his criminal past, and in recent years his case has attracted the support of a number of high-profile supporters in the hip-hop community. Trump is not known to be a fan of hip-hop, nor is he a believer in giving gang leaders a second chance, but during his first term he made liberal use of the presidential pardon to form relationships with high-profile rappers like Kanye West, Snoop Dogg and Lil Wayne, the latter of which received a pardon from Trump for himself. Those relationships allowed Trump to build superficial inroads with high-profile figures in hip-hop, likely in an attempt to appeal to Black male voters, without fundamentally altering his policies to address their wider concerns. Charles Blow, writing in the New York Times, called the pardons “a cheap and easy way to win favor with a few big names.” While Harvard professor Brandon Terry said they “feed that kind of heroic, solidaristic picture of him as a strongman dispensing favor to people who stay in line.” The Hoover pardon appears to fit that bill.