President Donald Trump has pardoned former U.S. Rep. Michael Grimm, a New York Republican who resigned from Congress after a tax fraud conviction.
The pardon was disclosed Wednesday by a White House official who requested anonymity before an official announcement.
Grimm, a former Marine and FBI agent, pleaded guilty in late 2014 to underreporting wages and revenue at a restaurant he ran in Manhattan. He resigned from Congress the following year and served eight months in prison. Grimm tried to reenter politics in 2018 but lost a primary for his old district.
While he was in Congress, Grimm made headlines for threatening to throw a reporter off a balcony in the Capitol after the reporter asked about the long-running FBI investigation into his campaign finances.
“Let me be clear to you. If you ever do that to me again, I’ll throw you off this (expletive) balcony,” he told the reporter during the exchange, which was captured on video.
When the reporter pushed back, telling the then-congressman that it was a valid question, Grimm responded, “No. No. You’re not man enough. You’re not man enough. I’ll break you in half. Like a boy.”
After heavy criticism, Grimm said he was wrong for threatening the reporter and that “it shouldn’t have happened.”
The former congressman worked at the conservative news outlet Newsmax.
Last year, Grimm was paralyzed from the chest down after being thrown from a horse during a polo tournament.
In a short video posted on Grimm’s Facebook in January, the former congressman said, “little by little, I’m getting better,” and said he was working on getting more dexterity in his fingers and getting his legs to move. In March, a GoFundMe page that was set up for Grimm posted that he had been able to “withstand 4 minutes upright assisted on the tilt-table,” along with a picture of Grimm smiling.
(AP)
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A better approach would be to pardon everyone (regardless of party) convicted in a politicized prosecution (leaving open civil actions for actual damages), and propose a bi-partisan law banning all lawfare including selective prosecutions, allowing prosecutors or media to convict the person before the trial, or prosecutors forum-shopping for a good location to bring charges. The practice of both parties of politicizing the legal system only undermines public respect for the legal system