On November 26, 2024, in New York City, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and former New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani has arrived in federal court in a lawsuit to hand over valuables to Georgia election officials who were found to have defamed him.
Brendan McDiarmid | Reuters
President Donald Trump has pardoned former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, former chief of staff Mark Meadows and others accused of aiding Republican efforts to overturn the 2020 election, Justice Department officials announced.
Ed Martin, the government’s pardon lawyer, posted a signed pardon declaration on social media that said it was “complete, complete, and unconditional,” and also named conservative lawyers Sidney Powell and John Eastman. The statement, posted online late Sunday, specified that the pardon does not apply to President Trump.
Presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes, and none of the Trump allies named have been charged in federal cases surrounding the 2020 election. But the move confirms President Donald Trump’s continued efforts to rewrite history in the election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. This follows a sweeping pardon for hundreds of Trump supporters charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, including some convicted of assaulting law enforcement.
The statement described efforts to prosecute those accused of aiding President Trump’s efforts to cling to power “as a grave national injustice perpetrated against the American people,” and said the pardons were designed to continue “the process of national reconciliation.”
The White House did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Monday.
Also pardoned were Republicans accused in state cases of acting as fake electors for President Trump in 2020 and submitting false certifications proving they were legitimate electors even though Biden won those states.
Trump himself was charged with a felony for allegedly working to overturn his 2020 election loss, but the case, brought by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, was thrown out in November after Trump’s victory over Democrat Kamala Harris, citing the department’s policy of refusing to prosecute sitting presidents.
Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Meadows, and others named in the declaration have been indicted by state prosecutors over the 2020 election, but the case has stalled or limped along. In September, a judge dismissed a Michigan lawsuit against 15 Republicans accused of trying to falsely certify Trump as the winner of the election in the battleground state.
