Trump Pardons Rudy Giuliani, Others    11/10 06:09

   

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump has pardoned his former personal 
lawyer Rudy Giuliani, his former chief of staff Mark Meadows and others accused 
of backing the Republican's efforts to overturn the 2020 election, a Justice 
Department official says.

   Ed Martin, the government's pardon attorney, posted on social media a signed 
proclamation of the "full, complete, and unconditional" pardon, which also 
names conservative attorneys Sidney Powell and John Eastman. The proclamation, 
posted online late Sunday, explicitly says the pardon does not apply to Trump.

   Presidential pardons apply only to federal crimes, and none of the Trump 
allies named were charged in federal cases over the 2020 election. But the move 
underscores President Donald Trump's continued efforts to rewrite the history 
of the election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. It follows the sweeping pardons 
of the hundreds of Trump supporters charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the 
U.S. Capitol, including those convicted of attacking law enforcement.

   The proclamation described efforts to prosecute those accused of aiding 
Trump's efforts to cling to power "as a grave national injustice perpetrated on 
the American people" and said the pardons were designed to continue "the 
process of national reconciliation."

   The White House didn't immediately respond to an email seeking comment 
Monday.

   Also pardoned were Republicans who acted as fake electors for Trump in 2020 
and were charged in state cases of submitting false certificates that confirmed 
they were legitimate electors despite Biden's victory in those states.

   Trump himself was indicted on felony charges accusing him of working 
overturn his 2020 election defeat, but the case brought by Justice Department 
special counsel Jack Smith was abandoned in November after Trump's victory over 
Democrat Kamala Harris because of the department's policy against prosecuting 
sitting presidents.

   Giuliani, Meadows and others who were named in the proclamation had been 
charged by state prosecutors over the 2020 election, but the cases have hit a 
dead end or are just limping along. A judge in September dismissed the Michigan 
case against 15 Republicans accused of attempting to falsely certify Trump as 
the winner of the election in that battleground state.