How Prosecutors Feel When the Bad Guy Gets Pardoned

Career prosecutors say clemencies erase accountability, waste years of work
Posted Jan 18, 2026 5:50 AM CST
How Prosecutors Feel When the Bad Guy Gets Pardoned
President Trump listens to a question from a reporter after signing a bill that returns whole milk to school cafeterias across the country, in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Washington.   (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

The Washington Post zooms in on an unusual perspective in the Trump pardon story: the prosecutors who spent years building complex cases, only to watch them vanish with a signature. Reporter Perry Stein details how public-corruption and white-collar-crime teams poured millions in taxpayer-funded resources and countless late nights into prosecutions of figures like former Virginia sheriff Scott Jenkins and nursing-home executive Joseph Schwartz—only for Trump to wipe away prison terms and restitution, sometimes before the sentences even began.

That bucks the presidential norm: "Typically, Justice Department employees vet tens of thousands of applications, only recommending to the president people who have completed their sentences and shown contrition." More than half a dozen current and former Justice Department lawyers tell Stein that Trump's second-term clemency spree has shaken morale and, in their view, undercut accountability.

Some prosecutors interviewed support Trump politically yet still describe the clemency acts as a "slap in the face." As former DOJ employee Jacob Steiner, who worked on the George Santos case, puts it: "Beyond and more important than the personal aspect, it's really disheartening that someone who lied to the public and stole a lot of money just gets to walk free and not have to pay back his victims." For the full reporting and specific case details, read the entire piece.

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