Ex-prosecutor: DOJ targeting freed fraudster a “reminder of Trump’s gross abuse of pardon power”
Less than five years into his 20-year sentence for orchestrating a massive healthcare fraud scheme, Philip Esformes was granted clemency by then-President Donald Trump and allowed to walk free. But his freedom is now in jeopardy after being thrust into a legal clash between two administrations, The Washington Post reports, as President Joe Biden’s Justice Department seeks to retry him. The move is possible because the jury that convicted Esformes reached no verdict on six of the counts against him, including conspiracy to commit health-care fraud. Since Trump’s clemency order didn’t account for those charges, prosecutors say they can take Esformes back to court.
The extremely uncommon decision to retry a clemency recipient on hung charges presents another contention in the larger battle between the far-right, which touts claims of a “weaponized” government bent on attacking any associate of the former president, and proponents of law and order aiming to defend institutions of democracy against the consequences of Trump’s presidency. In recent months, House Republicans held a hearing characterizing the case against Esformes as a political attack, while a number of Trump allies have taken to the media to lambast the DOJ. “In the annals of American history, no prosecutor has ever tried to reverse a presidential commutation in this manner,” co-wrote Matthew Whitaker, who was briefly Trump’s acting attorney general, in a Fox News column.
Some former prosecutors counter, however, that a retrial presents an opportunity to right the wrong of Trump skirting long-standing protocols to grant Esformes freedom. If successful, the DOJ could send the nursing home executive back to prison and undo Trump’s executive order. “It’s an opportunity for justice,” Paul Pelletier, a former federal prosecutor told the Post. “We use the law to hold people accountable as best as we can.” Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who served on special counsel Bob Mueller’s team, wrote that the renewed focus on Esformes is an “important reminder of Trump’s gross abuse of pardon power.”