Donald Trump’s list of indefensible pardons continues to grow, but the president’s commutations matter, too. NBC News reported earlier this week:
President Donald Trump has commuted the seven-year sentence of former private equity CEO David Gentile days after he reported to prison, a White House official confirmed. Gentile was sentenced in May to seven years in prison on wire and security fraud charges. He began his sentence on Nov. 14 and was released on Nov. 26, Bureau of Prisons spokesman Donald Murphy said.
Gentile was the CEO of GPB Capital Holdings and was convicted by a federal jury in August 2024 of conspiracy to commit securities fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, securities fraud and two counts of wire fraud. The New York Times reported that Gentile, according to prosecutors, used his company’s private equity funds “to defraud 10,000 investors by misrepresenting the performance of the funds and the source of money used to make monthly distribution payments.”
The same report added, “More than 1,000 people submitted statements attesting to their losses, according to prosecutors, who characterized the victims as ‘hardworking, everyday people,’ including small business owners, farmers, veterans, teachers and nurses.” One wrote about having lost their “whole life savings.”
After Gentile was convicted and sentenced, the federal prosecutor who helped oversee the case said the outcome was “a warning to would-be fraudsters that seeking to get rich by taking advantage of investors gets you only a one-way ticket to jail.”
That warning seems a lot less potent now.
Asked for an explanation for the president’s clemency, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt characterized the case against Gentile as an example of “a weaponization of justice from the previous administration.”
Why would the Biden administration “weaponize” federal law enforcement to target a private equity CEO whom most Americans did not know and who had effectively no political profile? Leavitt didn’t say.
There was some question, however, about the scope of the effect surrounding the commutation: Gentile only served 12 days of a seven-year sentence, but what about the related financial penalties? On Wednesday, that question was answered when the public saw the formal commutation paperwork: The convicted fraudster was supposed to pay $15.5 million in restitution associated with his conviction, but thanks to Trump, he now won’t have to pay anything. The Times’ report added, “It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Gentile had connections to Mr. Trump or to the president’s supporters.” I suspect we haven’t heard the last of this story. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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