Former shareholders, whoever currently holds the assets of the company as Nikola is in bankruptcy. Unless those people buy influence, they’re worthless to the current admin.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/us/politics/sec-trump-cle...

Each of the above guys did the smart thing of buying influence (Milton retained the attorney general’s brother as his lawyer, for example). In the past you’d have to hide that better, but now it’s out in the open.

One of the guys mentioned in the article is now cleared to work on his new crypto venture. Of course.

Edit: not to “both sides” this, but it is interesting and mentioned in that NYT article that Biden pardoned a guy involved in a multi-billion dollar ponzi after serving 10 years (with 10 to go). Found an article from 2008 showing that the Bidens were linked with the firm. Not as direct of a quid pro quo but more the standard back scratching …

https://www.reuters.com/article/business/stanford-reportedly...

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mikeyouse 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Commuting the remaining 4 years of a 17 year sentence (based on an 85% federal minimum) and leaving the financial penalties intact for someone who apparently had jointly marketed a hedge fund 20 years prior with a family member isn’t remotely the same as preemptively pardoning someone to save them $200M in fines and all prison time after they gave your campaign $2M.

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renewiltord 3 days ago | parent [-]

[flagged]

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ceejayoz 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> But I think if the office of the President is selling pardons it's better they do that with money in the open than with backslapping behind closed doors.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma

What if we didn't let Presidents sell pardons?

	▲	renewiltord 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		This is, of course, the right thing. The pardon is no longer a relevant power. Scooter Libby's pardon was already too much and that's the one which scared me straight about them.

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mikeyouse 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Insanely unethical worldview. My actual ‘take’ is that people should pay for the crimes they commit and bribing officeholders to avoid repercussions for criminal behavior is very bad and extraordinarily corrosive to democratic rule.

It’s a common parlor trick to talk in the abstract about things like this to avoid the magnitude of the corruption.

But to be clear, the actual comparison here is a multimillion dollar bribe to save almost $200M in penalties from a convicted fraud - and someone who had served 13 years in Federal prison having the last 4 years of their imprisonment commuted, but having all of their other post-sentence restrictions and fines remain in place - with absolutely no benefit to the President who commuted that sentence.

So, no, I reject that these two are remotely comparable cases. Regardless the propriety of pardon power in general.

	▲	renewiltord 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Doing a favor to a friend of the family is definitely worse than making it available to all. Far more corrosive to society for institutional nepotism to be considered better than payment. Nepotism is definitely more unethical.

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mindslight 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Edgelord as hard as you can. Pretending to be above it won't save you from societal destruction.

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3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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