A Justice Department pardon attorney who was recently fired claims President Donald Trump’s pardons is depriving the government of a significant sum of money, and she’s big mad about it.
Liz Oyer has been active on TikTok slamming the Trump administration over the pardons — and likely the fact that the president canned her.
In a recent video, she claimed Trump “has granted pardons that have wiped out over $1 billion in debts owed by wealthy Americans.”
When you're convicted of a financial crime, like fraud or embezzlement, the law requires you to pay back the money that you stole. It's called restitution. But the president has the power to grant pardons, which can wipe out your entire sentence, including your obligation to pay back the money. Let me give you an example. About a week ago, Donald Trump granted a full and unconditional pardon to a woman named Michelle Fiore.
Fiore was an elected official in Las Vegas, Nevada. Fiore was raising money to build a memorial to a fallen police officer. She raised $70,000, but instead of spending that money on the memorial, she spent it on plastic surgery, her daughter's wedding, and her daughter's rent. That's fraud. A jury convicted Fiore, but then Donald Trump swooped in and granted her a full and unconditional pardon.
Since she was pardoned, Fiore won’t have to pay the government the $70,000 it would almost certainly use to fund foolishness and useless federal agencies.
In another TikTok video, Oyer complained about Trump’s decision to pardon Trevor Milton, who owed the government $680 million after he was convicted of defrauding shareholders.
“Trevor Milton started a company called Nikola, which was supposedly going to build the world's first electric powered semi truck. Milton raised hundreds of millions of dollars from investors,” Oyer explained. “In the process, he became a billionaire. The problem was that Milton didn't actually have the technology to make this work. His company was a fraud.”
So, how did Milton get this pardon? Well, he did two things that we know about. One is he made $1.8 million in donations to Trump's campaign. Two, he hired an attorney named Brad Bondi, who just so happens to be the brother of Trump's Attorney General, Pam Bondi.
That turned out to be an excellent investment, because now Milton has a pardon worth over $675 million.
@lawyer.oyer More on Trump’s $1B in pardons. Talking today about the biggest single pardon: Trevor Milton, who committed a $675 million fraud.
♬ original sound - Liz Oyer
The White House fired Oyer, along with several other senior Justice Department employees, early in March. She claims her firing was the result of her refusal to support restoring actor Mel Gibson’s gun rights after he was convicted on misdemeanor domestic violence charges in 2011. She is currently appealing her termination.
@lawyer.oyer More on Donald Trump’s $1 billion in pardons. Today, let’s talk about Michele Fiore, pardoned for stealing from a memorial fund for fallen police officers.
♬ original sound - Liz Oyer
The attorney told The Washington Post that the $1 billion figure “highlights the unusually high number of Republican allies convicted of fraud and pardoned by Trump before they served their sentences.”
What is amazing about this is that Oyer and The Post contend that Trump is somehow depriving the American people of the $1 billion that could have been collected if the president had not pardoned these individuals.
This is how leftists think, dear reader. They believe that when the government gets money, it is the same as the people getting money — classic Marxist orthodoxy.
The reality is that neither you nor I would have seen a red cent of that $1 billion. None of us would have benefited from the state collecting that sum of money. It would have gone to waste like the vast majority of the funds the government collects from we the people.
If you’re going to oppose certain pardons, do so because you disagree with it on principle, not on how it might impact the government. Also, it’s worth noting that Oyer didn’t complain about former President Joe Biden pardoning his son, Hunter Biden, and various Democratic lawmakers. I wonder why?