WASHINGTON: Reality TV stars. Former lawmakers. A sheriff. A nursing home executive. A drug kingpin.

What do they have in common?

They are among the Americans convicted of crimes who have received pardons from President Donald Trump since he took office in January.

And while US presidents have doled out questionable pardons in the past, Trump is doing so “in a bigger, more aggressive way with sort of no sense of shame,” said Kermit Roosevelt, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

“The pardon power has always been a little bit problematic because it’s this completely unconstrained power that the president has,” Roosevelt said.

“Most presidents have issued at least some pardons where people look at them and they say: ‘This seems to be self-serving’ or ‘This seems to be corrupt in some way.’“

But Trump is doling out pardons “that look like they’re almost quid pro quo for financial donations,” Roosevelt said.

Among those receiving a pardon was Paul Walczak, a nursing home executive convicted of tax crimes and whose mother attended a $1-million-per-plate fund-raising dinner at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in April.

Other beneficiaries of Trump pardons include reality TV stars Todd and Julie Chrisley, who were serving lengthy prison sentences for bank fraud and tax evasion.

Their daughter, Savannah, is a prominent Trump supporter and gave a speech at last year’s Republican National Convention.

More than half a dozen former Republican lawmakers convicted of various crimes have also received pardons along with a Virginia sheriff sentenced to 10 years in prison for taking $75,000 in bribes.

On his first day in office, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 supporters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 as they sought to prevent congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.

The next day, Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who had been serving a life sentence for running the “Silk Road” online marketplace that facilitated millions of dollars of drug sales.

Barbara McQuade, a former prosecutor who now teaches law at the University of Michigan, said Trump is not the first president to be accused of “allowing improper factors to influence their pardon decisions.”

Gerald Ford’s pardon of Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton’s pardon of a commodities trader whose wife was a major Democratic donor and Biden’s pardon of his son, Hunter, and other family members all drew some criticism.

“(But) Trump is in a class by himself in both scope and shamelessness,” McQuade said in a Bloomberg opinion column.

“To him, pardons are just another deal.

“As long as a defendant can provide something of value in return, no crime seems too serious,” she said.

Democratic lawmaker Jamie Raskin, in a letter to Ed Martin, Trump’s pardon attorney at the Justice Department, asked what criteria are being used to recommend pardons.

“It at least appears that you are using the Office of the Pardon Attorney to dole out pardons as favors to the President’s loyal political followers and most generous donors,” Raskin wrote.

Martin for his part has made no secret of the partisan nature of the pardons recommended by his office.

“No MAGA left behind,” Martin said on X after the pardon of the bribe-taking Virginia sheriff, a reference to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan.

Lee Kovarsky, a University of Texas law professor, said Trump’s “pardon spree” opens up a “menacing new frontier of presidential power” that he calls “patronage pardoning.”

By reducing the penalty for misconduct, Trump is making a “public commitment to protect and reward loyalism, however criminal,” Kovarsky said in a New York Times opinion piece.

PUERTO PRINCESA: A Chinese ship ran aground in stormy weather in shallow waters off a Philippines-occupied island in the disputed South China Sea, prompting Filipino forces to go on alert, Philippine military officials said Sunday.
When Filipino forces assessed that the Chinese fishing vessel appeared to have run aground in the shallows east of Thitu Island on Saturday because of bad weather, Philippine military and coast guard personnel deployed to provide help but later saw that the ship had been extricated, regional navy spokesperson Ellaine Rose Collado said.
No other details were immediately available, including if there were injuries among the crewmembers or if the ship was damaged, Collado said.
Confrontations have spiked between Chinese and Philippine coast guard and navy ships in the disputed waters in recent years.
“The alertness of our troops is always there,” Col. Xerxes Trinidad of the Armed Forces of the Philippines told reporters. But when they saw that a probable accident had happened, “we tried to provide assistance as professionals” in accordance with international law on helping distressed vessels at sea.
“We’re always following international law,” Trinidad said.
Filipino villagers living in a fishing village on Thitu, which they call Pagasa island, immediately informed the Philippine military and coast guard after seeing the Chinese ship lying in the shallows about 1.5 nautical miles (2.7 kilometers) from their village, said MP Albayda, a local Filipino official, told The Associated Press.
“They got worried because the Chinese were so close but it was really the strong wind and waves that caused the ship to run aground,” said Albayda, adding that other Chinese ships pulled the stricken vessel away.
The stricken ship resembled what the Philippine military had repeatedly said were suspected Chinese militia ships, which had backed the Chinese coast guard and navy in blocking and harassing Philippine coast guard and military vessels in the disputed waters, a busy conduit for global trade and commerce.
Thitu Island is home to a Philippine fishing village and Filipino forces and is the largest of nine islands and islets occupied by the Philippines. It lies about 26 kilometers (16 miles) from Subi Reef, which China transformed into an island base along with six other barren reefs to reinforce its claim to virtually the entire South China Sea.
Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan are also involved in the long-simmering territorial standoffs, an Asian flashpoint that many fear could pit China and the United States in a major conflict.
The US does not lay any claim to the South China Sea but has repeatedly warned that it’s obligated to defend the Philippines, it’s longtime treaty ally, if Filipino forces, ships and aircraft come under an armed attack, including in the South China Sea.