Dear editor,

Recently, President Trump used his clemency power to commute the seven-year sentence of convicted criminal, David Gentile, who is/was CEO and co-founder of GPB Capital. He was convicted of defrauding more than 10,000 investors and sentenced to seven years in prison in May.

He went into prison on Nov. 14 and served less than two weeks of his sentence when Trump pardoned him. I take that to mean Trump believes it’s OK to financially defraud people.

Also, he pardoned the former Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was convicted of helping to smuggle hundreds of tons of cocaine into the US and accepted millions of dollars in bribes from drug traffickers. I take that to mean it’s okay to help drug smugglers and accept bribes (unless you are smuggling drugs on a little boat from Venezuela, then you need to be killed).

When there is abuse of pardon power Congress has the authority to conduct oversight into the use of pardon power. If members of Congress choose do nothing, then they are complicit and also believe it is okay to financially defraud people, smuggle tons of drugs into the U.S. and accept bribes.

I must mention convicted sex offender of minors, Ghislaine Maxwell, being moved from prison to a minimum-security prison camp. To me that says Trump believes sex trafficking of minors isn’t really that bad.

Pat Winlow

Cody