SALT LAKE CITY — Utah state Rep. Phil Lyman and local music producer Weldon Angelos are among the 20 people who either had their sentences commuted or received pardons from President Donald Trump on Tuesday.
“Today is an important day for my family and me, and for rural Utah. To say the last 5 years were difficult would be an understatement,” Lyman wrote on Facebook Tuesday night. “I am deeply grateful to President Donald Trump. Today he righted a wrong.”
Lyman, R-Blanding, was serving as a San Juan County commissioner in 2014 when he led a protest of about 50 ATV riders in a southeastern Utah canyon home to Native American cliff dwellings that officials closed to motorized traffic. The ride occurred amid a movement in the West pushing back against federal control of large swaths of land and came in the wake of an armed confrontation Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy had with Bureau of Land Management over grazing fees.
“Our protest here in San Juan County was not about a road or about ATV rights. We protested a federal agency that wrongly and maliciously raided our community,” Lyman said. “Had the administration, at the time, done what they should have in 2009, it would have prevented a massive waste of taxpayer dollars and the devastation of the lives of the honest people who were targeted by dishonest people.”
After his 2015 conviction for misdemeanor trespassing, Lyman spent 10 days in jail and was ordered to pay nearly $96,000 in restitution, which he finished paying off this past October.
The Trump administration in 2017 lifted a ban on motorized vehicles in parts of the canyon but left restrictions in place through other areas where Lyman led his ride.
In a press release from the White House Tuesday, officials say Lyman “is known to be a man of integrity and character who was serving as a county commissioner in Utah when he was subjected to selective prosecution for protesting the Bureau of Land Management’s closure of the Recapture Canyon to ATV riders.”
Lyman’s pardon is supported by Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee, former Rep. Jason Chaffetz and “other notable members of the Utah community,” according to the statement.
Lyman gave his “most sincere thanks” to Lee, Chaffetz, state Sen. Daniel McCay, R-Riverton, former GOP lawmaker Mike Noel and others on Tuesday “for always being on my side.”
“The prosecution of Phil Lyman — a devoted public servant — amounted to an abuse of prosecutorial discretion by the Obama Justice Department,” Lee wrote on Twitter Tuesday. “I thank President Trump for correcting the injustice stemming from this overreach of federal power.”
The prosecution of Phil Lyman—a devoted public servant—amounted to an abuse of prosecutorial discretion by the Obama Justice Department. I thank President Trump for correcting the injustice stemming from this overreach of federal power. https://t.co/cQ2mXXSFVE
— Mike Lee (@SenMikeLee) December 23, 2020
Angelos, who founded the Utah-based rap label Extravagant Records, was sentenced in 2002 to 55 years for selling marijuana and carrying a handgun, according to the White House statement.
He was later released after serving 13 years in prison, and “committed to changing the world for the better through criminal justice reform advocacy, the statement reads. “Mr. Angelos is an active criminal justice reform advocate and champion of giving second chances.”
Others pardoned included former Republican Reps. Duncan Hunter of California and Chris Collins of New York. Trump also commuted the sentence of former Rep. Steve Stockman of Texas.
Collins, the first member of Congress to endorse Trump to be president, was sentenced to two years and two months in federal prison after admitting he helped his son and others dodge $800,000 in stock market losses when he learned that a drug trial by a small pharmaceutical company had failed.
Hunter was sentenced to 11 months in prison after pleading guilty to stealing campaign funds and spending the money on everything from outings with friends to his daughter’s birthday party.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the pardons for Hunter and Collins were granted after “the request of many members of Congress.” She noted that Hunter served the nation in the U.S. Marines and saw combat in both Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the group announced Tuesday night were four former government contractors convicted in a 2007 massacre in Baghdad that left more a dozen Iraqi civilians dead and caused an international uproar over the use of private security guards in a war zone.
Supporters of Nicholas Slatten, Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard, the former contractors at Blackwater Worldwide, had lobbied for pardons, arguing that the men had been excessively punished in an investigation and prosecution they said was tainted by problems and withheld exculpatory evidence. All four were serving lengthy prison sentences.
The pardons reflected Trump’s apparent willingness to give the benefit of doubt to American servicemembers and contractors when it comes to acts of violence in war zones against civilians. Last November, for instance, he pardoned a former U.S. Army commando who was set to stand trial next year in the killing of a suspected Afghan bombmaker and a former Army lieutenant convicted of murder for ordering his men to fire upon three Afghans.
Trump also announced pardons for allies ensnared in the Russia investigation. One was for George Papadopoulos, his 2016 campaign adviser whose conversation unwittingly helped trigger the Russia investigation that shadowed Trump’s presidency for nearly two years. He also pardoned Alex van der Zwaan, a Dutch lawyer who was sentenced to 30 days in prison for lying to investigators during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Van der Zwaan and Papadopoulos are the third and fourth Russia investigation defendants granted clemency. By pardoning them, Trump once again took aim at Mueller’s probe and advanced a broader effort to undo the results of the investigation that yielded criminal charges against a half-dozen associates.
The pardons drew criticism from top Democrats. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said the president was abusing his power.
“Trump is doling out pardons, not on the basis of repentance, restitution or the interests of justice, but to reward his friends and political allies, to protect those who lie to cover up him, to shelter those guilty of killing civilians, and to undermine an investigation that uncovered massive wrongdoing,” Schiff said.
Last month, Trump pardoned former national security adviser Michael Flynn, who had twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, and months earlier commuted the sentence of another associate, Roger Stone, days before he was to report to prison.
Trump has granted about 2% of requested pardons in his single term in office — just 27 before Tuesday’s announcement. By comparison, Barack Obama granted 212 or 6%, and George W. Bush granted about 7%, or 189. George H. W. Bush, another one-term president, granted 10% of requests.
Two former U.S. Border Patrol agents were also pardoned, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, convicted of shooting and wounding a Mexican drug smuggler near El Paso, Texas, in 2005.
Others on the list included a Pittsburgh dentist who pleaded guilty to health care fraud, two women convicted of drug crimes, and Alfred Lee Crum, now 89, who pleaded guilty in 1952 when he was 19 to helping his wife’s uncle illegally distill moonshine.
Crum served three years of probation and paid a $250 fine. The White House said Crum has maintained a clean record and a strong marriage for nearly 70 years, attended the same church for 60 years, raised four children, and regularly participated in charity fundraising events.