The internet is abuzz with the news that President Trump has pardoned former Virginia sheriff Scott Jenkins, who was convicted on bribery charges this last December.

There are two conflicting points of view on the conviction of Jenkins. The Department of Justice, under Merrick Garland and Joe Biden, charged and convicted Jenkins of “one count of conspiracy, four counts of honest services mail and wire fraud and seven counts of bribery concerning programs receiving public funds.” The allegations revolve around what the DOJ says was bribery, but Jenkins claimed were campaign contributions.

Jenkins was indicted in June 2023 based on allegations that he accepted more than $70,000 in bribes in the form of cash or campaign contributions from more than a half dozen people, including two undercover FBI agents.

Prosecutors alleged Jenkins appointed these men as auxiliary deputy sheriffs, giving them badges and credentials despite them not being trained or vetted and not offering services to the sheriff’s office. They also accused him of pressuring local officials in the case of one man, who had a felony conviction on his record, to restore his right to own a firearm.

That man and the two undercover FBI agents testified against Jenkins, saying they gave the then-sheriff bribes in exchange for being deputized. Jenkins took the stand in his own defense and argued the payments he received and the badges he provided had no connection.

The Washington Post reported during last year’s trial that Jenkins’s defense attorney argued prosecutors had “no credible evidence” of bribery and that Jenkins “came up with creative ideas” to get around gun control laws passed by the Legislature. The attorney said the money Jenkins received should be considered legitimate political donations.

Three of the six men appointed as auxiliary deputy sheriffs pleaded guilty ahead of Jenkins’s trial and cooperated with authorities.

Jenkins had asked Trump for a pardon, and was supposed to report to prison today to start serving a ten year sentence.

In April, Jenkins said he hoped that Trump would intervene in his case.

“I truly believe if I could get an hour of time with someone in the administration and lay out some facts with my attorney and I really believe if they could hear the other side which I couldn’t get in front of the jury — I believe wholeheartedly in the president,” he said during a webinar hosted by the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association. “I believe if he heard the information, I know he would help if he knew my story.”

It appears that Jenkins’s faith in President Trump has paid off, as the former sheriff has been issued a full pardon.

In his official statement, Trump blames the DOJ under Biden for going after Jenkins.

In a Truth Social post, Trump said he was issuing a full pardon to former Culpeper County Sheriff Scott Jenkins, who was convicted in December 2024 on charges that he handed out auxiliary deputy positions for money. Jenkins, who was set to report to prison on Tuesday, disputed the accusation and conviction, saying the prosecution was motivated by his conservative views.

“Sheriff Scott Jenkins, his wife Patricia, and their family have been dragged through HELL by a Corrupt and Weaponized Biden DOJ. In fact, during his trial, when Sheriff Jenkins tried to offer exculpatory evidence to support himself, the Biden Judge, Robert Ballou, refused to allow it, shut him down, and then went on a tirade,” Trump wrote. “As we have seen, in Federal, City, and State Courts, Radical Left or Liberal Judges allow into evidence what they feel like, not what is mandated under the Constitution and Rules of Evidence.”

“This Sheriff is a victim of an overzealous Biden Department of Justice, and doesn’t deserve to spend a single day in jail. He is a wonderful person, who was persecuted by the Radical Left ‘monsters,’ and ‘left for dead.’ This is why I, as President of the United States, see fit to end his unfair sentence, and grant Sheriff Jenkins a FULL and Unconditional Pardon. He will NOT be going to jail tomorrow, but instead will have a wonderful and productive life,” Trump added.

Let’s start with the obvious – the president has the plenary power to pardon anyone he wants, for any reason he wants. We saw that repeated thousands of times as Joe Biden (or whomever was wielding the autopen) pardoned scores of people – many with worse convictions than this, including a judge who accepted more than $2 million to send convicted juveniles to for-profit detention facilities (which drew local bipartisan condemnation). And that doesn’t even begin to cover the commuted sentences of almost everyone on death row in federal prison, the commutation given to Leonard Peltier for the murder of two FBI agents, and the pre-emptive pardons. Any complaints about this pardon by Trump, or really any pardon by Trump, now has to contend with the fact that Joe Biden and his “Politburo” shattered every single norm regarding pardons on their way out the door in January. This doesn’t make the pardon right, but anyone who questions Trump’s motivations without questioning Biden’s, automatically loses any credibility to make the case.

Now, it’s also obvious WHY Trump decided to pardon Jenkins. He truly believes, with good cause, that the DOJ was weaponized against him, so it is no stretch to look at the Biden DOJ’s record and conclude that they were also using the law as a hammer to go after anyone they didn’t like. Add in the magic words “undercover FBI agents” to the story, and how that has worked out for other cases, and it REALLY comes as no shock that the president issued the pardon.

Is this a good look for Trump? No. Was it a good look for Biden and his handlers when he was pardoning people by the thousands, including people with much more serious convictions than this? Also no. Is there any way to stop presidents from doing pardons like this? Not without a Constitutional amendment. This is the system we have. And if the Department of Justice hadn’t gone full lawfare against anyone they considered a “threat” during the Biden administration, then perhaps convictions like this would have passed muster and not gained the attention of a president who feels like he was wronged and targeted himself.

Featured image: President Donald Trump, official White House portrait by Daniel Torok via Wikimedia Commons, cropped and modified, public domain