The Mar-a-Lago pardon pitch is John Kiriakou’s account of the only time he has put his pardon request to Donald Trump in person. He dates it to about a year and a half before telling the story.[1]
Getting in
The trip was organised by a friend Kiriakou describes as very wealthy, very generous, and carrying a felony conviction of his own for violating bank secrecy laws — “So stupid,” Kiriakou says of the case. The friend’s proposal was direct: “Buddy, we got to get ourselves pardons,” followed by an offer to fly him to Palm Beach that weekend so that, if the president happened to be there, they could pitch him.[1]
Getting into the club was, in his telling, very difficult, with four layers of security — this being shortly after the second assassination attempt on Trump. At the desk the woman checking their reservation gave them three rules: no photographs and no video; no hats in the dining room, “including Make America Great Again hats”; and never approach the president — “If he wants to talk, he’ll approach you.”[2] Kiriakou’s aside on the meal itself: “it was the best egg salad I’ve ever had in my entire life.”[3]
The approach
Trump arrived as they were finishing lunch, accompanied by Mark Zuckerberg. The two men ate and talked in a corner; Zuckerberg left; and Trump then began working the room table by table, starting with one Kiriakou describes as “a bunch of blondes with big boobs, probably all auditioning for Fox News.”[4]
When his turn came Kiriakou stood and used what he calls his go-to line: “Mr. President, I’m John Kiriakou, the CIA torture whistleblower. Barack Obama and John Brennan ruined my life and you are the only person who can give it back to me.” Trump’s reply was “Tucker told me about you” — a reference to Tucker Carlson — followed by “And Dershowitz?”, Alan Dershowitz having written to the president asking that Kiriakou be pardoned. Trump then said: “Right. Well, talk to Pam Bondi… Pam Bondi will get the process going.”[5][6]
The fixer
Later that afternoon Kiriakou went to the apartment of a prominent former Democratic, now Republican, campaign figure — “A household name.” As Kiriakou recounted the lunch, the man began dialling a number, which Kiriakou thought rude, then put it on speaker. The voice on the line was Trump’s. The fixer told the president he was sitting with the two men he had met earlier that day, that they were good men, and that they deserved pardons; Trump answered that he had already spoken to them and referred them to Pam Bondi, and that “they know what to do.”[7][8]
Kiriakou remarked that he had not realised the man was that connected. The reply: “Now is the awkward moment when I ask you for $25,000.” Kiriakou protested that he did not have twenty-five dollars, let alone twenty-five thousand — at which the man clarified that he meant “a month until you get the pardon.” Kiriakou declined.[9]
Aftermath
Nothing came of the referral. Kiriakou says Pam Bondi “did literally nothing” for him, and notes that her brother turned out to be selling pardons. A second letter now exists, signed by household names in American politics, and he is hoping for the best.[10]
His impression of Trump in person is the coda: “Donald Trump in person, in that short exchange, was nothing like Donald Trump on television. He was warm and engaging and friendly, and I wonder how much of the tough guy Donald Trump is is an act for political purposes. I don’t know. I don’t know him well enough. I only met him for 60 seconds.”[11]