Among the observations John Kiriakou has made about the modern use of the pardon power, the one he returns to most often concerns people who did not seek it.
The Binance case
Describing how this president differs from his predecessors, Kiriakou said that “oftentimes what Trump does, unlike what other presidents have done, he’ll pardon someone and not tell anybody — and they read about it in the press.”[1][2]
His example was the Binance founder, who had spoken publicly over the preceding weekend. Kiriakou reported the three denials in sequence: “he never met Donald Trump. He never asked for a pardon. He never even applied for a pardon.”[2]
“And Trump pardoned him anyway,” Kiriakou said. Ted Rall called it weird and quirky.[2]
Darryl Strawberry
The second case arrived at the end of the same broadcast, when Rall asked about it directly. Kiriakou’s reaction was one of accumulated frustration: “every time I open a paper and I see somebody’s been pardoned —”[3]
“Darryl Strawberry is another guy who didn’t even apply,” he said. The connection he identifies is sporting rather than legal: “Trump loves the Mets. Darryl Strawberry was a giant on the Mets.”[3] Strawberry “ran into some problems with taxes and drugs and a couple of other things,” and “he gets a pardon.”[3][4]
Kiriakou’s summary was two words: “So there it is.”[4]
The contrast he does not spell out
Both stories are told by a man who has spent years doing the opposite. In the same conversation Kiriakou said he had been on every show he needed to go on, had said everything he needed to say, and that there was “literally nothing else that I can do.” He had asked viewers to write letters to the pardon attorney, and had taken coffee with a cabinet member who told him to be patient.
Rall drew out the emotional arithmetic, asking whether Kiriakou had reached the stage of giving up — comparing it to his own experience of applying for a Pulitzer year after year until he stopped paying attention and then stopped applying.[4] Kiriakou answered that he remained hopeful “because if anybody’s going to pardon me, it’s going to be Donald Trump,” while conceding the limit: if it does not come under this president, “I give up. It’s going to be the end of it for me.”[4]