SCOTT LUDWIG: How to get out of jail free

Fifty-four-year-old Michele Ann Fiore has compiled quite a resume over the past decade or so. In that time she has been:

· A member of the Nevada Assembly from the 4th District.

· The mayor pro tempore of Las Vegas.

· A member of the Las Vegas City Council from Ward 6.

· The Republican National Committeewoman from Nevada.

· The Nye County Justice of the Peace for Pahrump, Nev.

In 2021 Fiore even ran a brief campaign to become Nevada’s governor, before changing her mind and running for state treasurer instead in an election she ultimately lost. By all indications, it’s a good thing she did.

Lose, that is. Because in 2024, Fiore added “criminal” to her resume. That’s when she was convicted of seven counts of federal felony fraud and left facing up to 140 years in prison for stealing $70,000 intended for a memorial to a fallen police officer. Instead, she used the money on personal expenses: plastic surgery, rent, and the wedding of her daughter.

Justice was served when she was found guilty. “Was” — that would be in the past tense — because she is once again a free woman, thanks to a pardon from the man most in need of one himself: Donald Trump.

Fiore is known around the White House as “Lady Trump,” primarily because of her outspoken conservatism and support for the second amendment. In 2016, Fiore sent her constituents a calendar with photos of her immediate family holding guns, including one of her grandchildren, one of them holding what appears to be a handgun.

Shortly after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Fiore attended the winter meeting of the Republican National Committee and told the New York Times, “I surely embrace President Trump.” So her pardon from Trump should surprise absolutely no one. After all, it’s not like Trump hasn’t pardoned any of his sycophants and boot-lickers before.

In Trump’s short tenure in his second term, he’s already issued full, complete, and unconditional pardons — 1,600 of them — to individuals who were involved in the aforementioned attack on the Capitol. And let’s not forget some of his rather higher-profile pardons Trump has given out:

· Paul Manafort (conspiracy against the United States and conspiracy to obstruct justice);

· Mathew Goldsteyn (premeditated murder);

· Michael Flynn (false statements to federal investigators);

· Roger Stone (obstruction, false statements, witness tampering);

· Steve Bannon (conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering).

One of Trump’s pardons went to Kwame Kilpatrick, the notoriously corrupt former mayor of Detroit. According to a White House news release, Kilpatrick was pardoned because he “has taught public speaking classes and has led Bible study groups with his fellow inmates.” That’s it; that’s the entire rationale for his release from prison. Forever and ever. Amen.

So what do most of the people Trump has pardoned have in common? Exactly as one might suspect; they all have their heads deeply entrenched in the rectum of the “6-foot-3, 215-pound” (yeah, right) specimen usually found playing golf or chowing down on cheeseburgers in the Oval Office.

However, what Fiore did — raise money under the guise of honoring a deceased policeman — pales in comparison to the vast majority of the atrocities that Trump has decided to overlook. Maybe “overlook” isn’t the right word.

Deep down inside, Trump has to know those he has pardoned are very, very bad people who have done something terribly, terribly wrong. So what it boils down to is this: Trump is looking out for anyone who is looking out for him. That’s it; that’s his entire rationale for his pardons. Forever and ever. Amen.

If he truly believed in justice, he might have gone in a different direction. Like sending them all to that maximum security prison in El Salvador.

As for Michele Fiore, I have to believe that even those who dismissed the participants in the Jan. 6 Capitol attack as being either patriots or tourists — or both — would find what she did reprehensible … and unpardonable.

Scott Ludwig is an Albany Herald columnist and independent writer/author who lives in Senoia. All of his books can be found on Amazon.