Tax Evader Pardoned by Trump After Mom Attended $1M-Per-Plate Mar-a-Lago Dinner: Report

Photo by Yuri Gripas/Abaca/Sipa USA(Sipa via AP Images)

President Donald Trump issued a full pardon to a convicted tax cheat — just weeks after the man’s mother attended a $1 million-a-head fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago, raising fresh questions about how the president is using his clemency powers.

Paul Walczak, a Florida nursing home executive, had been sentenced to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay nearly $4.4 million in restitution after pleading guilty to siphoning employee tax payments to fund a luxury lifestyle that included a $2 million yacht.

But just 12 days after sentencing, Trump wiped his record clean.

The move came less than three weeks after Walczak’s mother, Elizabeth Fago, a long-time Republican donor who raised millions for Trump’s campaigns, attended an ultra-exclusive candlelight dinner hosted by MAGA Inc. at Mar-a-Lago — where access to Trump was sold at $1 million per guest, according to the New York Times . It remains unclear how much she donated.

Walczak’s pardon application argued he had been “targeted by the Biden administration over his family’s conservative politics.” The filing referenced Fago’s donor status, her alleged involvement in the 2020 effort to publicize the stolen diary of Ashley Biden, and her resistance to being removed from a federal advisory board under President Joe Biden.

After the announcement, according to the outlet, Walczak reportedly celebrated with his family while donning a red hat that read, “Make Paul Great Again.”