Lots of notable clemency news and notes and commentaries after Prez Trump's flourish of mercy

Unsurprisingly, a number of reporters and commentators have lots to report and comment upon in the wake of Trump's latest clemency work (basics noted here and here and here).  Here are just a few pieces that seem like must reads in full (with a taste to whet appetites):

From the Washintong Post, "White House assembles team of advisers to guide clemency process as Trump considers more pardons":

The White House is moving to take more direct control over pardons and commutations, with President Trump aiming to limit the role of the Justice Department in the clemency process as he weighs a flurry of additional pardon announcements, according to people familiar with the matter.... The group, essentially an informal task force of at least a half-dozen presidential allies, has been meeting since late last year to discuss a revamped pardon system in the White House. Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, is taking a leading role in the new clemency initiative and has supported the idea of putting the White House more directly in control of the process that in past administrations has been housed in the Justice Department, officials said....

Trump, who prefers granting clemency to people with compelling personal stories or lengthy sentences, is inclined to grant more pardons before facing voters in November, one official said. “He likes doing them,” the official said...  While several of the pardons Trump granted Tuesday went to well-connected or wealthy associates, the president also commuted the sentences of three women who had been convicted of nonviolent offenses — part of the new task-force effort.

The women were recommended by [Alice] Johnson, who had her life sentence for a nonviolent drug offense commuted by Trump in 2018. Johnson has been working with the White House’s new clemency effort after Trump publicly asked her last year to submit a list of names of other people who deserved commutations, officials said. She recommended Crystal Munoz, Tynice Hall and Judith Negron, who each had their sentences commuted by Trump on Tuesday. Johnson is a member of the informal network of advocates providing clemency recommendations. Former acting attorney general Matthew G. Whitaker, Democratic commentator Van Jones and Brett Tolman, a former U.S. attorney in Utah, are also part of the group, according to a senior administration official.

From the New York Times, "The 11 Criminals Granted Clemency by Trump Had One Thing in Common: Connections":

The clemency orders that the president issued that day to celebrity felons like Mr. Kerik, Rod R. Blagojevich and Michael R. Milken came about through a typically Trumpian process, an ad hoc scramble that bypassed the formal procedures used by past presidents and was driven instead by friendship, fame, personal empathy and a shared sense of persecution. While aides said the timing was random, it reinforced Mr. Trump’s antipathy toward the law enforcement establishment.

From Zak Cheney-Rice in New York, "The Valuable Lesson Trump Pardonees Learned in Prison: Prison Is Bad and Unfair":

The president is not against aggressive sentencing. His entire foray into electoral politics is a testament to the opposite. The incoherence of his shifting positions on criminal justice and imprisonment is best accounted for by a simpler principle: He bristles when people he likes or who share his ideologies are held accountable for their misdeeds, and to fend off accusations of impropriety, he has found a convenient laundering mechanism for letting them off the hook by pardoning random black people. Reports suggest that Trump’s recent efforts to recast this dubious moral position as a broader commitment to criminal-justice reform is the brainchild of Jared Kushner, his son-in-law turned adviser, whose father spent several months in federal prison for tax evasion, witness tampering, and illegal political campaign contributions. Kushner and Trump seem to have come by their recent objections to the American criminal-legal system the same way that many people do: by having been personally affected by it and witnessing firsthand how unjust and destructive it is.

A few prior related posts:

• "Trump grants clemency to 11, including former junk bond king Michael Milken" 
• Recognizing historic modern first-term commutation work by Prez Trump in a single day