Trump Frees Fraudster Just Days Into Seven-Year Prison Sentence David Gentile had been found guilty for his role in what prosecutors described as a $1.6 billion scheme that defrauded thousands of investors.; The New York Times, November 29, 2025

Kenneth P. Vogel, The New York Times ; Trump Frees Fraudster Just Days Into Seven-Year Prison Sentence 

David Gentile had been found guilty for his role in what prosecutors described as a $1.6 billion scheme that defrauded thousands of investors.

"President Trump has set free a private equity executive who had served less than two weeks of a seven-year sentence for his role in what prosecutors described as a $1.6 billion scheme that defrauded thousands of victims.

David Gentile, 59, a onetime resident of Nassau County, N.Y., had reported to prison on Nov. 14, and was released on Wednesday, according to Bureau of Prisons records and a White House official who was not authorized to discuss the matter.

Mr. Gentile and a co-defendant, Jeffry Schneider, were convicted in August 2024 of securities and wire fraud charges, and sentenced in May. Unlike a pardon, the commutation granted to Mr. Gentile will not erase his conviction. 

Mr. Schneider, who was sentenced to six years, does not appear to have received clemency from Mr. Trump...

Mr. Trump has used the unfettered presidential clemency power to forgive an array of white-collar crimes and to make political points, including by casting prosecutions of his supporters as corrupt witch hunts like those that he claims had targeted him.

It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Gentile had connections to Mr. Trump or to the president’s supporters."

Michael Flynn Is Worse Than a Liar; The Atlantic, December 4, 2018

Harry Litman, The Atlantic;

Michael Flynn Is Worse Than a Liar

[Kip Currier: Insightful and important distinctions made by Harry Litman, former US Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania (--and, I just discovered, brother of University of Michigan copyright scholar Jessica Litman), between "process crimes" and "fraud".]

"The word “lie” has lost its power in the Trump era. Try replacing it with “fraud.”

"The criticism is part of the overall discounting of the value of truth in the Trump era. Lies, it’s implied, are a rampant, and ultimately trivial, feature of public life. But here’s another word for what Mueller’s chasing that has not yet lost its sting: “fraud.” That sounds a lot less benign than “lie” or “process crime,” and for good reason. The fraudster, more than just fooling the victim, aims to exploit, to implement a scheme that deprives the victim of something of personal or financial value.

Under the law, fraud is a deliberate, material deception to secure an unlawful gain. The bread and butter charge of the white-collar prosecutor is fraud of some sort—wire fraud, bank fraud, or tax fraud—which constitutes about 10 percent of the federal docket and about 75 percent of all white-collar offenses. As a prosecutor, I brought dozens of fraud cases, and in my current legal practice, I routinely sue people and companies in civil court who have defrauded the government.    

At the core of every fraud is a lie:  an important lie that the defendant tells knowingly in order to influence a victim’s action."