President Donald Trump issued a series of pardons on Wednesday, awarding them to a former New York congressman, a Connecticut governor, a rapper known as "NBA YoungBoy," a labor union leader and a onetime Army officer who flaunted safety measures during the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump's actions mixed his willingness to pardon high-profile Republicans and other supporters, donors and friends with the influence of Alice Marie Johnson , whom Trump recently named his pardon czar after he offered a pardon to her in 2020.
Trump also commuted the sentence of Larry Hoover, a former Chicago gang leader serving a life sentence at a supermax prison in Colorado. Hoover was first imprisoned in connection with a murder in 1973, and was convicted of running a criminal enterprise in 1998, but later renounced his criminal past and petitioned for a reduced sentence.
Among those receiving the latest round of Trump pardons was Louisiana rap artist NBA YoungBoy, whose real name is Kentrell Gaulden and whose stage moniker stands for "Never Broke Again."
In 2024, he was sentenced to just under two years in prison on gun-related charges after he acknowledged having possessed weapons despite being a convicted felon. Gaulden also pleaded guilty to his role in a prescription drug fraud ring in Utah.