51黑料

I was there 鈥� at the Wildwood branch, just a couple of blocks from my house 鈥� because of fraud. As happens all too often these days, some fraudster somewhere obtained our debit card number and tried to make a charge. Our bank caught it. We canceled the cards. Hence, the trip to the bank lobby to pick up new ones.

As I sat there, I thought back to a similar visit many years ago. Nearly four decades earlier, I visited my local bank to close an account. I was leaving town for my first newspaper job. I was closing the account I had started as a teenager, but there was a problem.

As I stood at the teller鈥檚 window, a man in a suit came up to speak with me. My signatures didn鈥檛 match, he said.

There was a time when our signatures were the great equalizer to protect us from fraud. From the time I opened the account until a few years later, when I went to close it, my signature had changed. I had a job for a while where I had to sign my name on forms constantly, and I got sloppy. So I had two different signatures.

Sitting in a conference room with the man in the suit, I remembered my Catholic school cursive lessons and slowly signed my name. I happily left with whatever pittance I had in my account.

These days, I rarely enter a bank lobby. All the things that used to require such a visit 鈥� depositing payroll checks, cashing birthday checks from Dad, taking out loans 鈥� can be done nearly entirely online. In fact, even our signatures don鈥檛 matter anymore. Every day, at the grocery store or elsewhere, we use our fingers to make a few squiggly marks that may or may not resemble our names.

Perhaps that鈥檚 why there鈥檚 so much fraud these days. But that word 鈥� fraud, which means wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain 鈥� is in danger of losing its meaning.

Witness pardon issued by President Donald Trump. This week, he granted a full pardon to Todd and Julie Chrisley, the reality television stars who were convicted in federal court of tax evasion and defrauding banks of more than $30 million.

A jury in Georgia found them guilty of fraud in 2022. Now, their crimes are wiped away. The same is true for Paul Walczak, a former nursing home executive . Walczak was convicted of cheating on his taxes and using the proceeds to buy a $2 million yacht and other lavish goods and services. The president last week also pardoned a former Virginia sheriff who had been convicted of .

These former fraudsters had all proclaimed their allegiance to Trump, himself convicted last year of 34 felony counts of fraud.

To at least some in the Trump world, these erasures of federal crimes are justified because of a misguided belief that that the prosecutions were somehow political. That ignores the fact that most career federal prosecutors serve multiple presidential administrations, regardless of party. And the system of checks and balances in the judiciary, including juries, tends to wean out partisan mischief.

Trump is not the first president to pardon fraudsters. President Joe Biden famously pardoned his son, Hunter, and there was the highly questionable pardoning of fraudulent financier by President Bill Clinton.

But the scope 鈥� and clear partisan reasoning 鈥� behind Trump鈥檚 pardons take the unique presidential power to an entirely new level. 鈥淣o MAGA left behind,鈥� Trump鈥檚 new pardon attorney, Ed Martin, wrote on social media after the Chrisleys鈥� pardon.

What a chilling concept.

The pardons on fraud cases got me thinking about some of the ones we鈥檝e had recently in Missouri 鈥� Martin鈥檚 home state.

My wife last week sent me a text about her old boss, , who used to run a human resources company in Columbia, Mo., that processed payrolls for small businesses. Earlier this month, Cunningham pleaded guilty to fraud charges that could carry up to a 25-year sentence. Like Walczak, she took money intended to pay for taxes and used it on personal items instead. A one-time candidate for state senate, Cunningham is a Republican. Will she throw herself at the mercy of the court, praise Trump and hope for a pardon?

Or what about Cymone McClellan, the 32-year-old 51黑料 woman who pleaded guilty to more than $2 million worth of pandemic fraud last week in federal court. McClellan stole money meant to feed children and used it to buy luxury cars and houses.

I have no idea what McClellan鈥檚 politics are, but if I were her attorney I鈥檇 suggest a quick conversion to Trumpism, with a letter fired off to Martin before she stands before a judge to hear her sentence.

The American judicial system is not a reality television show, but it鈥檚 in danger of becoming one. If massive, well-documented fraud is no longer punished, depending on one鈥檚 political leanings, what message does that send to the other criminals in our midst? It鈥檚 open season on fraud.

That鈥檚 why it鈥檚 easy to imagine my recent visit to a bank to get new debit cards will become a more frequent occurrence. I pine for the day when a guy in a suit cared what my signature looked like.