WASHINGTON — President Trump has pardoned former Staten Island and Brooklyn GOP Rep. Michael Grimm, two White House sources tell The Post.
Grimm, a former FBI agent and business owner, served seven months in prison in 2015 and 2016 after pleading guilty to underreporting taxable revenue from his Healthalicious restaurant in Manhattan.
Grimm, 55, served two terms in Congress and was elected to a third before resigning in January 2015 following his guilty plea.
He unsuccessfully sought his former seat in the 2018 House GOP primary and worked as a Newsmax commentator before being paralyzed from the chest down in September after falling off a horse during a polo tournament.
Grimm’s congressional tenure may be best remembered for an incident in 2014 when he threatened then-NY1 reporter Michael Scotto after being asked a question about a campaign finance investigation.
The congressman initially declined to discuss the topic and started to walk away, then stormed back into shot to get the last word in on Scotto.
“Let me be clear to you, you ever do that to me again, I’ll throw you off this f–king balcony,” Grimm said. “You’re not man enough. I’ll break you in half. Like a boy.”
The former lawmaker’s pardon was first reported by NY1.
Trump, 78, has pardoned or commuted the prison sentences of an unusually large number of people early in his second term — after alleging he was treated unfairly by the legal system over the past four years.Also Wednesday, the president pardoned upstate New York couple James and Marlene Kernan, who were sentenced to probation in 2010 after pleading guilty to employing three-time felon Robert “Skip” Anderson Sr. at their Oriskany insurance business.
Insurers are restricted from employing people with past convictions involving dishonesty like Anderson, though no specific harm to customers was alleged.
Trump additionally commuted the federal life sentences of Larry Hoover, co-founder of the Chicago gang Gangster Disciples.
Hoover received a life sentence from the state of Illinois in 1973 for allegedly ordering the murder of William “Pooky” Young, 19, after Young stole drugs and money from the gang. That charge cannot be pardoned by the president, but it was not immediately clear whether Hoover would be returned to Illinois custody.
Hoover, now 74, received six federal life sentences in 1998 for allegedly continuing to run the gang from prison — with prosecutors alleging his illicit business empire raked in $100 million annually selling heroin, cocaine, crack and other drugs.
“You were able to do what you did in jail for 25 years — you’re amazing,” Chicago federal judge Harry Leinenweber told Hoover during sentencing.
“You must be a very charismatic person. What you might have done for the good of the people had you stayed the straight and narrow path. You misused a gift you got from God.”
Trump, who has for years threatened federal intervention to address gang violence in Chicago, did not immediately issue a public statement explaining his decision.
Hoover’s commutation, first reported by NOTUS and confirmed by The Post, follows a push by rappers Kanye West — a Chicago native — and Drake, both of whom argue Hoover is a changed man.
