On Wednesday, President Trump issued his first prison sentence commutation.
Trump commuted the sentence of Sholom Rubashkin, 57, a former Iowa kosher slaughterhouse executive who was sentenced in 2009 to 27 years for bank fraud and money laundering. The White House released a statement saying Democrats and Republicans, including Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), supported the commutation.
This is not a presidential pardon, and the conviction has not been vacated. Rubashkin, a father of 10 from Brooklyn, will be under supervised release and still must pay restitution. His Agriprocessors plant in Postville, Iowa, was raided in May 2008, and U.S. Immigration and Customs agents arrested almost 400 undocumented immigrants; prosecutors later accused Rubashkin of falsifying documents to continue borrowing on a $35 million line of credit.