On Tuesday, May 27th, James Callahan, general president of the International Union of Operating Engineers received a “full and unconditional pardon” from President Donald J. Trump. Callahan failed to disclose $315,000 worth of tickets, hospitality, and transportation he received from a vendor with which the union did business on LM-30 reports he filed covering 2019 through 2023. The union president plead guilty in January and was to be sentenced on Wednesday, May 28th by U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes. Judge Reyes commented;
“I don’t know why you were pardoned,” she said. “You weren’t pardoned because you were wrongfully convicted. You pled guilty to the misdemeanors. You weren’t pardoned because you were missentenced. Sentencing hadn’t even occurred. You weren’t pardoned because the law was somehow unfair, either in general or to you.”[1]
The plea agreement Callahan reached with the U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of Columbia stipulated that he must resign as IUOE president and repay the union the $315,000 he failed to disclose. The prosecution team wrote;
“Those tickets and amenities properly belonged to the Operating Engineers, and yet Defendant Callahan used many of those tickets personally and provided other tickets to members of his family and persons who were not members of the Operating Engineers”
If Callahan’s prison sentence had only been commuted, he could still be obligated to repay the $315,000. However, since he received a “full and unconditional” pardon, the former union president is not impelled to return the money owed to the IUOE’s membership.
In Union Democracy Review issue 226, we reported on Callahan’s case, read more here.
AUD will report further on this story in our upcoming newsletter.
1.https://apnews.com/article/james-callahan-union-trump-pardon-9caa702512cf98fc9274c2bfea8e5b5e
