Do you really think that someone with $1B of Bitcoin could buy their way out of the kinds of serious felony criminal charges mentioned in the linked article through campaign contributions and similar? I doubt it.

I think that yes, it would be possible, especially if the person with the money was already in contact with organized crime at the level where they have a steady enough cocaine supply to sell it by the kilo (as was happening on Silk Road).

Going through a few intermediaries, I don't see a reason why a presidential pardon in exchange for $100MM in crypto couldn't be arranged either, especially in the dying hours of a presidency.

Obviously this is all silly spy novel stuff, but a reasonably intelligent person with mid-level or better criminal connections and literally a billion dollars to work with, coupled with a hell of a lot of motivation, could probably figure out something.

All that being said, outside of real political backing (i.e. continual payments every month), I'd doubt the person would remain free for very long after the deal was done.

Of course they could, they’d just need to temporarily move to a friendlier jurisdiction while working on this.

IMO the short answer is, yes pardons can seemingly be bought in the Trumpian era of American politics. Whether $1B is enough, I don't necessarily know, but I don't see why the likelihood is something to dismiss out of hand.

$1B is enough, but you have to be spending it on the bribes before you get caught. Once you get caught your options are limited.

Just having $1B isn't enough.

1B gets you in the door. You still need to know the right people to pay off. You can't just google it. This is why you see all the billionaires at their billionaire parties, good old networking.

Let's not make Trump seem responsible for our incredibly overtly corrupt country. Bill Clinton was a democrat, was president before Trump, and is notorious for his seemingly-corrupt pardons. I'm no history buff so I can't go back further than my own lifespan for further examples but I bet America has been this way for a long, long time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_pardon_controvers... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_pardoned_by_Bil...

Ehh, don’t believe every political talking point you hear.

You should read Swiss investigative journalist, Daniel Amman’s King of Oil.

The furor over these pardons including the Marc Rich pardon was 100% political.

Clinton pardoned relatively the same amount of people as previous presidents but with a heavy focus on “leftists.”

Also, Marc Rich had left the US before he started working across trade embargoes and singlehandedly built the OTC oil market. He also worked actively with the US on covert oil sales while being prosecuted by the DOJ.

Read: - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_of_Oil

I started reading his book but got distracted. Thank you. I'll pick it back up.

It's got nothing to do with Trump, here's Clinton: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Rich

Trump tends to pardon the people who will get him into the news cycle, like sadistic war criminals, corrupt or openly racist officials like Blagojevich and Arpaio, or whoever Kim Kardashian told him to.